In this episode of The Rule of Law Brief, Nate Charles examines a question that sits at the center of some of the most consequential legal conflicts playing out in the United States today:
When does protest become unlawful interference with government operations?
Drawing on a current case being defended by Charles International Law in Pennsylvania—where a client is being prosecuted for repeatedly and vociferously petitioning a District Attorney’s Office—this episode explains why verbal disruption, even when angry, persistent, or profane, lies at the core of First Amendment protection.
The discussion then connects that framework to ongoing protests in Minnesota against large-scale federal immigration enforcement operations, where law enforcement agencies have increasingly characterized observation, filming, following officers, and public protest as “interference.”
This episode covers:
* Why the Boston Tea Party and the Founding generation understood protest to be intentionally disruptive
* How Madison and Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, assumed dissent would be loud, destabilizing, and persistent
* The critical constitutional distinction between verbal disruption and physical interference
* Why yelling, berating, filming, observing, and petitioning the government are protected activities
* Where the First Amendment does stop protecting conduct: force, threats of force, and physical obstruction
* Why blurring that line risks collapsing the right to protest and the right to petition altogether
As explained in the episode, the constitutional line is not volume, profanity, or persistence—it is physicality. Kimmy Baylor’s conduct in Pennsylvania stayed on the protected side of that line, as has the conduct of most protesters in Minnesota.
This is not a radical position. It is the Constitution, applied as written and as intended.
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