Stripped of one more right, and you didn't even realize it! Occupy This!

You kid yourself that you are living in the "Land of the Free".  Did you hear ANYTHING about this bill that sailed through the House and the Senate in this, an election year, on any major news service?  It's called "H.R. 347: Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011".  It sailed through the House and Senate without opposition or debate.  You can read the full text here.

The summary: if anyone protected by the Secret Service is near you, and you are protesting anything, or get in a fight, or block access to a building, or "disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business", then you can be arrested and imprisoned for 1 year if you have nothing that can be construed as a weapon, or up to 10 years if you are, legally or illegally, carrying a weapon.

But you say you weren't doing anything wrong?  You were just exercising your "rights".  Sorry, one more of your "rights" is NOW ILLEGAL.

If you are exercising your "rights" near any foreign official, White House official, candidate for major office, or during an event of "special national significance", the SS (that's Secret Service, not Schutzstaffel, oops, my mistake) will gladly toss you in jail, legally, for a year or more.  Just hope that you are not exercising your 2nd Amendment "right" to carry a weapon under state-issued license, as your visit to jail will be 10 years, regardless of whether you are legally doing so or not.

The important language:

Sec. 1752. Restricted building or grounds

‘(a) Whoever--

‘(1) knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so;

‘(2) knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions;

‘(3) knowingly, and with the intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, obstructs or impedes ingress or egress to or from any restricted building or grounds; or

‘(4) knowingly engages in any act of physical violence against any person or property in any restricted building or grounds;

or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

‘(b) The punishment for a violation of subsection (a) is--

‘(1) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if--

‘(A) the person, during and in relation to the offense, uses or carries a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm; or

‘(B) the offense results in significant bodily injury as defined by section 2118(e)(3); and

‘(2) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.

‘(c) In this section--

‘(1) the term ‘restricted buildings or grounds’ means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area--

‘(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds;

‘(B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or

‘(C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and

‘(2) the term ‘other person protected by the Secret Service’ means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title or by Presidential memorandum, when such person has not declined such protection.’.

Kudos to Barry Ritholtz, who gets it:

Fantastic quote from Bastiat:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
- Frederic Bastiat, French writer and economist, as quoted by Bill Moyers.

What else is there to add?