First Amendment, the law and the Occupy movement
Occupy Wall Street protesters have a First Amendment right to protest in a public park, but they don’t have the right to camp overnight or to physically block police officers trying to remove their tents. If officers try to forcibly remove protesters, the police may use reasonable, but not excessive force.
That is the consensus of legal experts in the wake of police actions all across the country aimed at removing Occupy encampments. It explains why courts, including U.S. District Judge Carol Jackson in St. Louis, have permitted police to remove permanent encampments.
Some civil libertarians believe that the U.S. Supreme Court should give a more robust interpretation of the First Amendment in order to protect peaceful, overnight assemblies such as Occupy’s. But they acknowledge that current court decisions do not recognize the right to camp overnight in a park.