Quite a hullabaloo greeted our editorial supporting the decision by Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly to deny antiwar protesters a permit to march past the United Nations this weekend. So we read with more than passing interest the opinion handed down yesterday by a federal district court judge sustaining the city’s position. The court did not deny the protesters the right to demonstrate against American military action in Iraq; the city has said it will permit a stationary rally at Dag Hammarskjord Plaza, at 47th Street and First Avenue, in close proximity to the United Nations. But the court did permit the city to bar a march. The opinion, penned by Judge Barbara Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, rejects the notion that the First Amendment somehow bestows an inalienable right to march on public property despite concerns for pub lic order and safety.

Judge Jones cited almost exclusively the security concerns involved in marching an estimated 100,000 people past the United Nations. The last large march past the United Nations was in 1994. Given the potential for logistical difficulties, Judge Jones deferred largely to the concerns expressed by Chief Esposito, who testified: “That’s just an awful lot … of people. If they at one time did something or if somebody in the group had a device, I don’t know how we would be able to stop it with that amount of people or see anything.” The city also cited two specific incidents pointing to the increased security risks at the United Nations: one in which the United Nations was targeted in a bomb plot and one is which a man recently jumped a gate and fired seven gunshots at the headquarters.

“This court,” Judge Jones wrote at one point, “finds that the city’s refusal to permit the march proposed in this case — past the United Nations — serves a significant governmental interest, the peace and security of the United Nations Headquarters and the U.S. Mission. The court finds no evidence that the restriction is being applied or justified in any way because of the anti war message of the marchers.” While the precedents of annual events such as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade are clearly a ridiculous marker for political demonstrations to live up to, the plaintiffs certainly failed to persuade the judge on practical matters. The plaintiffs came to the city only late last month, and, according to the judge, they have so far failed to coordinate security, such as peacekeepers and marshals for the march, with the police sufficiently.

Judge Jones also gave deference to the representation by the Justice Department in Washington that there are issues under America’s United Nations Headquarters Agreement. The administration in Washington argued that under Section 16 of the agreement, the United Nations is insulated from protests in a legal sense. For the agreement states: “The appropriate American authorities shall exercise due diligence to ensure that the tranquility of the headquarters district is not disturbed by unauthorized entry of groups of persons from outside or by disturbances in its im mediate vicinity.” The judge notes that since September 11, 2001, the city has banned all protests in front of the United Nations and the United States Mission.

We wouldn’t want to carry that argument too far. Someday a righteous mob is going to march up First Avenue and express the opinion of many of us that the world body ought to be moved to Havana or Tripoli or even Paris. Meantime we take the point the judge was making. Nothing in her opinion was directed at the bona fides of the antiwar protesters themselves, many, even most of whom are no doubt well-meaning New Yorkers. Many may have even voted for their famously liberal mayor. And the great legal tussle over the march is far from finished. No sooner had the organizers been defeated in District Court than they took their case to the appellate judges who ride the Second United States Circuit. It numbers some of the staunchest defenders of the First Amendment in all the land, among them Judge Robert D. Sack. No doubt if there’s an angle to this that Judge Jones has overlooked, the sages of the Second Circuit will spot it.