Some one stated earlier that outlawing demos will only backfire. If protesting is outlawed, then you'll get outlaws doing the protesting. I agree.

That said, this connection with Alice Rivlin is pretty fucking tenuous, at best. From what I can find, her so-called "huge" campaign contributions to Cheh have amounted to a whopping $500 in 2006. That's according to the DC office of campaign finance. Also, even if her contribution were larger, she's not even directly connected to this ass-bag corporation that hurts/kills the animals! She represents the NYSE, whose horrible crime is allowing Huntingdon's stock to be traded. Welcome to the USA! Do you think that was solely her decision or that she was involved in it, whatsoever? And really, of all the horrible things corporations do on a daily basis, why are people wigging-out over this relatively small one, that by comparison, does nowhere near the amount of horrific acts that a corporation like Monsanto does? I understand people's frustrations regarding the animal abuse, but there are much bigger fish to fry, is what I'm saying. A lot of these protestors come off sounding like unreasonable lunatics, grasping for anything they can possibly exploit. That may or may not be the case, but perception is often more valued than the truth.

I think people should be allowed to protest people where they live, but there needs to be a definition of what that entails, before people on either side end up catching a bullet in the face. I plan to write Cheh, and tell her just that.

Also, we need to discuss the possibilty that "pay for play" is in play, so to speak. One of Mary Cheh's biggest donors of campaign cash is Alive Rivlin of the NYSE. Since the NYSE allows HLS to be listed on their exchange, NYSE officials get home demos. Alive Rivlin has received a few and no doubt is now begging the recipient of her campaign cash to do something about it.

Gov Blagovich in Illinois is probably going to prison for trying to sell Barrack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. Surely Mary Cheh understands that now is not the time to be selling favors!

I have also seen this from the other side, when I used to do clinic defense in the 1990's. Clinton's FACE law banning the antiabortion protests did stop those 800 person hatefests we had to mobilize to protect clinics from. Unfortunately the FACE law also had another effect-a massive wave of violence against women's health clinics started almost as soon as the protests disappeared!

It got so bad clinic escorts and doctors had to wear body armor because doctors were being shot. A personal friend was awoken twice in the night by bomb blasts from a nearby clinic. It took most of the '90's for the wave of anti-abortion violence that the clinic protest ban unleashed.

If protest is outlawed, only outlaws can protest, as we learned to our sorrow while defending the clinics.