The venerable Judge Posner delivered this opinion today reversing a district court judge who dismissed a civil rights lawsuit by 900 people who were arrested in Chicago during a protest on the day the Iraq war started. The issue basically distills to whether or not the police are allowed to arrest people en masse when they decide they no longer want to tolerate an unpermitted march which had been previously tolerated.
Interesting Judge Posner refers to the policy of Chicago to not issue permits for a march when the date of the parade is not known as "idiocy", although probably all cities have this policy. His decision basically turned on that issue, since the protesters had no way of getting a permit, since they did not know the day the war would start, and the police initially allowed the protest to occur, the mass arrest was not appropriate.
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