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.

"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.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

• Lesbian: I was denied Communion at mom's funeral
• Criminalizing homelessness? Fallout feared from bill
• Voter confidence in Obama improves
• 'Oh, my God': 911 calls from school shooting

A picture of a wrinkle-free woman with a perfect body advertising skin cream and suggesting you could look the same may be too good to be true. Such ads have led Arizona lawmakers to consider a bill requiring disclaimers to alert consumers that such pictures are in fact manipulated.

The bill, its sponsor concedes, has little chance to pass, but the hope is to raise awareness of body issues that women and girls face as the result of such advertising.

---

“We just wanted to bring it to the table and start the discussion,” Rep. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat from Phoenix, told the Arizona Republic. “We need to bring attention to these body-image issues, especially with young girls. Girls need to know that they don’t have to look perfect.”

If enacted into law, a disclaimer would have to appear on the ad that “postproduction techniques were made to alter the appearance in this advertisement. When using this product, similar results may not be achieved.”

The idea for the legislation came from the local YWCA, Hobbs told the Republic, which was inspired by an effort in Britain to label manipulated photographs. The effort in the UK failed when the advertising industry fought the changes.

In the U.S., the Arizona bill is the first known attempt to require labeling of manipulated images, said Clark Rector, vice president for public affairs of the American Advertising Federation.

“If a photograph is manipulated to the point that it becomes deceptive or seems to be offering something that is untruthful, there are already laws to take care of that,” Rector told msnbc.com.  “To disallow any kind of Photoshopping or manipulation would go a long way toward doing away with all sorts of special effects that have nothing to do with enhancements.”

The bill, House Bill 2793, was expected to be debated in the House Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

Hobbs was not immediately available for comment.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

• Return of 'third shift' for automakers brings hope, economic ripple effect
• Drug bust nabs 17 TCU students, including football players
• Cape Cod dolphin strandings keep rescuers working OT
• Leaked: Climate skeptics’ strategy for schools
• Man stricken while eating Heart Attack Grill burger

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act appeared to be headed for approval one year ago - until the release of hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables to the WikiLeaks website, allegedly by Army Pvc. Bradley Manning, thrust it to the sidelines.

Opponents of the bill seized on the incident to strip an important provision from the legislation, which ultimately died when Congress closed for Christmas without taking it up, advocates say.

---

“There suddenly became a concern in the Congress that was ill-informed, that the legislation would protect leaks of classified information … which wasn’t true,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan independent watchdog that seeks good government reforms. “… It was in large part a reason why the legislation stalled and it also caused a real backlash of overreaction by agencies to start clamping down on employees’ access to information.”

As Manning has his first court appearance on Friday – a pretrial hearing – proponents of the legislation to protect government workers who report illegal or unethical behavior by officials have regrouped.

They are pushing a measure -- the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011 -- winding its way through Congress, but they are encountering some familiar hold-ups. “The Manning case is certainly feeding the resistance,” said Brian, noting it was not the only factor.

Manning, who turns 24 on Saturday, is accused of using unauthorized software on government computers to pull classified information, illegally download it and send the data for public release by what the Army called the "enemy." He has been held for 18 months in confinement and his pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, Md., on Friday will be his first public appearance. He is charged with 22 counts that could land him in prison for life.

The Bradley Manning Support Network argues that the soldier is not a traitor but fits the definition of a whistleblower, citing online discussions in which he allegedly said he hoped to generate “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms” and wanted “people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

The law firm representing Manning did not respond to an email or phone call placed seeking comment on whether they would argue this he was a whistleblower as part of his defense.

Though the new legislation pending in Congress could make some "very modest improvements,” it is still only a Band-Aid, said Stephen Kohn, executive director and co-founder of the National Whistleblowers Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

“I think that the underlying hostility to protecting national security whistleblowers pre-existed Manning … and there’s no end in sight -- meaning Congress, which excluded national (security) whistleblowers from protection in 1978 and has taken no action to fix the problem since, will continue in this current status,” he said.

Kohn said those opposed to the earlier legislation used the Manning case as a “smokescreen.”

“These folks were against it to begin with, they’ve been against it for years,” he said.

The Manning incident was bound to occur, he said, “because if someone was of conscience and did have concerns, they really have no legitimate place to go. … Under the current regime, there’s really no way to disclose these national security violations effectively and protect yourself. It does not exist.”

During the 2010 debate, Kohn’s group sent a letter to Congress with concerns that a provision in the legislation would allow “managers and political appointees to fire career civil servants who disclose violations of law.” This in turn prompted more than 90 organizations to voice their backing of the bill, The Washington Post reported.

Around the same time, the Post reported that Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California who had supported the bill, switched sides and argued for a delay. An Issa spokesman noted then that "new areas of concern that have been raised by the WikiLeaks" releases had convinced the congressman that the legislation should be considered in 2011.

In the first week of November, Issa and other lawmakers introduced the latest version of the legislation to the House.

"There’s really genuine interest in all three parts (White House, Senate, House of Representatives) to get something passed this spring. So I’m very hopeful actually," Brian said.

History has little to show for Americans in similar situations as Manning. In one of the most well-known cases of U.S. whistleblowing, former Marine Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 released what came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers," a secret government study put together during his time as an analyst in the Nixon Administration. The study revealed that previous administrations had deceived Congress about stepping up the Vietnam conflict. A judge eventually threw out the government's espionage and conspiracy case.

"The WikiLeaks’ unauthorised disclosures of the last year are the first in 40 years to approach the scale of the Pentagon Papers (and even surpass them in quantity and timeliness)," Ellsberg wrote in an editorial published in The Guardian, in which he called for other potential whistleblowers to not "wait until a new war has started."

Kohn did note a case that ended with positive results for whistleblowers in 1777, when 10 sailors and soldiers jumped ship and blew the whistle on the U.S. Navy commander for torturing British prisoners. The Continental Congress supported the whistleblowers, passed the country’s first whistleblower law and released all the documents -- regardless of how embarrassing they were to the United States.

“That was the first and maybe only time back in U.S. history that our government backed national security whistleblowers,” he said, chuckling. “It’s been pretty much downhill since 1777.”

Kohn also said the response to the incident showed “the founding fathers’ view of every person’s obligation to disclose misconduct was rather consistent with our view, and in fact, we believe that that is the legislative intent behind the First Amendment.”

Brian said she did not believe legislation to protect the Bradley Mannings of the world for leaking publicly classified information would ever be passed, but she hoped that his case would highlight the issue facing those in his situation. She noted that her organization and its allies were working hard to create "meaningful channels for a Bradley Manning.”

“I really believe that the lack of safe channels for disclosure is part of why people like Bradley Manning need to go straight to the public or to the media,” she said. “I’m hoping that what people learn from this is this is why we need to have a better way of handling this information,  because the government does sometimes hide their misconduct behind classification and we need to have a robust way of dealing with that.”

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• 'Dismal': 1 in 2 Americans are now poor or low income
• Village defiant as government creates new narrative
• Death sentences, executions take 'historic drop'
• Feds: Arizona sheriff violates Latinos' civil rights
• Revealed: Why court cleared Amanda Knox
• Boy defies dad's rules to attend firefighter's wake