QuickTake:

The legal showdown follows a few citations issued during weekly protests against immigration enforcement outside the Eugene federal building. A lawsuit alleged that two protesters had been targeted as leaders during the rallies.

A judge’s order Wednesday, Dec. 10, temporarily suspends a new rule against “unusual noise” on sidewalks around the Eugene federal building, a victory for protesters who alleged in court documents they had been unfairly targeted since fast-tracked rules about behavior on federal property took effect last month.

Senior U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken said — given that the regulations had originally been set to take effect Jan. 1 — she could “discern no hardship” in temporarily blocking federal authorities “from enforcing one part of one subsection of only one of those rules, and then only on the public sidewalks abutting the specific federal facility in Eugene at issue in this case.”

Aiken granted a request for a temporary restraining order filed by the Eugene-based Civil Liberties Defense Center on behalf of two protest leaders, Chloe Longworth and Anna Lardner, as well as others involved in frequent protests against activity involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Revisions made under the administration of President Donald Trump “greatly expand[ed] the prior regulations governing conduct on federal property” and were expedited to take effect Nov. 5, the lawsuit states.

Federal police issued a citation to Longworth on Nov. 18, the lawsuit states. While not all the words were legible on the citation, it appeared to state Longworth was cited for “unusual noise,” the lawsuit states.

“At the time she was on the city-owned public sidewalk exercising her First Amendment rights, including using a megaphone and stating her opinions regarding the lack of moral character exhibited by ICE agents,” the lawsuit states.

The citation against Longworth was later dismissed, but the lawsuit states that on Nov. 25, Lardner was “threatened … with arrest for ‘unusual noise’ under the new regulations — the ‘noise’ being her First Amendment-protected speech, speaking to the public through a megaphone, from a public sidewalk.”

The lawsuit stated Longworth and Lardner “appear to have been targeted by [the Department of Homeland Security] because of their speech and because of their appearance of being leaders of the weekly protests.”

In a 10-page opinion, Aiken wrote that the court filings “have made a compelling showing” that the Unusual Noise provision has the unconstitutional effect of chilling speech through either vagueness, overbreadth, or both. 

“Upholding free speech — a fundamental right — is of ‘significant public interest,’” Aiken wrote.

Aiken wrote that Longworth and Lardner are “regular protestors who believe they were targeted by government agents for their speech.”

“Whether or not they in fact were targeted, the danger of discriminatory application exists,” Aiken wrote.

The rule is temporarily blocked for 14 days, starting Wednesday. Aiken noted that the court “has not been presented, as of yet, with an argument for Defendants’ countervailing interests in enforcing the Unusual Noise Provision.”