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On November 5, 2007, citizens gathered outside Senator Charles Schumer’s office in New York City to talk to him or his staff regarding Schumer’s decision to let Michael Mukasey become Attorney General without indicating whether waterboarding fit the legal definitions of torture and whether therefore those who conspired to use waterboarding in the Bush administration (George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice and John Ashcroft) were guilty of imprisonable crimes. If you think Michael Mukasey will answer that question now that he’s in office, you’ve got more faith in the Bush administration than I do. Charles Schumer let a moment of moral accountability for the Bush administration slip through his fingers.

Of course, the members of Schumer’s office wouldn’t speak to their constituents. They wouldn’t let their constituents even enter Schumer’s office to speak to them. Shoved out of Schumer’s place of power, these citizens asserted their rights of assembly and free speech by protesting on the sidewalk outside.

Someone called the police. As video footage documents, the police tried to tell these citizens that they did not have the right to speak freely and peaceably assemble to protest Senator Charles Schumer’s behavior. The police told them they’d have to leave.

Fortunately, these citizens had read the Constitution, and they told the police in no uncertain terms that they had a right to be there, and that they would not leave. The police backed down and let the protest continue.

There’s a rot in our political culture with people in power asserting the right to behave as they will without constraint of law but using the power of law enforcement to diminish the rights of citizens. We need leadership in this country to reverse this trend, to reiterate and reinforce civil rights, and to return the police to their position as defenders of the people, not enforcers for the prerogatives of the powerful.