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People join arms as chants fill the air, signs overhead proclaim slogans to change the world, and thus a peaceful, legal demonstration of a group of people’s ideas about how the world should be takes place. This is what a protest looks like in Pittsburgh. But only if you have the ability to pay thousands of dollars in cost recovery fees, insurance, and police costs, according to the City of Pittsburgh. Recently, in response to the city’s budget deficit, a new process was installed for obtaining a parade permit, which is the permission required to stage a moving protest, be it along city streets or sidewalks. This process was an attempt to increase revenue for the city, and lighten the deficit. The new process raised the price from its original, administrative fee, to one that required the protesters to insure themselves for the protest. Also, organizers are required to pay for police protection, desires of the protesters aside (capitalism at its finest, now protesters have to pay to be beaten), and pay other, large, fees. This new payment scale for permits would have quickly taken away the option of a legal, permitted protest for the large majority of local groups who lack the financial ability to pay such large fees every time they wished to hold a march or, in the words of the First Amendment, "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." This new procedure struck many as unfair to poorer activists, and to some it seemed to violate the constitutional guarantee to free speech. Quickly coming to the defense of activists of all strokes, a combined lawsuit was filed against the city by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP), and the Thomas Merton Center (TMC). This lawsuit asked the court to force the city to repeal the new procedure and change its permitting processes to make it more accessible and less expensive. Although the city attempted to defend its permitting policy in court, several legal injunctions have been issued that favor the plaintiffs. In fact, due to the lawsuit, the City of Pittsburgh has repealed the old ordinance. Mike Healey, an attorney for the plaintiffs as well as a member of both the ACLU and the NLG, described the new procedure, "[The] preliminary injunction currently in place requires [the] city to respond expeditiously to permit applications, and bars [the] city from charging for city services related to the permit, other then a nominal administrative fee." This injunction appears to be a great victory for activists around the city. Attempts by the city to increase fees for protest permits would have severely limited the forms of protest available to anyone without the necessary funds. Although the future of this lawsuit, and therefore Pittsburgh’s permitting procedures, is uncertain and appeals are possible, first amendment rights are safe (and relatively inexpensive) for the time being. Pittsburgh has avoided what Vic Walczak, Legal Director for the Pittsburgh Chapter of the ACLU, called, "transforming this from a budget crisis to a crisis of democracy." - Ian Sullivan
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