Honest question: which part of the First Amendment says you only get three minutes to speak?
replyThe 1st amendment has long been understood to protect the content of your speech, not the time, place, or manner of your speech. It guarantees the communicative act, the viewpoint or message conveyed; it does not give you an unlimited right to convey it however you want. The government has been consistently allowed by the Supreme Court to establish noise ordinances preventing people from yelling into a bullhorn at night or laws against marching a protest down a busy city street without first obtaining a parade permit. As long as there is no viewpoint discrimination in how those laws are enforced, it is perfectly legal to restrict public comment periods to 3 minutes.
replyWhy not three seconds or three milliseconds?
replyThere's unreasonable discrimination because the public comment period is only used for speech which disagrees with the government.
Five seconds is nothing. It's shorter than it took to type this message.
replyI don't get your point. Going over by 5 seconds didn't get him in trouble. The court can tolerate such minor mistakes as long as people are willing to behave themselves.
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