Protesters Assemble: What Are Your Rights?
**In light of current events prompting protests in Washington State and cities and towns nationwide, we are republishing this blog post from May 16, 2019 with some updated and added content.**
If you read or watch the news these days, you’re bound to see a report of a protest happening somewhere in the world. Curious about exactly when, where, and how many protests are taking place in the U.S., scientists and engineers Tommy Leung and Nathan Perkins started Count Love in 2017. Count Love uses data from TV and newspaper websites to count “public displays of protest.” To date, Leung and Perkins have tracked 17,493 protests with almost 12 million attendees. Other groups, such as the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC), collect and analyze data on political crowds at “marches, protests, strikes, demonstrations, riots, and other actions.” CCC is crowdsourcing and publishing COVID-19 related protest crowd data at their Collective Action & Dissent under COVID page and crowd numbers for protests over the death of George Floyd that occurred in May 2020.
Whether it’s for civil rights, COVID-19 issues, education, the environment, immigration, or healthcare, there truly are a lot of people hitting the streets to demonstrate their beliefs. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the “right of the people to peaceably assemble.” However, many states, including Washington, have introduced bills to crack down on protesting. (Other examples: Oregon, Minnesota, and Arizona). The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law tracks state and federal initiatives that restrict the right to peaceful assembly.
What do you need to know about your rights to protest before you peacefully assemble? Here are some resources Washington State Law Librarians have sent to patrons researching the subject:
· The ACLU’s “Know Your Rights” guide covers issues from LGBTQ rights and immigrant rights, to students’ rights and voting rights.
· Are you organizing, attending, or videotaping a protest? The ACLU site covers all three, as well as what to do if you’re stopped by the police when protesting.
· For another know-your-rights guide specific to police encounters, check out “You Have the Right to Remain Silent” by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Available in Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, and Urdu, as well as English, these printable resources are meant to be used on-the-go.
· NLG also has a publication targeted to animal rights and environmental activists.
· Some states have laws that require persons to provide their name to law enforcement. Do you know if your state has these “stop and identify” laws, and what they are? A 2018 publication from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center provides a list of states with stop and ID laws, and cites to specific statutes in those states.
· ACLU Washington’s downloadable guide “What to Do If You Are Stopped by the Police” covers the stop and ID requirements in-depth for our state.
· If you’re protesting as part of a big, organized march, check the event’s website for tips. Some groups create event or location-specific guides, like this one for Demonstrations in Washington, D.C.
Here are some additional resources that address other questions our reference staff have been receiving related to COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter protests:
· NLG’s Know Your Rights During COVID-19
· Washington State Department of Health’s Risking your health to fight racism (Thank you!) blog post
· The Insurrection Act of 1807 as revised in the United States Code
· The Posse Comitatus Act as revised in the United States Code
· Seditious conspiracy statute at 18 USC 2384
· National Security Crime, Harvard National Security Journal, v. 3
· Congressional Research Services publications:
Defense Primer: Legal Authorities for the Use of Military Forces
The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: The Use of the Military to Execute Civilian Law
The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: A Sketch
· The Free Speech Center’s First Amendment Encyclopedia Curfews article (EK & SC)
