in early march 2008, the city of saint paul gave the first permits to protest organizers. the city had said that it was not going to follow the "new york model" for protest security, referring to the tactics the new york city police department used for the 2004 republican national convention protest activity. later, on march 24, 2008, the antiwar group the "coalition to march on the rnc and stop the war", sued the city, claiming their free speech and due process rights were denied by the vagueness of the permits which did not specify a permitted route for their march. on july 16, 2008, a federal judge upheld the terms of the permit. and when the time came on september 2, 2008, police led the poor people's economic human rights campaign for two hours on a trek away from the convention which had been less than from their starting point.