Maybe its time to re-read "On the duty of Civil disobedience"... (I'm not a US citizen, but I sympathize).
It appears like there's a difference between 'belonging to the people' and belonging to the government. Its painfully obvious with the shutdown affecting peoples 'inalienable' rights which were once supposed to be held self evident...
Well thats already been happening.
They tried to lock an outdoor 24/7 public WW2 memorial in D.C. when a bunch of "Freedom Flight" WW2 vets came to visit it. They put up these flimsy barricades (which are now wired together apparently) but the Vets just pushed them aside and walked right in. Nobody is going to take the political bullet of arresting a bunch of the greatest generation for tresspassing on what is really their memorial.
Basically the executive branch of the government is ordering closed a bunch of public-facing federal entities in order to make our government "shutdown" look a lot worse than it really is. They tried to close down the Mount Vernon Park but then the PRIVATE owners of that land (co-owned by a foundation and the feds) told them to get stuffed and took the barricades down to the parking lot. They also tried to shut down a private lodge off of the skyline drive in Virginia.
Basically, the whole government is stupid.
