TU: Fact Check: Does a new law restrict protests and violate the First Amendment?

[Patricia M. McBride]

Well worth the read as the writer of the commentary has pulled information from several sources.  Not slanted.   We might all well remember what Benjamin Franklin said:  Benjamin Franklin said:  "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a  little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety".   If anyone thinks all these liberty robbing rules these elitist legislatures are  coming up with are for your benefit, understand they are not.  They are for their benefit to protect them, because they know people are getting very fed up  with them (I would think the last election would have told them  something........and it did as they have passed a myraid of liberty robbing laws  since).  They pass laws that do not apply to them, they put us in health care  and retirement plans that do not apply to them, and they have all, both parties,  been there too long.  The founders left us with documents that should have  protected us but our friends up in Washington have twisted the words and turned  the most important parts of our founding documents into a weapon against us for  their own sakes and NOT FOR THE PEOPLE THEY WORK FOR.

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By           Carole Faderjacksonville.com             Copyright 2012 The Florida Times-Union. All rights res...

May 6,  2012 - 08:54am

Fact Check: Does a new law  restrict protests and violate the First Amendment?

Many Times-Union readers want to know:

I received an email that says that H.R. 347, signed into law by  President Barack Obama, forbids anyone from protesting in the presence of the  Secret Service. And that essentially means you can't protest in front of Obama.  Is this true?

This is a law that has spawned a lot of debate.

The House passed H.R. 347, called the Federal Restricted Buildings and  Grounds Improvement Act in February 2011, according to Thomas.gov, a legislative  database under the Library of Congress. The Senate passed it in February 2012  with changes that were OK'd by the House. Obama did sign it into law on March  8.

H.R 347 updated a law passed in 1971 that already restricted access to areas  around the president, vice president and any other governmental official  protected by the Secret Service, according to Thomas.gov.

But there were a couple of changes made by the new law. The old law made it a  federal offense to "willfully and knowingly" violate restricted areas, which  include the White House and grounds and the vice president's residence and  grounds. The updated law makes it just "knowingly."

A spokesman from the office of Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Rooney of  Florida, who originally introduced H.R. 347, told the fact-finding group  Truthorfiction.com that the Secret Service had requested the bill to clarify  jurisdiction for agents assigned to the president. For example, the spokesman  said, "if someone were to jump the fence at the White House, the Secret Service  would not have jurisdiction over the trespasser."

But does the updated law take away the First Amendment rights of civil  protesters by allowing the Secret Service to set whatever restricted areas it  wants, as the viral email suggests?

There have been differing interpretations on the changes and what they mean.  Some legal experts were quoted as saying that the difference in dropping the  "willfully" from the law is not at all significant. Others disagreed.

And still others have been concerned that the new law could criminalize  protests by the tea party or Occupy movements where the president might be  present.

Read more at Jacksonville.com:  http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-05-06/story/fact-check-does...