New York -- Occupy Wall Street organizers are trying to keep their movement alive even though they're not actually occupying anything at the moment. A march on Thursday resulted in lots of street action and plenty of arrests, but earlier, confusion reigned after New York police swept into Zuccotti Park, clearing it of the protesters' tents, tarps, and personal belongings. The demonstrators believed their rights had been terribly violated, but in what way, precisely? Had Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the NYPD infringed upon a previously unrecognized constitutional right to camp in the park?
"Yes," said Kris Cook, who came here from Buffalo. "We have a constitutional right as American citizens to speak up and protest."
"Yes," said Caroline Signorelli of Long Island City, "if nobody's hurting anybody and everything's kept clean and decent."
"Look at when the Native Americans were here," added Kanaska Carter, from Canada. "They were sleeping wherever they wanted. Nobody should have the right to own land like this. I think that we should have the right to sleep anywhere that we want."
Even though a court has upheld the decision to remove the Zuccotti Park encampment, the protesters continue to hold dear their view that the U.S. Constitution protects a right to camp in the park. That is not, however, the view of legal experts.
"The Supreme Court has said that your First Amendment rights with regard to protected speech are subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions," says former Bush Justice Department official Hans von Spakovsky, citing the 1984 case Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence. "I don't think you could find a court that wouldn't say that while it's OK to protest in a park, you cannot live there."
The Clark case, by the way, dealt with protests in public areas. Zuccotti Park is privately owned, giving the protesters even less right to stay there.
In conversation, some of the demonstrators conceded that the park's owners should have some control over what goes on there. But all seemed to believe that there exists a right to camp in the park, and that such a right would be enforced in a truly just society.
"The right to be in a public assembly, in my opinion, involves the right to set up some kind of a sleeping area," says Eric Rassi of New York. "You need to be able to put people in a bed once a day, and that is part of your right to public assembly."
In a chilly rain, Kanaska Carter was sitting with fellow protester Jason Carter (no relation). They were angry that police didn't provide a place for protesters to move, once they were forced to leave Zuccotti. "Now we're all homeless," Kanaska said. "We have nowhere to go."
"I pay taxes, I'm not homeless," Jason interjected.
"Where's your home?" asked Kanaska.
"New Jersey."
"I thought you didn't have a home."
"Well, I don't have an apartment right now, but I have a job," said Jason. "I live on the boat I work on. I pay taxes, so I should have the right to come and protest."
"You don't have to legally pay taxes," Kanaska said, "so whether or not you pay taxes, you should have the right to exist and live, put up a tent or have a sleeping bag."
Kanaska's face, complete with lip and brow piercings and the word FREEDOM tattooed across her neck, appeared in a recent New York Times "Faces of Zuccotti Park" feature. She explained that she's been at the protest from the first day, having originally come to New York for the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and ending up staying for Occupy Wall Street.
What was she doing at the 9/11 memorials? "Activism, 9/11 truthing, speaking about the evidence about how the official story's not real," she said.
Kanaska wasn't alone. Earlier, when Rassi gave an impassioned speech to a small crowd of protesters, he said, "Does anyone know what happened at the World Trade Center? Do you realize that this country is under the domination of a gang of killers who brought this building down? You better believe it."
It's not clear how many of the occupiers are also 9/11 truthers, but there are certainly some. And now the whole motley group, having been denied what they believe is a fundamental American right to pitch a tent indefinitely, is looking for a next act.
"We need to organize ourselves," Rassi shouted as he addressed the crowd.
"We are organized!" a woman yelled back.
"Thank you," Rassi said politely. "We need to continue to organize ourselves."
But for what?
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