Court Ruling on Protests Curbs Malls in California

Source: NY Times

By CAROLYN MARSHALL

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that privately owned shopping malls cannot stop protesters from demonstrating there to urge a boycott of one of the tenants.

In a 4-to-3 decision, the court said a San Diego mall violated California law protecting free speech when its owners barred protesters from distributing leaflets in front of one of the mall’s stores, asking shoppers not to give the store their business.

“A shopping mall is a public forum in which persons may reasonably exercise their right to free speech,” Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote in the majority opinion.

Justice Moreno said shopping malls were entitled to enact and enforce “reasonable regulations of the time, place and manner of such free expression,” to avoid a disruption of business.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/us/25mall.html?em&ex=1198731600&en=4dcf2519f621c8e8&ei=5087%0A

at shopping malls? Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna...! :)

joint outside the Westfield Mall in SF will begin picketing them inside.

I couldn't disagree more. Are shopping malls not privately owned? Will I now be required to allow protesters of all sorts onto my property? I consider this decision every bit as odious as the universally reviled Kelo.

Kelo v. City of New London

To me this amounts to a taking of private property. With no compensation, it can be challenged as a violation of the Fifth Amendment. IANAL.

does not own the area outside of his/her store.

Why don't you believe in free speech?

You can have all the free speech you want, but you can't come into my house and start lecturing me.

The "store owner" does not own his store. Rather, he leases space from the mall owner, which can often be a REIT. The owner can set standards with which the shopkeeper must comply. The property owner owns the shops, the corridors, the parking lot - all of it. It is not public property.

in order to get in, and since they are "private" they would have the same rights as a "private" club--and can't private clubs discriminate against people? i know they used to be able to.

"No shirt, no shoes, no service."

Perfectly legal.

when the private sphere seeks to usurp the public square then the courts have to carve out what belongs to the commons.

Property has been taken without just compensation. The Fifth Amndment says:



This one's going to be overturned, as well it should be.

and rightfully so.

LOVE IT!

is in a mall.

to ban public review of the 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code with which they are now 'counting' all our votes. That is, NONE!

We're talking about global corporate predators, not small business people. U.S.-based and foreign-based global corporate predators--including massively powerful banks and investment firms, all of which are now "global" (have no loyalty to the American people and to this country) and including the wealthy sheiks of Saudi Arabia and the new fascists of China--some of the biggest commercial property owners in our country--who have deliberately DESTROYED our traditional downtowns, where the members of local American communities used to see, meet and interact with each other--our town squares--and have usurped whole streets, whole blocks and whole neighborhoods that once had public sidewalks and roads, or huge chunks of our open spaces, and have received huge tax breaks and numerous other benefits--including taxpayer supported roads, sidewalks, water/electricity infrastructure, fire/police protection, and even costs of construction, from corrupt local, state and federal politicians, and have thus attempted to close off and privatize our commons AT OUR EXPENSE.

Anybody who falls for this crap that global corporate predators have any "rights" here whatsoever is a fool, and profoundly misunderstands the founders of our country and the patriots of the American Revolution, who were rebelling against the British GLOBAL BUSINESS MONOPOLY that oppressed them, and who had such fear of corporate business power interfering with democracy that they almost banned corporations in the Constitution (but compromised on giving power over corporate charters to the states, which Jefferson felt would be closer to the people, who would prevent overweening business power and big monopolies). Jefferson & co. would be appalled at what corporations have become--their immensity, their monopolies, their gobbling up of our land, and their Pope-like power over our laws, our political representatives, our news media and our lives, and their global nature, often moving their headquarters, manufacturing and jobs from the U.S. to foreign countries, or invading us with foreign-based companies and products that destroy local businesses. It's as if, after throwing off the British East India Company, we somehow became the victims and peons of a THOUSAND East India Companies.

Corporations have no rights. They are state-chartered business consortiums that operate BY PERMISSION OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY, and are supposed to operate in the public interest. That our corrupt politicians fail to make them do so is a political not a legal or constitutional question. And they use "the little guys'" feelings of protection and right to privacy with regard to homes and small businesses as cover for extending PERSONAL rights to cover GLOBAL CORPORATE PREDATOR 'RIGHTS.' 'Rights' they do NOT possess in a democracy in which THE PEOPLE are the ONLY SOVEREIGN ENTITY.

Someone upthread was ranting about invasion of his home--as if that is the same as a shopping mall--and, boy, do the Corporate Rulers have HIM by the short hairs! AT&T routinely monitors his phone calls, internet use and emails, in secret, on behalf of the Bush Junta--and he's worried about CORPORATIONS' "PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS"?!

Well, I guess he's bought into this upside down, inside out, backwards "Alice in Wonderland" BushWorld we're all forced to live in, in which a corporation can assert, in a court of law, that public review of their 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting code--even in a case of 18,000 Democratic votes for Congress 'disappeared' by their voting machines, throwing the election to the Republican by 350 votes--VIOLATES THEIR 'RIGHT' TO PROFIT FROM OUR ELECTIONS! --and the Jebbite judge (in Florida) AGREED WITH THEM!

Their "right" to profit from our elections TRUMPS the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted!

Their "right" to profit from PUBLIC-supported infrastructure for PUBLIC shopping malls--CLOSED OVER PUBLIC SPACES THAT HAVE REPLACED SIDEWALKS AND DOWNTOWNS--trumps the First Amendment!

Be meek little sheep and agree with this crap--and defend the Corporate Rulers as if you were defending your home--if that's the kind of country you want to live in. But if you want to live in a democracy, TAKE YOUR POWER BACK FROM THE CORPORATE RULERS WHO ARE DESTROYING US!

Think it through, friends. Consider the corporatization of our MINDS, as well as everything else.

Fine. I'm a fool. You'll still lose at the Supreme Court. Fifth Amendment.

Have a nice day.

Bush emperor--and that is even more fascist now?

They may rule that private corporations can ban free speech in shopping malls. They may rule that private Bushite corporations' "right" to profit from our elections (and steal them) TRUMPS the right of voters to know how their votes are counted. That doesn't mean it's Constitutional, or even minimally democratic.

This is what I mean by "fool." A "fool" is someone who thinks that his slavemaster has the right to beat him, exploit his labor, rape his wife or daughter, and even kill him. A "fool" is someone who BUYS INTO the "right" of oppressors to oppress him. It is not foolish to be realistic, and to know what will happen when fascists (i.e., corporatists) gain power. But it is foolish to believe that they have any "rights" over you, because, if you are that foolish, then you will never be free. We need to understand your rights to assert your rights--in this case your absolute rights as an individual vs. a corporation. And corporations have NO RIGHTS. They are PUBLICLY chartered business consortiums that are, theoretically--in a democracy, and in THIS democracy--supposed to operate in the PUBLIC interest, and are also, theoretically, supposed to be subject to charter TERMINATION, and seizure of their assets. They have no right to exist. They have no right to free speech. They have no right to own property--and certainly not to accumulate vast properties, wealth and power IN PERPETUITY. They have no right to a fair trial, or any human right whatsoever. YOU have the rights. Not them. You are a sovereign individual and member of a sovereign people. WE have all the rights. They have none.

It is "Alice in Wonderland," upside down, inside out and backwards--and it is, in truth, a fascist coup--completed in 2002, with the passage of the "Help America Vote Act" ('TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code in all the voting machines)--that corporations have more rights than we do. It is realistic to understand this. It is foolish to agree to it.

And, by God, any time we, the people, luck out and a pre-Bush judge, who believes in democracy, rules in our favor--IN THE PEOPLES' FAVOR--we should rejoice in that decision and provide them all the public support that we are able to. That is the case here. A court ruled FOR US, against the Corporate Rulers. That is a rare event. So rare that some DU posters in this thread have FORGOTTEN what it is like to live in a democracy, and have become the kind of fools that the Corporate Rulers like to see--fools who AGREE to their slavemaster's right to own them and rule over them.

I'm not being paid by the word.

where it will be reversed, citing private property rights.