Don’t confuse the movement with the message. The Civil Rights Movement used nonviolent sit-ins, marches, and boycotts as the means of spreading a message. But the message was that society should abolish racial injustice.
You get three tries, then you have to step aside and let Dad assemble the thing.
I doubt that was Bricker’s best post, I agree I don’t see any connection.
I do not like the way privacy was found in the 4th Amendment either. Not because there is utterly no pirvacy to be found there; surely “Security in their persons, papers and property” has to mean some overlap with privacy.
I have no problem with a right to privacy found in the 9th amendment. That’s what the 9th is for.
But by focusing on privacy in 4th amendment issues, the court neglects any focus on “security” where the focus ought to be for 4th amendment analysis.
No assembly with sledgehammers.
It depends on how much the action (sleeping) is a part of the message. In Clark, the message was certainly about homelessness, and I think the expressive action of sleeping in the Mall was very closely tied to that. But the dissent also said:
“Nor can there be any doubt that in the surrounding circumstances the likelihood was great that the political significance of sleeping in the parks would be understood by those who viewed it. Certainly the news media understood the significance of respondents’ proposed activity; newspapers and magazines from around the Nation reported their previous sleep-in and their planned display. Ordinary citizens, too, would likely understand the political message intended by respondents. This likelihood stems from the remarkably apt fit between the activity in which respondents seek to engage and the social problem they seek to highlight. By using sleep as an integral part of their mode of protest, respondents
can express with their bodies the poignancy of their plight. They can physically demonstrate the neglect from which they suffer with an articulateness even Dickens could not match.”
I would guess that a big part of the OWS message is about, well occupying. Which would include occupying ALL the time, and not simply going home at 5:00. In that sense, I think they could convincingly argue that the action (sleeping over) is part of the “politicial significance” of the message. Granted it’s not as closely tied as it is with homelessness, but it important to the message.
But, after all, it is just a dissent. I’m not sure this SCOTUS would be up for revisiting the issue.
I’m not following that. “Occupy” isn’t a social problem, it’s a tactic of protest. What if I rename the protest “Spray Paint Wall Street”. Does that suddenly legitimize my graffiti on public buildings?
Yes, I know. I am simply trying to understand the dissent, and I don’t mean to imply that I think it has some force of law.
Yes. 
Great point. Of course the “spray paint” is criminal action which wouldn’t even come close to being part of the message, but the sleeping over as a tactic rather than part of the message is a very good distinction to make.
You beat me to it.
“Spray Paint” is no more inherently criminal than “Occupy”. But both, when applied to public buildings/places are criminal.
If I sleep over (just casually, not as a form of protest) at most of the parks in my area, without a permit, and without paying a fee, I’m going to bet busted, fined and forcibly removed.
If the city puts up some walls for people to practice street art on, then spray painting is legal. Similarly, if the city puts up a park for people to sleep in, that that would be legal too. If they start spray painting or sleeping in places not designated for that purpose, it is criminal.
If it’s not a form of protest, then it’s not speech and the First Amendment isn’t implicated whatsoever.
If the court in Clark had held that the “criminality” of the no camping rule violated the First Amendment protections of the protesters, then it wouldn’t be “criminal” anymore. Just as burning the flag was “criminal” before the ruling in Texas v. Johnson. Seems a bit of a semantic issue.
We have laws dealing with privacy rights so I don’t understand this.
this has nothing to do with the op question. It’s not about any group assembling for speach, it’s about occupying public land as in the KKK pitching tents on the sidewalks of a neighborhood. It’s not their land to occupy and as such the public land has been usurped away form it’s normal use by others.
No, it isn’t. Occupying the sidewalks – obstructing pedestrians – would be very different from occupying a park.
They were asked to move here because they were violating the law sleeping in a city park.
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The way I see it “assemble” refers both to physically gathering for a political purpose (demonstration) and to symbolically assembling into a political group (party or PAC or whatever).
But it doesn’t apply to squatting on a public square permanently. The whole point of the concept of public-owned land is that it is shared among all public. “Occupying” it permanently denies the ownership to others.
Nonsense! It’s not government or private property any more, it’s Liberated Territory! Like People’s Park! 
I would say exactly what the “Occupy” protest involves. Physically going to the seat of government and pointing out your grievances en masse.
The seat of government is in Zuccotti park?
Well, the seat of government is effectively on Wall Street. That’s what this is about.