WASHINGTON A U.S. Supreme Court oral argument was disrupted on Wednesday by a rare outburst from a protester who assailed a 2010 ruling on campaign finance. 
 
 The man interrupted proceedings in the patent case by shouting slogans like "Money is not speech," "Corporations are not people" and "Overturn Citizens United." 
 
 The man, identified as Noah Newkirk of Los Angeles, California, was protesting the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling which cleared the way for increased independent corporate and union spending during federal elections. 
 
 Police officers removed Newkirk after a brief scuffle. He has been charged with violating a law that prohibits "loud threatening or abusive language" in the Supreme Court building, a court spokeswoman said. 
 
 Afterward, Chief Justice John Roberts told the lawyer addressing the court from the lectern: "You have three minutes remaining." 
 
 None of the nine justices commented on the scuffle from the bench. 
 
 Outbursts in the Supreme Court are rare. The most high-profile incident took place in 1983, when Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt was ejected from the court for shouting obscenities at the justices during oral arguments in a libel case. 
 
 (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley, Joan Biskupic and Diane Bartz; Editing by Howard Goller and Richard Chang) ||||| Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court was the scene of an unusual disturbance during its public session on Wednesday, when a man interrupted an oral argument. 
 
 The incident occurred near the end of debate between the nine justices on the bench and counsel, in a case over attorney fees in patent disputes. 
 
 A man in a suit and dark tie rose from near the back of the marbled courtroom, and began loudly talking. 
 
 Witnesses said he spoke about the need to keep campaign finance reform laws in place to regulate election spending and contributions. 
 
 "Money is not speech," he reportedly said. "Overturn 'Citizens United!'" referring to a 2010 high court decision loosening a century of federal restrictions on corporate spending by "independent" groups like businesses and unions. 
 
 He was only able say a few words before police escorted him from the courtroom, and did not resist. 
 
 Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg identified the man as Noah Newkirk of Los Angeles. 
 
 Newkirk has been charged with violating federal law that makes it a crime to "harangue" or utter "loud threatening or abusive language in the Supreme Court Building." 
 
 The justices ignored the incident. 
 
 The court's official written transcript of the argument made no mention of the remarks. 
 
 Such outbursts are rare. 
 
 Court officials say the last time it happened was eight years ago, during an oral argument over a federal law restricting a certain type of later-term abortion procedure. 
 
 A similar interruption occurred about two decades ago. 
 
 The courtroom has about 330 seats available to the public. Court security instructs spectators before each public session to remain seated, not to speak, or demonstrate. 
 
 Signs also are not allowed, nor are any electronics or cameras. 
 
 Protester loses appeal in military protest case ||||| As you've no doubt heard by now, in an extraordinary escalation of tension between President Barack Obama and the sitting justices of the Supreme Court during last night's State of the Union address, Justice Samuel Alito gave us this year's "Joe Wilson moment" by shaking his head and mouthing "Not true..." in response to the following statement by the President: 
 
 With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. 
 
 Conservatives and progressives may argue this morning about whether President Obama should have criticized the Court and about the severity of Justice Alito's breach of protocol, but Justice Alito faces a bigger problem: Obama's comment is true. 
 
 In fact, Obama's carefully-phrased comment to the justices highlights two critical aspects of the majority's decision in Citizens United v. FEC, both of which constitute dangerous and revolutionary shifts in long-settled law: 
 
 The Court ruled that the First Amendment makes no distinction among speakers -- that the identity of a speaker makes no difference for purposes of government regulation of speech. As Justice Stevens pointed out in his dissenting opinion, this logic leads to some remarkable conclusions: "Such an assumption would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by 'Tokyo Rose' during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders." Stevens also clearly explained that the majority's logic "would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans." This is truly an unprecedented reading of the Bill of the Rights that could have consequences that reach even beyond campaign finance law. By eliminating any distinction among speakers, which, as Obama noted, has been recognized for at least a century, the Court hinted that any regulation that distinguishes between corporations and individuals may be problematic -- raising the question of what other rights currently reserved for citizens the Court might soon extend to corporations. As Stevens noted in his dissent, under the majority's logic, "it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech." 
 
 To make matters worse, the Court dramatically redefined the meaning and standard of "corruption," ruling that only the strictest and most direct forms of corruption -- e.g. bribery -- are prohibited, and not, as was previously the standard, any "appearance of undue influence." This critical component of last week's decision redefined the boundaries of what constitutes corruption and made influence by special interests significantly more difficult to prove. More important, the ruling, as Obama precisely indicated and as Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) fervently reiterated this morning on the Senate floor, appears to sweep away vital barriers that were keeping foreign special interests, such as Toyota, from manipulating American elections. If all speakers are treated equally under the First Amendment, and the only corruption Congress can prohibit is direct vote-trading for money, then there is no reason why foreign companies with a U.S.-presence couldn't spend endless amounts of money to influence U.S. elections. Under the logic of the Supreme Court's decision, just as Exxon can now spend millions to oppose a candidate who, for example, supports the climate bill, so, too, could Toyota or other foreign companies. 
 
 If Justice Alito wanted to disclaim any of this, or if he thought that the majority's opinion was not as far-reaching as Justice Stevens' powerful dissenting opinion demonstrated, he should have written a concurring opinion. He should have explained how the logic of the Court's opinion doesn't change course on over a century of campaign finance law that seeks to limit corporate influence in elections and showed us that the Court's formalistic approach to the First Amendment and corporations won't lead to foreign corporate spending in U.S. elections. But muttering at the State of the Union clarifies nothing.
– For the first time in eight years, the staidness of the Supreme Court was shaken up by an outburst from a protester yesterday. During a debate on attorney fees in patent lawsuits, a well-dressed man rose near the back of the courtroom to blast the court's 2010 Citizens United campaign finance decision, CNN reports. He shouted slogans like " Money is not speech," "Corporations are not people," and "Overturn Citizens United," before police removed him after a brief scuffle, reports Reuters. None of the nine justices commented on the outburst, which didn't make it into the official transcript. The last such interruption was during a debate on late-term abortion procedures in 2006, court officials say, and there was another protest in the chamber around 20 years ago. The protester, later identified as Noah Newkirk of Los Angeles, has been charged with making a "harangue or oration, or utter[ing] loud or threatening or abusive language in the Supreme Court Building," SCOTUSblog reports.