The Assault on Civil Liberties.

• Position: Speech and assembly

It's open season on civil liberties. First in Seattle during the World Trade Organization protests last November 30 through December 3, then in Washington, D.C., during the IMF-World Bank actions in mid-April, then in Detroit during demonstrations against the Organization of American States in early June, city governments and police departments have trampled all over our First Amendment rights of speech and assembly.

Now this summer, with the political conventions upon us, the powers of the state are once again preparing to interfere with our rights.

In Philadelphia, for the Republican convention, they've passed an ordinance that prohibits people from wearing masks, and they've made whole sections of the city off-limits to protests. Los Angeles, site of the Democratic convention, is also planning on restricting access to the streets.

Such infringements should be anathema to every American who reveres the First Amendment.

For law enforcement and elected officials, Seattle was an object lesson in the need to prepare for protests--and to crack down, regardless of the Constitution. Caught off guard by a handful of anarchists, the city overreacted wildly. It imposed a "no protest zone" across a twenty-five block area for three days, which in itself was against the law.

"First Amendment activity may not be banned simply because prior similar activity led to or involved instances of violence," the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1997 in Collins vs. Jordan. "The proper response to potential and actual violence is for the government to ensure an adequate police presence and to arrest those who actually engage in such conduct, rather than to suppress legitimate First Amendment conduct as a prophylactic measure."

But that's just what the city did. And in so doing, it violated the rights of nonviolent protesters there.

The ACLU is suing the city of Seattle on behalf of six clients who were at the WTO protest. One of them, Todd Stedl, was distributing copies of the First Amendment near the boundary of the "no protest zone" when a police officer took the leaflets away and searched his bag without his consent, according to the lawsuit.

Another plaintiff, Doug Skove, was carrying a sign that said "I Have a Right to Nonviolent Protest." The police snatched it away, the suit says.

Two other plaintiffs had to remove buttons or stickers affixed to their clothing. Another had his sign ripped up.

And the sixth plaintiff, Victor Menotti, affiliated with the International Forum on Globalization, was arrested after coming out of a meeting with White House officials and addressing a crowd.

This isn't the only suit pending against the city of Seattle. "There have been about sixty individual...