Occupy protesters Anthony Gales, left, Ben Grady, center, and James Martin, right, eat dinner at the campsite on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012, in Nashville, Tenn.

Legislation passed by Tennessee lawmakers, apparently aimed at shutting the Occupy Nashville camp, could have a chilling effect on free speech and perhaps even criminalize the homeless, housing and civil liberties activists say.

The state's House of Representatives on Monday approved the Senate version of a bill -- the "Equal Access to Public Property Act of 2012" -- which prohibits unauthorized camping -- including sleeping and storing of personal belongings -- on public grounds, and the governor says he will sign it. Violators would face up to 11 months and 29 days in jail and/or a fine of $2,500.

The measure follows an unsuccessful attempt by the state to evict the Occupy protesters from Nashville’s Legislative Plaza in October.

“It chills the spirit of freedom of speech and assembly by targeting a particular form of expression,” said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. “When you recognize that the Occupy folks were choosing to camp and put up tents as the very means by which they were expressing their frustration with the government -- to have that then be identified as criminal, challenges their right to political speech.”

The legislation does not specifically refer to the plaza where Occupy protesters have gathered, instead describing public property in one section as "a state park, recreation area, wildlife refuge, historic building, educational institution or natural green space." It notes the legislation is "specifically intended to protect state interests jeopardized by the activity of camping on state property that is not compatible to or designated for such activity."

The broad language poses a major problem for the homeless, said Charles Strobel, founding director of Room in the Inn and its Campus for Human Development, a religious nonprofit that provides services to the homeless in central Tennessee.

“I think it’s what they might refer to as unintended consequences,” he said. "… It’s criminalizing the right to exist as a human being. It’s outlawing homelessness."

Strobel, who has worked with the homeless community for 34 years, described the legislation as "cruel and mean.” He said it will join a number of measures, such as "quality of life" offenses, that the homeless already have to contend with.

"So this is just one of a number of situations that you’re constantly facing with the homeless, that they are being shuffled around and, of course, in this case, they just have to keep walking … God forbid that they stop and rest," he said late Tuesday.

Related story: Tale of a Southern 'Occupy': Nashville aims to bridge political divides

Some homeless had sheltered at Legislative Plaza before the Occupy protesters arrived, since there were only about 1,500 beds available to the city’s estimated more than 4,000 people who need them, Strobel said.

As many as 50 homeless people lived in the Occupy camp at the height of the protest, but that number has dropped to about 10, said Lindsey Krinks, a 27-year-old student at Vanderbilt Divinity School and a homeless advocate who is also an Occupy member.

“A lot of people have cleared off the plaza because they’re so concerned about getting jail time and fines that they can’t pay and having all of their belongings confiscated ... which is really problematic when you are looking at people who have so little to begin with," she said. 

Among those is Nathan Rice, 32, who said he has lived on the streets since 13 and recycles cans for money. He arrived at the Occupy camp in mid-November and said he is "pretty much committed" to the movement.

“It was just a safe place to sleep and people treated me fairly nice,” Rice said of the Occupy camp. "They didn’t look at you as just homeless ... they looked at us as equals.”

One of the legislation's sponsors, Republican Rep. Eric Watson, said in an email that the legislation “does nothing to impact the homeless population” and did not elaborate. He directed msnbc.com to the text of the legislation regarding questions about the bill's intent. 

The other sponsor, Republican Sen. Dolores R. Gresham, did not respond to an email and phone calls from msnbc.com seeking comment by early Wednesday afternoon.

But in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, she said the purpose was to make the grounds around the Capitol available to all visitors.

AP Photo/Erik Schelzig

Sen. Dolores Gresham introduces her bill seeking to ban unauthorized camping on public property on the Senate floor in Nashville, Tenn., on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012.

"Certainly that was never the intent that the homeless would be in any way impacted by this bill," the Somerville Republican said.

Health concerns and preservation of state resources are cited in the bill among the reasons to impose the changes.

"It is in the state’s interests to be a good steward of public land and manage and protect it in such a manner as to ensure that future generations of Tennesseans are able to continue to enjoy the natural treasures and rich beauty of this state," the bill said.

While many other Occupy camps have been shuttered across the country using similar regulations since Occupy Wall Street began in September, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Winmill in Idaho issued a temporary order on Monday allowing Occupy protesters in Boise to keep their tents.

The judge wrote that the camp was in a public place that is "highly visible and physically close to the seat of government, making it a natural forum for political protests." He has not allowed sleeping but said an argument could be made for it as a protected freedom of expression, according to KBOI2.com.

The order was issued in response to a new law signed last week by Idaho's governor intended to remove the protesters from the property surrounding a vacant courthouse where they've camped out since early November, The Associated Press reported.

Criminalization of the homeless in jurisdictions around the country “has become progressively worse over the last couple of years,” said Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

“A number of communities are passing ordinances like this to push back against the Occupy movement and when you look at communities, some do it more artfully than others, and this is certainly not in that camp,” he said. “It’s quite apparent that they are constructing this to limit … very distinct behavior and actions.”

Donovan said it was a “flagrant targeting” of a group of individuals and said he thought it was unlikely to stand up in court. When asked how the legislation compared to others on the books, he said it was among "those ordinances that violate people's rights" and was "part of a collective movement" to restrict the rights of those who engage in "reasonable activities."

“Anytime that a state engages in this type of behavior it opens the door and creates a path for other ordinances and other laws that will affect the homeless so we would strongly object to this” kind of legislation, he added.

A separate process is also under way in Tennessee to write new procedures for the use of the plaza amid an ongoing federal lawsuit, filed by the local ACLU, which alleges that the state illegally revised the rules controlling the site last October when it tried to evict the Occupy protesters.

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Karen Bleier / AFP - Getty Images file

A view showing the Occupy DC encampment in McPherson Square in Washington, DC, on January 22, 2012.

Federal park authorities in the nation's capital told Occupy protesters at two sites on Friday that they will begin enforcing park rules that prohibit camping -- a move seen by the activists as a "slow creep" aimed at whittling down their demonstration in Washington, DC.

The National Park Service said in a flier that starting Monday at noon it will begin to enforce regulations prohibiting camping and the use of temporary structures for camping. Individual violators may be subject to arrest and their property subject to seizure as evidence, the flier said.

Three officers will be on hand to monitor the situation, try to get protesters to comply and make arrests or seizures as needed, Carol Johnson, a NPS spokeswoman, told msnbc.com. Compliance entails removing all camping materials and leaving one side of all temporary structures open.

“People can be there 24 hours a day, but they can’t live there, they can’t sleep there,” Johnson said. “This has been something in the works for some time. I mean what we’ve been trying to do is use measured and progressive means to get people into compliance.”

“We still do back the First Amendment, and it is their right. It is not their right to camp. And ... we would, you know, support them if they came into compliance and they had a vigil and they had tents that were there for logistical or symbolic purposes,” she added. "They can occupy as a vigil but not camping."

More than 80 arrests have occurred at the two sites, including for public urination, drunkenness, assault and drug use, she noted.

Many of the Occupy camps were closed across the country last fall and early winter, and the sites in the nation's capital were two of the bigger outfits remaining. Occupy Wall Street, which was evicted in mid-November, holds its general assemblies in their former camp site, while other group meetings are held elsewhere.

Justin Jacoby Smith, a 25-year-old activist with OccupyKSt, said that the protesters were conducting a 24-hour vigil in line with the NPS use guidelines for the site and that he thought people were "incorrectly" reading the NPS moves as an eviction notice.

"I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here. I think what we’re seeing from the park police is a sort of very slow creep of their enforcement of this so-called no-camping rule," he said, adding that he thought the enforcement was also “just another part of that broader strategy of trying to whittle down the (protester) numbers slowly.”

The Park Service noted that two "compliant" 24-hour First Amendment vigils have been running in Lafayette Park and near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial since the early 1980s. Johnson said they were "very small" vigils.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee held a hearing on Tuesday about the McPherson Square encampment.

"Late is better than never," Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the subcommittee on the District of Columbia, said in a statement after learning of the park service notice. "Lady Justice is blindfolded for a reason: so as not to see who is in front of her. I continue to wonder whether others who are 'camping' in national parks would have been afforded a 100-day grace period before the law was enforced."

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Miranda Leitsinger/msnbc.com

Occupy Wall Street protesters in Duarte Square in lower Manhattan.

Updated at 7:45 p.m. ET

NEW YORK, NY --  A festive and celebratory mood quickly turned tense and angry Saturday as New York police arrested about 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters at a church-owned lot demonstrators had hoped to use as a camp site.

A dozen or so protesters climbed a wooden ladder into the fenced lot at Duarte Square, witnesses said. One of them was George E. Packard, an Occupy Wall Street supporter and retired Episcopal bishop to the Armed Forces and Chaplaincies, according to J.A. Myerson, a writer with Truthout.

Andrew Burton / Reuters

Retired Episcopal bishop George E. Packard (left), who is affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement, climbs a ladder Saturday to church-owned land near Juan Pablo Duarte Square during a march in New York as anti-Wall Street protesters tried to establish a new encampment.

PhotoBlog: Occupy Wall Street tries to seize church lot for new camp

Several hundred people gathered across the street, where dozens of police tried to clear sidewalks as people shouted and screamed at them. After the arrests, a few hundred protesters made a blocks-long, late-afternoon march to the church rectory chanting, "For every eviction another occupation" and "Bloomberg beware, Zuccotti Park is everywhere." They later headed uptown to Times Square. 

Legal sources say about 50 people were arrested, though the NYPD press office said late Saturday they did not have the arrest tally and protesters were still being arrested.

"This whole occupation has been a lesson in freedom for me," said Ashley Perry, 24, who traveled from her home in Tampa, Fla., to support her New York counterparts. "If you still think that you have your First Amendment rights, go out and try to express them… and see how long it takes for someone to come and shut you down -- it will happen quickly."

Earlier in the day, demonstrators played drums, cymbals and trombones, held group meetings and waved signs with a variety of messages -- "Disobedience is civil" and "Sorry to inconvenience your apathy" -- as they marked the completion of three months with a major direct action that they hoped would give them a new home as authorities continue to shutter camps nationwide. 

Miranda Leitsinger/msnbc.com

Retired Episcopal bishop George E. Packard, right in purple robe, sits among other detained protesters in the Trinity Church lot on Saturday.

Protesters -- flanked by police officers -- coalesced on the nearly half-acre plot about one mile northwest of their former camp at Zuccotti Park. But their potential new landlord at Duarte Square, Trinity Church, voiced strong opposition.

"We do not ... believe that erecting a tent city at Duarte Square enhances their mission or ours," The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper, said in a statement Saturday and posted to the church website. "The vacant lot has no facilities to sustain a winter encampment. In good conscience and faith, we strongly believe to do so would be wrong, unsafe, unhealthy, and potentially injurious. We will continue to provide places of refuge and the responsible use of our facilities in the Wall Street area."

Linda Hanick, a spokeswoman for the church, said earlier this week that their position would not change and on Friday, a statement from the city's bishop sided with Trinity.

Under the banner of "Re-Occupy," the protesters said more than 1,400 people -- elders of the civil rights movement, prominent artists, faith leaders and community members -- would help them try and set up camp. The total numbers were not known, though several hundred people appeared to have joined the effort, with people being photographed at the "99% photobooth," while others danced around musicians and chanted, "Occupy." A group of hunger strikers with a sign reading "Day 15" also gathered at the site.

Miranda Leitsinger/msnbc.com

A man poses with a sign for the '99% photo booth.'

"I'm just loving seeing everybody from Zuccotti Park and it really puts an exclamation point on the (question) that's been asked today so many times, 'Do you guys need a space?' ... and the answer is, 'yes.' When you walk around and see the familiar faces and the kindred spirits and the unification of effort, then you realize yes we do need a space so that we can all be together and function as whole as a group and move forward, no doubt," said Thorin Caristo, a 37-year-old protester who is part of an independent livestream team.

Occupy Wall Street said in a statement ahead of the day: "Outdoor public space plays a crucial role in this civic process and encourages open, transparent organizing in our movement, unbeholden to a broken political system. As we saw in Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), outdoor space invites people to listen, speak, share, learn, and act. It is a source of inspiration and empowerment."

Trinity Church has provided the protesters with meeting rooms and use of their neighborhood center, but rejected an earlier attempt on Nov. 15 by the protesters to move into the Duarte Square lot. The church's operations include an Episcopal parish, a commercial realty business and a grant-making organization.

Miranda Leitsinger/msnbc.com

Protesters create balloons of protest at Duarte Square on Saturday.

"Here's a extremely wealthy church ... that can choose between its real estate empire and its conscience. This would be a big help to social justice organizing," Bill Dobbs, of the public relations working group, said Friday.

Dobbs said the movement had suffered a "setback" with the loss of its camp, but the organizing and protests had continued. Still, "it sure is helpful to have … a center of gravity," he added.

More photos of Occupy Wall Street's attempt to move into Duarte Square

One of the former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society, Todd Gitlin, said that if the protesters didn't get the site, it was not a big deal, noting that Occupy Wall Street had become a more organized structure since it began with events going on continuously: "I think it's always a mistake to judge very much from what happens on a particular day."

Gitlin noted the movement currently "stands on the sidewalks."

"It's in the process of adjusting to two things: Number one, the loss of camps, and number two, we stand on the brink of an election year," Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism, said standing near the fence encircling the proposed new camp. "The eviction means that what was already a major tendency in the movement is even more prominent now, namely decentralism. It's dispersed. Lots of things are going on all the time."

Miranda Leitsinger/msnbc.com

Occupy think tank working group meets at Duarte Square in lower Manhattan as part of their bid to set up a new camp.

Not all protesters agreed with how the day's actions came about, noting that an affinity group (one that shares the values and opinions of the movement), "kind of did this without the real consent of Occupy Wall Street," said Jason Harris, who had lived in the movement's Zuccotti Park encampment.

"A lot of people in Occupy Wall Street ... think that it sets a dangerous precedent that affinity groups can use the name, idea and basically assume sponsorship by Occupy Wall Street to do basically things that they decide they think that they need to do, which aren't necessarily in the best interests logistically" of the movement, said Harris, a university student in public policy, adding that Trinity Church had been a "bit of an ally" to the group. "Although this is wonderful, I'm afraid of how kind of autonomous actions by affinity groups within OWS could potentially damage Occupy Wall Street."

Another protester, Tim Taylor, a student and former Marine from Seattle aged in his 40s, said he was a little disappointed in the turnout.

"It’s going to take a huge impact and that impact is  basically the volume of people, to see you know Manhattan filled with 50,000, 100,000, 150,000 people and to disrupt an average person’s moment in the day … then you start to make an impact," he said as protesters marched to the city’s midtown neighborhood, passing by police with orange mesh used to kettle demonstrators. "But it shows promise that, you know, it’s a young organization that’s only been around for three months … and it’s spread around the country, if not even around the world. ...

"Nothing is ever easy and nothing is ever quick," he added. "You have to put in an effort and you have to work for it, and this group shows that they’re willing to do that."

Updated at 1:42 p.m. ET:  Boston police say they have made 47 arrests, with 33 men and 14 women taken from the Boston Occupy Camp, mostly for trespassing, according to The Associated Press.

At a news conference at police headquarters on Saturday, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino praised officers and restraint of the protesters during the clearing of the camp.

"In the interest of public safety ultimately we had to act," Menino said, adding the city would stop any attempt by protesters to set up camp elsewhere in the city, AP reported.

Updated at 6:40 a.m. ET: Boston police says about 40 people were arrested at the Boston Occupy camp and are being charged with trespassing, WCVB TV reports.The camp was being cleared with two dump trucks brought in to remove tents and debris.

Police superintendent William Evans tells reporters that "it went very peaceful," the station reports. "There was a certain element we might have had trouble with, but that element didn't show up," he added. "They overstayed their welcome."

Published at 5:20 a.m. ET: Police moved in on the Occupy Boston camp Saturday and began tearing down tents, according to reports.

The Boston Globe, in its live blog, said protesters had sat down in Dewey Square with their arms linked.

"We're all feeling helpless right now," protester Ryan Cahill said on the Occupy Boston live stream, the Globe reported. "The spirituality tent is being torn down."

The paper said police had warned protesters they were "trespassing on Greenway property" and "if you do not leave you will be subject to arrest."

Boston's WCVB TV reported that one person had been arrested.