New York State Supreme Court Judge John Cataldo has imposed more than half a million dollars in fines on New York City, holding the city in contempt for not abiding by his earlier order to release more than 500 people arrested during protests against the Republican National Convention. The city is protesting the decision, of course, claiming that it was burdened by the many arrests it made. [rant] Perhaps if the NYPD hadn’t exercised prior restraint by herding people into unconstitutional “First Amendment zones” and arrested so many people on minor and non-offenses, the city wouldn’t have been saddled with the oh-so-important job of establishing the identities of people who are so dangerous as to believe they’re still entitled to free speech. [/rant]

[update] Apparently protesters were also videotaped all the way back to their homes (those who lived in NYC, anyway). Good to know that the NYPD is busy maintaining J. Edgar Hoover-style dossiers on citizens exercising Constitutional rights when it isn’t filling them with forty-one rounds at a time. [/update]