"I see this law as a necessary evil," Miami City Commissioner Joe Sanchez said last week after the commission passed rules curbing the rights of protesters.

Necessary evil. Two scary words.

Water balloons are now illegal. Another portion of the ordinance states: "No person may carry or possess with the intent to unlawfully use any hard materials . . . that are capable of being thrown or projected."

The rules are so broad they give police unlimited discretion to decide who to arrest. The keys in a protester's pocket, for instance, are a hard material capable of being thrown.

The Miami Police Department claims officers will show restraint. "We want to respect people's rights, but we also want to maintain order," said police spokeswoman Herminia Salas-Jacobson. In essence, we're told to trust the department and Chief John Timoney, who pushed commissioners to pass the new ordinance.

So it's worth reviewing Timoney's history.

In 2000, Timoney was the Philadelphia police chief during the Republican National Convention. More than 400 protesters were arrested. According to the R2K Legal Collective, which helped defend the demonstrators, 96 percent of those arrested had the charges dismissed. Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, said Monday her office doesn't keep statistics, but she acknowledged "a good number of the cases were dismissed by the judges."

Numerous civil rights lawsuits were filed against Philadelphia alleging police misconduct. Most were settled with the terms sealed.

"Timoney's strategy during the RNC was to arrest as many people as possible, look good in front of the TV cameras, and deal with the Constitution later," Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the R2K, recently told a Philadelphia newspaper.

Timoney did not respond to a request for an interview.

Hermes is now with a group called the Miami Activist Defense, recently formed to defend the rights of protesters during the Free Trade Area of the Americas conference. On Monday, MAD, along with the ACLU, denounced the arrests Saturday of five protesters and other incidents they describe as police harassment.

They have a point.

Timoney has repeatedly said as long as protesters remain peaceful, they have nothing to fear from his department. His mantra: "Say anything you want, but keep your hands to yourself."

Nice words. Unfortunately, that's not happening. Take the incident Saturday. A small group of people were walking through downtown Miami, doing nothing illegal, when they saw a bunch of Miami officers surround a man across the street. Three of them stopped to watch.

More police arrived, and a few, recognizing the trio as would-be FTAA protesters, wandered across the street. It's easy to pick the FTAA folks out of a crowd. At this moment, however, they weren't protesting anything. They were just bystanders.

The cops say they told the three to move along. The three say they were never given the chance. Either way, why was it necessary for the police to confront these individuals?

"They are profiling and targeting people for their political views," argues Marc Alain Steier, an attorney with MAD.

The cops deny that and claim the three were blocking the sidewalk. Who are they kidding? Three scrawny young people standing on a corner is not an obstruction. A fourth person was arrested when she tried to retrieve her backpack from one of the three being handcuffed. She was also charged with obstructing the sidewalk -- all five feet, one inch of her.

While they were being arrested, they called the MAD office, which dispatched Henry Harris to act as a "legal observer." Shortly after Harris showed up, he, too, was arrested for obstructing the sidewalk. That must be some special sidewalk to need so much protection.

"This is a clear attempt to intimidate us and try to keep us off the street," Harris said.

Another necessary evil.

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