Freedom of assembly

1. From "Joy for protesters as Heathrow is denied 'mother of all injunctions'," in the Independent, regarding the turn down of an injunction against a protest centered around Heathrow Airport:

[Said Ken Livingstone] "As Mayor of this city, my responsibility is to uphold the elementary principles that people have the right to engage in peaceful, lawful protest and, at the same time, no unrepresentative group has the right to break the law and disrupt the journeys of holidaymakers or users of public transport. BAA tried to go far beyond this with a measure so draconian that it attacked the civil liberties of millions."

2. Ike Leggett tells Peterson Companies that their restriction of photography on a "public" street that they lease from the Montgomery County, Maryland is illegal. See "County Opinion Rejects Photo Limits," from the Washington Post.

3. From the Post, "City to Pay $1 Million Over Arrests at Protest":

The settlement was the largest to date stemming from the controversial mass arrests that day. The city had agreed to pay more than $640,000 to settle lawsuits filed by 14 others who said they were illegally rounded up by police. A larger class-action lawsuit is pending, covering more than 400 people who say they were illegally arrested at Pershing Park.

Charles H. Ramsey, who was police chief at the time, initially defended the arrests but later acknowledged that they were improper. Police failed to order the crowds to disperse or warn that they faced arrest.

A world class city indeed.