Police Target Anti-War Demonstrators, telling them they can't honk horns

[dogday]

Police target horn-happy motorists at Calif. protests
Authorities cite complaints from neighbors
By Bobby Caina Calvan, Globe Correspondent | June 19, 2005

TIBURON, Calif. -- For an hour every Friday, small bands of antiwar demonstrators have been converging along this San Francisco suburb's busiest roadway, exercising their First Amendment rights of assembly and free expression.

But about a month ago, local police began cracking down -- not on the sidewalk protests, but on the motorists who, the authorities say, have shattered the peace by honking their horns.

They have cited a handful of motorists for ''unlawful use of the horn," and pulled over an untold number of others to issue warnings.

Suddenly, the demonstrators had something new to protest. They called the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco, which said it had not heard of any similar antihonking crackdowns anywhere else in the country.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/19/police_target_horn_happy_motorists_at_calif_protests/

[ClassWarrior]

1. I wish they'd start charging the lazy teenagers in my neighborhood...

...for "unlawful use of the horn." That'd be a much better use of precious police resources.

<LOL>

NGU.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Conservative NIMBYs

"Unlike the rest of Marin County, where conservatives are outnumbered 3-to-1, the split in Tiburon between the number of Republicans and Democrats is considerably smaller. In the neighboring town of Belvedere, an outcropping of swanky bay-front homes, Republicans actually outnumber Democrats.

That is precisely why the protesters, mostly retirees, chose their particular spot at Tiburon Boulevard and San Rafael Avenue, a busy two-lane road along the north shore of San Francisco Bay, to hold their protests.

''It's a common road to both communities," said William Rothman, a retired physician well known in town for his activism."

[justinsb]

3. See - you still have freedom of speach

As long as you speak very, very quietly.

[damntexdem]

4. And if you speak without any noise whatsoever, ...

you can say whatever you want all you want.

[louis-t]

5. And yet the kids can still drive through

my neighborhood at 3 a.m. with their sub-woofers blasting.