Managing Dissent in Chicago

rahm emanuel. Corrupt Corporate Jester. Image worldwidehippies.com

BY JEREMY GANTZ,inthesetimes.com - CHICAGO–Although the world’s most powerful man calls Chicago home, the city’s boosters still have a chip on their shoulder. In 2009, their bid for the 2016 Olympics ended in failure, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel has convinced his old boss, Barack Obama, to let Chicago host the G8 and NATO summits in May. The stage is now set: Leaders of the military alliance and “Group of Eight” rich countries haven’t met in the same place at the same time since 1977.

“If you want to be a global city, you’ve got to act like a global city,” Lori Healey, executive director of the Chicago G8 & NATO host committee and a leader of the city’s Olympic bid, said in January. But as activists have learned, cities playing their global role tend to systematically squelch dissent. The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, but not freedom from the capricious dictates of the Chicago Police Department and the Secret Service, which could nullify protest permits immediately before the summits.

On January 18, the Chicago City Council overwhelmingly passed two ordinances pushed by Emanuel that restrict protest rules and expand the mayor’s power to police the summits. Among other things, they increase fines for violating parade rules, allow the city to deputize police officers from outside Chicago for temporary duty and change the requirements for obtaining protest permits. Large signs and banners must now be approved, sidewalk protests require a permit, and permission for “large parades” will only be granted to those with a $1 million liability insurance policy. These are permanent changes in city law.

Theoretically, people can now be fined for not getting a permit before holding a picket line or spontaneous protest, according to Jeffrey Frank of the National Lawyers Guild, which is providing legal support to groups protesting the summits. “How can that not be chilling?” says Frank. “I don’t think people ought to be subject to the discretion of police officers in terms of their First Amendment rights.”

Dan Massoglia, a spokesperson for Occupy Chicago and a student at Chicago-Kent College of Law, says that although Mayor Emanuel backtracked on some proposed ordinance changes after activists’ outcry, “What essentially remains are the tools for suppressing peaceful dissent in this city for the foreseeable future. It’s bigger than Occupy Chicago. It’s a threat to all of us that would like to peaceably take to the streets—or the sidewalks—to peacefully petition our government. Read more…