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Hernando Today

Activist leans toward civil disobedience

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By KYLE MARTIN

Hernando Today

Published: June 18, 2009

BROOKSVILLE - Brian Moore sees two choices.

He can take his protest to the road and risk getting flattened by traffic.

Or he can stage a rally on private property and take the chance of getting arrested.

At this juncture, Moore's leaning towards "civil disobedience."

Chair of the NatureCoast Coalition for Peace and Justice, Moore asked for permission last week to hold a two-hour protest outside the offices of U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville.

Waite and her staff operate out of a strip mall on Spring Hill Drive, near the National Guard Armory. A lease agreement prohibits any gatherings on the private property.

Moore staged a protest in April outside Brown-Waite's offices on the Spring Hill Drive right-of-way. With the speed limit on that stretch set at 55 mph, Moore said his group was nearly run over by the vehicles racing by.

To avoid that scenario for his next protest on June 24, Moore asked the sheriff's office to block a lane of Spring Hill Drive for two hours. He was told to secure a permit first from the county.

A "special events permit" requires a $35 application fee, a million dollar liability insurance policy, a 30-day processing period and a notarized indemnity agreement, Moore has learned. Moore has decided that option is no good.

His second option is to hold the protest outside the office anyway.

In a second letter to sheriff's office Major Mike Maurer, Moore asks for the "ramifications ... legally, and otherwise" if they held the protest without a permit.

"Would protesters be arrested?"

In a word, yes.

"If you decided to conduct your demonstration on private property, we would be looking at a Trespassing Statues (sic) not necessarily any assembly issues," Maurer replied by e-mail.

On Wednesday, Moore said he would be willing to cool his heels in the county jail to voice his opinions on the two wars overseas and national health care.

With 40 years of protest experience under his belt, the closest he's come to being arrested was more than a decade ago outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C.

Police ordered them to clear the doorway, but stopped short of making arrests.

"It's definitely worth it," he said.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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