After months of preparation, the ACLU of Illinois is working through the weekend deploying observers and volunteers to monitor NATO Summit protest activity. The NATO Summit will take place on Sunday, May 20th and Monday, May 21st at the McCormick Center, but protest activity has already been taking place in the week leading up to the Summit. Protesters and activists from around the world have descended on Chicago to demonstrate against a vast array of issues ranging from the war in Afghanistan, to health care, to corporate malfeasance on Wall Street.

WTTW covered Friday's nurse's rally at the Daley Plaza, and spoke to ACLU legal director Harvey Grossman, who was on the scene to monitor protest activity with a team of ACLU observers. The nurse's rally was the first protest event leading up to the NATO Summit in Chicago. The ACLU of Illinois has prepared a program to deploy observers and volunteers to monitor activity and hand out information about free speech rights all weekend. Watch the segment below:

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The Secret Service has created a security perimeter around McCormick Place, limiting people’s ability to engage in free speech in close proximity to the NATO delegates.

However, people will be able to present messages within the security perimeter in three ways:

1. Banners and signs can be placed in the area of McCormick Square on the blue stones surrounding the pylons, adjacent to the sidewalk along Martin Luther King Drive, roughly between the entrance and exit driveways into McCormick Square.

2. Literature—pamphlets and informational sheets—can be placed on tables within McCormick Place. One table will be within access to the delegates and the second will be in the international media room.

3. Video will be displayed in areas with access to both delegates and the international media room.

Collection of materials

All materials must be given to the Metropolitan Pier and Expansion Authority (MPEA) in advance.

Banners, signs and literature. At 8:30 a.m. on Friday, May 18, you must bring the banners, signs and literature to the MPEA corporate center, at 301 East Cermak, which is on Cermak just before it bends. Someone from the ACLU will meet you outside the facility and help coordinate turning the materials over to the staff at McCormick Place. It would be helpful to know the amount of material ahead of time, so if you plan to submit a banner, a sign or literature, please email hbowie@ACLU-il.org.

McCormick place staff will place the banners and signs in McCormick Square. To make screening easier, banners and signs may not be affixed to sticks or structures. McCormick Place use bike racks to display signs and banners. You may include a note on the sign or banner stating whether you would rather have the sign face west (away from McCormick so photographs will show McCormick in the background) or east (facing McCormick).

Videos. Anyone who would like to display a video, must get it to the ACLU of Illinois’ offices by 9 a.m. on Thursday, May 17. Please email Maude Carroll at mcarroll@ACLU-il.org if you plan to submit a video.