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Civil disobedience under attack
Analysis and text of the bill as passed by the California legislature.
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Click here for text of the Legislation as
approved by the California legislature
Analysis
The proposed legislation is intended to encourage peaceful protest and civil disobedience by clarifying and codifying limits of prosecution, provided that consequences be incurred within an agreed upon framework.
We want to ensure Californians' -- and Americans' – right to peaceful protest.
We want to protect our right to call attention to unfair laws, policies, and injustices, in an impactful way. We want to provide guidelines by which authorities can protect other citizens' rights -- and their own image -- while dealing with peaceful protesters and non-violent civil disobedience.
And we want to be certain, in this new world of a continuing 'war on terrorism,' that enhanced security in our state and our nation does not include significant erosion of our basic rights.
Some recent "crime reform" has clearly been deliberately designed to limit peaceful protest. Increasingly, protesters must commit serious misdemeanors or felonies just to protest specific injustices in the simplest time-honored way. No matter how peaceful, protesters are now considered to be "disrupting a meeting," "disturbing the peace," "felony conspiracy to commit criminal trespass," or similar offenses. Ironically, many Americans have the attitude that "protesters who break the laws should be punished severely."
The unfortunate result is that fewer and fewer people will look to peaceful protests and non-violent civil disobedience as a legitimate ways to express legitimate grievances, at a time when such actions are essential to call attention to needed reforms. And protest will become more violent if legitimate protest is stifled.
The bottom line is, if more and more Californians...if more and more Americans...heed that little voice in the back of their head which says, "I care about this issue but I am afraid of the consequences if I protest," then terrorists and despots will have won, and democracy is lost.
What we are calling the "Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Protection Act" is an important step. It does not exempt those who break the law from punishment. But for those who use peaceful civil disobedience, it provides for penalties which will not ruin lives, dampen support for just causes, and discourage dissent.
For the [draft] text of the propsed legislation:
Downloadable PDF version
Downloadable text version
In-browser (html)
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