 So if the crackdown on BDS and state legislatures across the country wasn't already disturbing enough, if you actually care about the First Amendment and freedom of speech, we are now seeing a new wave of legislation intended to effectively criminalize protesting. Now this is in direct response to the George Floyd protests that broke out last May. Now think about this, rather than trying to actually grapple with the demands of protesters and meet some of the criteria that they're looking for, even make an attempt in any way to reform police departments. What are some legislatures choosing to do? They're choosing to just silence the folks who are speaking out against our ruthless racist criminal justice system. And Ron DeSantis of Florida just signed a bill that does that. So as Jake Johnson of Common Dream supports, Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law a bill that civil rights groups warn is designed to crack down on peaceful demonstrations and criminalize dissent by redefining rioting in an overboard way and creating draconian new felonies for protest-related offenses. While DeSantis and the bill's Republican sponsors in the Florida legislature presented HB1 as a response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters earlier this year, critics say the measure, crafted well before the January 6th attack, is in fact a reaction against the racial justice protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd last May. Let's be clear, this is not an anti-riot bill, regardless of what supporters claim Micah Kubik, executive director at the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement Monday. It is a bill that criminalizes peaceful protest and the impact HB1 will have on Floridians cannot be disputed, each and every provision harkens back to Jim Crow. Kubik went on to warn that under the new law, which is part of a wave of similar Republican measures under consideration nationwide, protesters could be arrested and charged with a felony if others at a protest or gathering become violent or disorderly, even if they themselves didn't. According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, HB1 defines rioting as a public disturbance by at least three people with common intent to mutually assist each other in disorderly and violent conduct. So the implications of this are broad and the text of this legislation is incredibly vague, and that's the point. It's up to the discretion of police officers. They get to determine unilaterally so what constitutes a riot. And if you're wondering how this could be used against protesters, even if they're peaceful, Amelia Pollard of the American Prospect did a really good breakdown of this. So she writes the legislation is purposefully vague, which gives law enforcement even more insidious powers. Almost any type of protest is grounds for arrest. Under the bill, peaceful protesters could face felony charges and up to five years in prison if a rally becomes violent through no fault of their own. ACLU lawyers say the sweeping protection of memorials and monuments is also chilling. Pulling down a Confederate flag, for instance, could lead to felony charges and 15 years in prison. And the bill's protection of violent counter protesters from civil lawsuits means that even if protesters are injured but not charged, they would have no recourse in the courts. So let's be very clear about what this is. This is an anti-protest bill. This is not a bill to stop rioting. This is incredibly transparent. This is an attempt to send a message to everyone in Florida. Hey, if you don't like that black and brown people are being targeted by the police and racially profiled, if you protest, guess what's going to happen? If that protest becomes violent or even a little bit too disorderly, depending on how we define disorderly conduct, you might be held legally liable yourself. Even if through no fault of your own, that protest got violent, even if you were peaceful, you're still maybe associated. Maybe we say that you are mutually assisting people to be disorderly. So yeah, you're going to be legally penalized for that. This is effectively the criminalization of protests to have text that broad anything can basically be defined as a riot now. This is very clearly unconstitutional and this isn't going to survive a challenge if it ever made it to the Supreme Court. But lower courts stacked with pro-Trump judges could very well actually legitimize this. This is obviously a threat to free speech. And it shows you that Republicans are becoming increasingly blatant in their hate of democracy. I mean, in Georgia, they crack down on voting rights to make it harder to vote. And in Florida now, they're making it harder to protest, trying to discourage people from protesting because those folks who may not want to go to jail or be held legally accountable might think, well, shit, if this protest becomes even a little bit too disorderly, if, you know, the crowd is dematted to disperse and they don't do it on time and the police start cracking down. I, even though I might want to be there, kind of don't want to show up because I don't want to go to jail. This is very clearly undemocratic. This is a threat to freedom of speech. And I'm wondering, where are all of my free speech warriors? Anyone who is in my mentions on Twitter who calls me a pro-censorship authoritarian because I thought that Trump should rightfully be banned from Twitter for inciting an insurrection, all of those folks conspicuously are silent on this particular issue. It's weird. It's almost like freedom of speech means that I can have a Twitter account. But when the government actually cracks down on BDS or cracks down on protests, all of a sudden the usual free speech proponents are nowhere to be found. This is a gigantic threat to freedom of speech. If this were to be implemented in more states across the country, do you understand what this could mean for your right as an American citizen to speak out and protest? This isn't just about Black Lives Matter protests. They're the targets, right? And so if you're a conservative, you might think, well, you know what? I don't like these protests because oftentimes they get a little bit too violent. And these folks don't realize that oftentimes these events are peaceful. And then the police end up stirring the pot and make it into a riot of violent protests by demanding that crowds disperse and then they use tear gas. So you might not like Black Lives Matter, right? You may be against these types of events. But guess what happens? This cuts both ways. If you're a Trump supporter, if you are a Republican and you want to protest what your democratically controlled state is doing or what Joe Biden is doing, guess what? This is going to hurt you as well if this gets passed. And right now it's limited to Florida, but this could catalyze a domino effect. Usually when one state does something, other states follow suit. I mean, it happened with pot legalization and that's a good thing. But when it comes to really nefarious, harmful pieces of legislation like the trans bill in Arkansas, how many more states will pass it? Because Arkansas did. There were only a couple of states with anti-BDS laws and now many states have them. So this is just the first of what is likely to be many states cracking down brazenly so on your right to protest in a supposedly free country. This is a grave threat to freedom of speech and anyone not sounding the alarm about these types of legislative attempts across the country now with one being successful, they don't actually care about free speech. They're frauds disregard what they have to say. Because if you care about free speech but you're not speaking out against this unequivocally and loudly so, then you're either incredibly misguided or you just, you don't actually care about the real threats to freedom of speech. This is an attack on the First Amendment brazenly so and anyone who lets this stand doesn't actually care about democracy.