The first person arrested under Nassau County, New York's ban on masks—supposedly a public safety measure—was a pro-Palestinian protestor wearing a kaffiyeh. After footage of the arrest made the news, the charges are being dropped.
[Xavier] Roa's lawyer Geoffrey Stewart hailed the decision as a "big victory" for his client and "for civil liberties," but argued the law itself "should be struck from the books." "This case shows that the law can, and in all likelihood will be abused by law enforcement because the law is unconstitutionally vague," he said in an email. Stewart has maintained that Roa acted respectfully and complied with officers as he peacefully exercised his constitutionally protected free speech rights during a protest outside an orthodox synagogue in September.
The police in Nassau County did the world a favor by making it so obvious that the point of these mask bans is to silence political speech. No sooner that Nassau County's "Mask Transparency Act" came into force they went out to collar protestors, and the first one they collared was a man wearing a kaffiyeh.
