Peter Van Buren: No Free Speech at Jefferson's Library!

No free speech at Mr. Jefferson's Library: George Orwell, Philip K Dick, and Ray Bradbury would have recognized Morris Davis's problem. According to the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government to redress of grievances." Those beautiful words, almost haiku -like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment. The Founders purposely wrote the First Amendment to read broadly, and not like a snipped of tax code, in order to emphasize that it should encompass everything from shouted religious rantings to eloquent political criticism. Go ahead, reread it aloud at this moment, when the government seems to be carving out an exception to it large enough to drive a tank through. When I arrived at Zuccotti Prison one afternoon last week, the "park" was in its now-usual lock-down mode. No more tents, no library. No kitchen. No medical area. Just 30 leftover protesters and perhaps 100 of New York's finest as well as private security types in neon-green vests in and around a dead space enclosed by more movable police fencing than you can imagine. To the once open plaza, there were now only two small entrances in the fencing on the side streets, and to pass through either, you had to run the gauntlet of police and private security types.