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Comment by text0404 | Hacker News Reader

> But they're not being denied the ability to speak

From TFA: "There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue."

> Heider can go hold a protest against Flock in public

A protest isn't an equivalent substitute for a forum created for citizens to petition their democratically elected representatives. She and the others were there to discuss a specific policy that was supposed to be discussed at that time, and they were denied at the last minute. The opening salvo was the city council refusing to hear public comments, which many see as the main issue (and not that she broke a procedural rule).

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You're entitled to freedom of speech. You're not entitled to an audience. She can petition her elected representatives elsewhere, just not during a public comments session on sidewalk codes.

If the community is frustrated with the city council's decisions on public comments sections they can vote for different city council members.

> She can petition her elected representatives elsewhere

Why would she need to do this outside an official channel that was created specifically for petitioning elected representatives? She shouldn't have to.

> If the community is frustrated with the city council's decisions on public comments sections they can vote for different city council members.

I'm sure they'll be doing that. In the meantime, the city council is voting on an extremely controversial technology which will be paid for, installed, and operated years before a future council can dismantle it.

You keep ignoring the point that this wasn't the channel for this purpose. This was a public comment period for changes to sidewalk codes.

Let's say the council eventually does schedule a comments section to discuss Flock. But then anti-abortion activists flood the meeting and use up all the time ranting about the evils of abortion. They monopolize the meeting so that people who want to criticize Flock don't get the opportunity to do so. Is that a good outcome?

The "channel" I'm referring to is the public comments period for the policy related to Flock, and more broadly the meeting structure and public comments periods created by the city government.

Edit for your edit:

Your hypothetical isn't equivalent. Residents weren't allowed to give comments on the Flock policy. That's the crux of the entire issue; the public comments period was circumvented by the mayor and council.

When was the last time the council held a public comments period on abortion? You seem to operating under the assumption that such a comments period on that topic has taken place recently, but I don't see any evidence of that

Let's assume they have not scheduled any such comments section on that topic. Are the anti abortion activists then justified in flooding the public comments period and depriving people of the opportunity to criticize Flock during that period?

I'm not getting into the weeds on anti-abortion activism. Your hypothetical is not equivalent because the "activists" in this case were not allowed to speak about the policy in question in the first place.

You see order/decorum as the more important issue, and I see the ability to petition government officials as more important. Residents showed up at the date and time that the officials expected them to, in order to discuss a policy during the time allotted for public comments; instead, officials didn't allow residents to speak. The violation of a procedural rule pales in comparison to the violation of the community's trust in their elected officials and the democratic process.

Activists are able to speak about Flock and criticize Flock - just not at public comments meeting on unrelated topics. They can still protest in other public spaces, they can organize anti-Flock marches, there are so, so many other opportunities to speak about the city's policy on Flock. The statement that, "the 'activists' in this case were not allowed to speak about the policy in question in the first place" is just not remotely true. Not unless you meant to narrow down this statement to public comments periods, specifically.

> Your hypothetical is not equivalent because the "activists" in this case were not allowed to speak about the policy in question in the first place.

Unless there has been a recent public comments period on abortion, then yes they are equivalent: neither anti-Flock nor anti-abortion activists have had the opportunity to voice their opinions to the city in a public comments period.

I'm aware that people can protest. However, protests happen when a system breaks down. The system in question here is the official channel (the public comments section during a Flock policy discussion) that was circumvented by elected representatives who found their community's concerns to be inconvenient. When elected representatives refuse to hear their constituency's concerns, it means the system is broken. Most people in this thread are incensed about that, regardless of if Heider broke a procedural rule.

> is just not remotely true. Not unless you meant to narrow down this statement to public comments periods, specifically.

Yes, I mean the official channel that was created specifically for the residents to discuss the policy in question with their elected representatives.

You don't need to take my word for it, here's a sympathetic councilmember:

> Jenson spoke before the vote to push the resolution to a committee. “All I’m trying to do is get people answers to some real questions that they’ve brought to us for months. And it’s a shame that it comes to this sort of, I guess, theater that I’m a part of to try to get those answers,” he said. “This isn’t how government is supposed to run. It’s just disappointing. And we’re not even allowing folks to speak who clearly came out to share their voices tonight.”

You can disapprove of the council's actions all you want - I don't really care about how much esteem or lack thereof you have in the city council. The point I'm making is: Hyder's rights are not being "trampled", as the root comment claims, any more than an anti-abortion activist that might have wanted use this comments period on sidewalk codes to voice their feelings on abortion. What happened to Hyder was completely normal: someone tries to abuse the public comments period to soapbox about an unrelated topic, and that person is removed.

The same logic you're using to justify Hyder's action here would also condone anti-abortion activists hijacking meeting after meeting to voice support their cause. But that's obviously an untenable situation. So, what then? Do you want the city council engage in selective application of procedural rules, and let Hyder and other anti-Flock activists take up time while anti-abortion activists are denied that opportunity? That would be an actual speech issue: time, place, and manner restrictions on speech are permissible but they cannot be selectively applied.

> You can disapprove of the council's actions all you want

I do. Turns out even the council itself disapproves of their own actions.

> Hyder's rights are not being "trampled"

I wasn't claiming that her rights were trampled, I was saying that your original comment was viewed as ignorant by another poster because you're focusing solely on decorum and not the fact that elected representatives were attempting to circumvent inconvenient public comments about a controversial topic. I provided you with that context the poster claimed you ignored, because we're discussing the unmitigated proliferation of mass surveillance and not procedural rules for city council meetings.

Again, your hypothetical is not equivalent because it assumes that the "activists" a. had their own public comments section, and b. they monopolized the entire meeting. Neither of those things happened here.

> Again, your hypothetical is not equivalent because it assumes that the "activists" a. had their own public comments section, and b. they monopolized the entire meeting. Neither of those things happened here.

What do you mean "it assumes that the 'activists' a. had their own public comments section"? In this scenario, neither the anti-flock nor anti-abortion activists appear to have had a public comments section on their respective topics. You're the one assuming that anti-abortion activists did have their own public comments section, which I cannot find any evidence for.

Whether or not they "monopolize" the meeting is just a question of degrees - just assume that the anti-abortion activists dominate the meeting to the same degree as the Flock critics in this scenario.

I'm not going to engage with your hypothetical nor do I think it's incumbent on me to provide you evidence of anything related to it. If you want to ground this in reality, we can go back to discussing the facts of the actual situation which occurred in the article:

> There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.

Of course you don't want to engage with the hypothetical: it highlights that you selectively condone disregarding the rules and procedures on public comments is based on your support for the person making off-topic comments. Obviously we can't just let anyone make off-topic comments, because then it'll just be a free-for-all of people soapboxing for unrelated topics. But Hyder gets a pass because you agree with her. It's not some principled free speech position, it's just partisanship.

Disregard for procedure and rules sounds fine when it's people you agree with that engage in this behavior. But when you're the one who doesn't get a chance to speak because of people ranting about abortion in the meeting that's supposed to be your opportunity to make your voice heard to the city council I bet your views on procedure will flip 180 degrees!

[citation needed]

Nah man, I just think you're trying to straw man this conversation and ignoring the facts of the article, which is coincidentally what someone else said at the beginning of this thread.

The facts of the article is that Hyder made off-topic comments and was removed accordingly. Just like what would happen if someone made anti-abortion comments during this meeting on sidewalk codes.

What I'm ignoring is that apparently we're supposed to see it as an injustice when the government evenly enforces its rules, instead of selectively enforcing them to permit off-topic comments when those comments express the "correct" views.

> The facts of the article is that Hyder made off-topic comments and was removed accordingly.

Once again using a hypothetical and ignoring the context of why she made "off-topic" comments, which is what people are upset about. Should we just keep going in circles? Your turn.

The context of why she made the off-topic comments is that there was no scheduled public comments period with ALPRs as the topic.

Similarly, there seems to be no scheduled public comments period with abortion as the topic.

Of course, neither of these grants anti-flock or anti-abortion activists the right to make off-topic comments on unrelated meetings. Like I said, apparently it's an injustice when the government evenly applies its rules.

> The context of why she made the off-topic comments is that there was no scheduled public comments period with ALPRs as the topic.

Quoting the article:

> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.

> “This isn’t how government is supposed to run. It’s just disappointing. And we’re not even allowing folks to speak who clearly came out to share their voices tonight.”

As I wrote, the city council did not schedule a public comments period on the issue of ALPRs. I'm not sure why you think anything in your quote contradicts what I wrote in the previous comment.

They don't explicitly schedule public comments periods in the agendas in Springfield, MO.

The city's rules for addressing Council also list Resolutions among the categories open to public comment. Placing the Flock resolution on the agenda automatically includes a scheduled public comment on it too. Residents were required to register and they did. Before those speakers were called, the council sent the resolution to committee, preventing them from speaking.

Uh huh. Regardless of your semantic quibbling about the word "schedule", at the end of the day there was neither the opportunity to make a public comment about abortion nor to make one about ALPRs. If someone went up to this comment section and started to rant about abortion they would be appropriately removed - just like Hyde was.

But that's an injustice! Hyde should get to flout the rules. Because her position is a "correct" one. Because it's wrong for the government to evenly enforce the rules on public comment periods, and instead they ought to selectively enforce the rules to your liking.

There's nothing more to be said here. You're just repeating the same talking points you've said in this comment chain.

> Regardless of your semantic quibbling about the word "schedule"

That was the crux of your latest argument dude. That weird one where you tried to tie this to anti-abortion activists.

> Because it's wrong for the government to evenly enforce the rules on public comment periods, and instead they ought to selectively enforce the rules to your liking.

Keep straw-manning! I believe in you!

> There's nothing more to be said here. You're just repeating the same talking points you've said in this comment chain.

Yes, I can lead a horse to water but I can't make it drink...

If the city council is frustrated with public comment, that's not an excuse to ignore their constituency. They can perfectly well deliberate sidewalks after respecting her allotted time.

By selectively shielding topics that the public feels strongly about, they are fomenting the conditions for more extreme petitions. This was not a private meeting, arresting her was wrong.

Except allowing people to take up a full two minutes, or however long the allotted time is, discussing unrelated topics deprive people who want to make an on-topic comment of that opportunity.

Let's say the council eventually does schedule a public comment people to discuss Flock. Then anti-abortion activists flood the meeting, and take up all the speaking time ranting about abortion thus preventing anyone from voicing their criticisms of Flock. Is that a good outcome?

Unless there were sidewalk enthusiasts that were being denied their time, I don't see what relevance this comparison has. She was arrested for a legitimate use of her allotment.

No, she was arrested for illegitimate use of her allotment. It doesn't actually matter if there were other people concerned with the sidewalk code, a public comments period is not an opportunity to soapbox about unrelated topics.

If the city doesn't uniformly enforce these restrictions, then when the anti abortion folks try to flood the meeting and get removed they'll complain that they're being selectively targeted.

> She can petition her elected representatives elsewhere

And then she will be told that they are busy and that petitioning should be reserved for city council meetings.

Have you never dealt with government bureaucracy?

And? The point remains: freedom of speech is not a guarantee that you'll have an audience. Like it or not, the city council has no obligation to grant an audience to her. That's probably bad for their reelection campaign, though, and like I said she can campaign for a challenger next election.

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