The Mayor and the First Amendment
Published: November 16, 1999
On matters large and small, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani seems deaf to free-speech concerns. For more than a year, the mayor has imposed tight restrictions on the use of New York’s City Hall steps for public demonstrations, ostensibly for security reasons. On Sunday, Councilwoman Christine Quinn was told by police guards that she could not hold a press conference on the steps, even though she was there with fewer than a dozen community members to draw attention to the killing of a young gay man in his apartment in Harlem. Only after she called Council Speaker Peter Vallone to intervene was she allowed to hold the press conference.
11:17 pm on June 14, 2007
