The First Amendment guarantees the most basic of American freedoms. 

Among those liberties are the promise of free speech and the right to assemble in protest.

Any efforts to abridge those basic First Amendment protections is an assault on liberty itself. 

Georgia lawmakers are assaulting liberty. 

We urge our legislative delegation to reject Senate Bill 171, the so called “Safe Communities Act.”

There is nothing safe about this ill-conceived piece of legislation. 

Don’t be confused by the name or the bells and whistles, this measure is not about curbing violence in the streets, rather it is about silencing voices. 

Street violence is already illegal. 

The Republican-led bill mentions penalties for inciting a riot or mob intimidation, vandalism of private businesses and government property, assaulting first responders and obstructing a highway. All of these things are illegal now. That part of this bill is a smokescreen, window dressing and amounts to pandering to a base with strong feelings about social justice protests last year in Atlanta and across the nation. 

Giovanni Serrano, of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, was right when he said, SB 171 would lead to an increase of racial profiling from police, an increase in unlawful arrests and would lead to false claims about legitimate protest efforts.

While the bill targets protestors, creating onerous permitting requirements, placing excessive burdens on cities and local governments and stripping state employees of many of their rights of free speech, it ostensibly provides legal protections for counter-protestors who might harm the protesters with whom they disagree. 

We agree with First Amendment Attorney Nora Benavidez who writes in a column published on this same page, “Senate Bill 171 is a threat to anyone in the state who wants to speak up for what they believe in,” and we encourage readers to consider her expert opinion regarding this legislation. 

Again, we encourage our legislative delegation to not fall for the shallow talking points, and look deeper into the consequences and implications of this bill. Many of our basic First Amendment rights hang in the balance.