So when protesters initially
took over the intersection
where a man was shot
and killed by police
they were exercising
their right to assemble.
Were they still within their
legal constitutional rights
to be in that public space?
No, or to put it differently
not necessarily.
So let's back up a step.
The way these kind of rules
the way rights in general
we talk about them
is not in terms of you have
the right to do x
but in terms can the government
stop you from doing x?
It's always a
negative constraint on what
the government may do
with the implication that
even if it's not prohibited
you must be
left free to undertake.
So the rules are
the government is perfectly free
to make what are called
content-neutral time
place and manner regulations.
And these are things, like
don't use loudspeakers
at night, don't camp
overnight in a park.
Those are actual old cases.
So there's no question that
cities and states have
the authority to
make those rules so long as
they're content neutral.
You can't say, for example
no blocking the streets
in a protest unless
it's a protest about schools
or no blocking the streets
except for political purposes
or something like that.
So these are very broad
very straightforward rules.