New front opens in Cambridge leaflet war

A Cambridge woman already battling the city in court over leaflets she puts on car windshields to advertise movies now faces another opponent: A man who goes around removing her leaflets and throwing them in his recycling.

In April, Paula Soto sued the city on charges it was infringing her First Amendment rights by threatening to fine her for the leaflets she puts on hundreds of car windshields each month to advertise the documentaries she screens in the community room of her apartment building.

Ty Cornwall, who lives in Area 4, says he's fed up with seeing her flyers all over the ground and has set up a Web site to chronicle his efforts to make her stop:

Tired of the upandout.org flyers stuck in your car window? Tired of see the upandout.org flyers littering the street? Did you know that the trash upandout.org is pushing around town that gets thrown on the ground typically winds up in the Charles River? I hoped that the people at upandout.org would listen to these concerns and stop the eco terrorism. I begged for them to stop but they do not feel it is their responsibility or problem. So who's is it??? They say it is yours!

Having asked to have them stop and been hung up on repeatedly, I have decided to personally collect the flyers each time they are littered throughout Area 4 in Cambridge. My hope is by responsibly destroying (recycling) these flyers, thus costing them time and money, they will stop the practice :)

He's posted a photo of what he says are 130 of her flyers before being recycled.

The city, meanwhile, responded to Soto's suit last month, basically denying that its enforcement of a state law against despoiling public spaces violates her First Amendment rights.