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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 18 2017, @09:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-if-nobody-showed-up? dept.

Governor Rick Scott (R) has declared a state of emergency in the county where the University of Florida lay, due to a planned speech by Richard Spencer. According to NPR:

When Hurricane Irma was bearing down on Florida last month, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency. On Monday, he did the same thing in Alachua County, ahead of a speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

"We live in a country where everyone has the right to voice their opinion, however, we have zero tolerance for violence and public safety is always our number one priority," Scott said in a statement. "This executive order is an additional step to ensure that the University of Florida and the entire community is prepared so everyone can stay safe."

"I find that the threat of a potential emergency is imminent," Scott declared in his executive order, noting that Alachua County Sheriff Sadie Darnell had requested the state's assistance. The order will make it easier for various agencies to coordinate a security plan for Thursday's speech at the university.

[...] No campus group invited Spencer to speak, and the university is not hosting or sponsoring the event. Spencer's group, the National Policy Institute, is paying the university $10,564 for facility rental and security.

And it looks like it could get expensive:

The speech and accompanying protests are also a major expense: The university as well as state and local agencies expect to spend more than $500,000 to provide additional security.

And the University of Florida can't demand that Spencer pay the full cost of protecting him, because of a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement.

In that decision, the university explains, "the Court clarified that the government cannot assess a security fee on the speaker based upon the costs of controlling the reaction of potential hostile onlookers or protestors," under legal doctrine known as the "heckler's veto."

Well, that is the cost of free speech in a free country.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:27AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:27AM (#586664)

    I've had more original [soylentnews.org] and honest conversations with cleaning rags

  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday October 24 2017, @01:02AM (1 child)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday October 24 2017, @01:02AM (#586670) Journal

    Yet you choose waste your time on little ol' me, talking some inane jibber jabber that doesn't relate to what I posted. How strange... Your cleaning rags are missing you

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @07:40AM (#586756)

      The fact that you choose not to understand when small words are used to show you that your own statements contradict each other - requiring that at least one of your statements be incorrect - does not change the simple demonstrated fact that at least that one of your two conflicting statements is wrong. Using weak, limp-wristed tricks such as calling that which you do not like "jibber jabber" is something I'd expect to encounter in an insulated little child, and one not very bright.

      I am more interested in your past and present environments than you at this point, ones that allowed and possibly even cultivated the laughably dictatorial mindset you exhibit along with your habit of attempting to deem something ludicrous into reality. My current guess has it being something involving government schooling, possibly a day-care.