New York City: NYPD suppress the free speech of the 99%. Two Occupy 4 Jobs activists were grabbed and arrested after protesters carried out mic checks inside union-busting Whole Foods and Walgreens stores in Union Square on Martin Luther King Day, January 16, 2012.
Photos by Brenda Sandburg
Its sad that this has to be explained. While you have the right to freedom of speech, expression, association, assembly etc., that does not mean that those rights override the rights of others.
Those rights do not entitle you to override others rights to not have an angry mob of hippies protesters (especially protesters armed with megaphones) yelling, screaming, screeching mindless slogans singing tunelessly, intimidating staff and customers and causing other kinds of nuisance inside their property if they don’t want them there.
While it would be suppression of free speech for the police to arrest you for expressing a grievance in a public space or your own property, it is not suppression of free speech to ask the police to remove a bunch of dickheads with microphones protesters trespassing your store.
If you have a grievance with Whole Foods protest in your own or public property, on the pavement outside the store for instance.
