The battle over issuing protester permits will have another wrinkle added Friday, as attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union  go to federal court in Minneapolis.
 
According to a press release from the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, groups are seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the city of St. Paul to issue permits for a Sept. 1 anti-war march.
 
Protest groups were told the application and permit process would begin in earnest March 1. By March 3, according to the press release, "the Coalition finally received a formal response to our application: a 'provisional' permit to begin a march at the State Capitol on September 1st, with no route, no times, and with a suggestion that whatever route we are eventually granted will not be for our exclusive use for the duration of our protest." The idea being that law enforcement could change the ground rules at any time.
 
The groups do have permits to march at the Capitol, but nothing for the Xcel Center, where all the action will be.
 
"By standing in the way of this protest, Saint Paul city government is complicit with the war," the missive quotes Meredith Aby of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War as saying. "The city says we should wait till the end of May and see what they will give us. We have been waiting far too long to see what games the city will come up with then. We need the permits now." — G.R. Anderson Jr.