[jleader]

The "major highways" in my city are routinely shut down for half a day or more for any and all of the following:

- the President is in town, and he and the 200+ vehicles in his entourage want to go from point A to point B

- a funeral for any firefighter or policeman is being held, and the funeral party wants to travel from the cathedral to the cemetery

- a museum wants to move an artwork (a big hunk of stone) from a quarry to their facility, or a space shuttle orbiter from the airport to their facility (I think the orbiter only shut down city streets, not freeways)

- a hockey team won their league championship, and the company that owns the team wants to hold a celebratory parade (one of our basketball teams used to do the same, back when they used to win championships)

- the police department want to hold a staged "counter terrorism" exercise (complete with stunt coordinator, director, and a giant video screen scrolling the credits for the audience of VIPs) in the center of downtown mid-day on a weekday.

Not to mention that emergency vehicles generally only travel a short distance, and so don't bother with the freeways unless the emergency is actually on the freeway.

[kbenson]

These all sound like things a permit was applied for, or at least the action was worked out in advance. Similarly, a protest should be able to do the same. But any of these listed actions, if attempting without clearing it with the controlling interests, would be cause for concern in my opinion.

The difference is that if a resource is known to be unavailable for a time, people can plan accordingly.

[ceejayoz]

How likely do you think it is that the city would issue a permit for a protest on a highway?

[roywiggins]

I believe the I-35 shutdown in Minneapolis a few weeks back was worked out with the police ahead of time. There were state patrol cars behind them as they marched, filling the lanes but basically just keeping them & traffic apart. All very organized.

[kbenson]

It should be just as likely as for a parade. If not, that seems like something that should be taken to the courts. Everyone could benefit from some clarity in the law.

[wpietri]

This is fine in theory, but it doesn't demonstrate much understanding of the reality.

Protests are time-critical and often ad hoc. Bureaucracies that don't like something have endless opportunities to raise barriers, delay, and deny for trivial reasons. Lawsuits are expensive and slow, especially when opponents, like governments, already have lawyers on salary.

It's implausible to expect a loose group of protesters to file for permits, fail repeatedly at dealing with bureaucracy, fund a lawsuit, spend months or years pushing for it, win, and then keep going back to the judge until meaningful reform is accomplished. Especially when those protesters are upset because they think the government is fundamentally biased against them.

Your offered approach is entirely reasonable, but entirely likely to bias things strongly in favor of the the status quo.

[kbenson]

Then maybe an ad-hoc time-critical gathering shouldn't be on freeways in certain locations (sincere, not trying to beg-the-question)? Gathering in a location that presents a danger to themselves seems like the ideal situation where we need to examine it closely and not make blanket statements as to whether it is okay or not.

I'm not really espousing a particular position, just that we should think critically about this and realize that the act of using a freeway for a parade and for protest aren't always all that similar (but they may be, it really depends).

[wpietri]

From the point of view of the 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech and peaceable assembly, I think they should be treated as equivalent. Both are political speech, and the government must not favor pro-status-quo speech (like a 4th of July parade) over anti-status-quo speech (like a protest march).

Indeed, if they're going to favor one, I'd rather it be the anti-status-quo speech. The US is founded on the notion that we are always seeking a more perfect union. The reason the Great Seal [1] has an unfinished pyramid because we should never think we are done.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States