Carmen reports the cop didn't seem very happy about it, but he still ran a busker out of the South Station T stop last night for not having a permit - and that really annoyed all the people who'd been listening to him:

... One woman thought it was all her fault, that she had brought attention to the busker by asking him to play a song for her. She had been singing along when the mean cop came along. "I feel terrible," she said. "I've been working up my courage for weeks just to ask him to play that song for me."

Why does Tom Menino hate freedom?

Turns out the barricade his minions put around Faneuil Hall block the Freedom Trail and could violate an agreement by the city - in federal court no less - not to interfere with the First Amendment rights of street performers. Dan Kennedy posts e-mail from local street-performer activist Stephen Baird - along with an embarrassing photo of the Freedom Trail blocked by a barricade:

The fence is a blight not only on the city, but the country. The fence, similar to the old Berlin Wall, is a symbol of Mayor Thomas Menino's and other government officials' failure to develop intelligent and equitable public policies and regulations.

There was no warning or public process before this crackdown. Portrait artists, living statues and street performers were suddenly told they could no longer exercise their First Amendment artistic expression in this public park by the police. There are no written guidelines or laws, just the arbitrary whim of the police officers and government officials of where people can perform and audiences can gather.

More from Baird, including copies of filings from the 2004 lawsuit against the city street-performer regulations.

Earlier:
Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown.