"No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibilities. The First Amendment gives every New Yorker the right to speak out – but it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park or otherwise take it over to the exclusion of others – nor does it permit anyone in our society to live outside the law. There is no ambiguity in the law here – the First Amendment protects speech – it does not protect the use of tents and sleeping bags to take over a public space." ~NYC Mayor’s Office, 11/15/2011
We urge our Government to respect Chinese sovereign rights to administer their laws. While counseling compassionate restraint in the exercise of police powers, it should be US policy to permit nations to react to internal events with the same freedom we exercised with Occupy Wall Street.