Photo by Mr. T in DC

Occupy Wall Street, whatever it is in its second year, wants to spend Halloween in Washington this year. On the orders of the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which launched the ramshackle protest movement last year, occupiers are being advised to flock to D.C. at the end of October and swarm toward Capitol Hill for an evening of, well, whatever it is that Occupy does these days.

Per Adbusters’ “tactical briefing”:

Alright occupiers, trick or treat,

Let’s all go to Washington, D.C., and have a Halloween night party!

Let’s celebrate the wonderful Coke/Pepsi presidential election now in progress … and the honest, feisty way our elected reps in Congress have conducted our nation’s business … pay tribute to the bold visions they’ve put forward.

At dusk on October 31, let’s gather on Capitol Hill, trick or treat Congress and party like we’ve never partied before.

Bring mask!

While the presidential election might be a bland choice analogous to the binary status quo of the cola industry—Obama is Pepsi, Romney is Coca-Cola, Gary Johnson is off-brand sarsaparilla—any occupier who descends on Capitol Hill, mask in hand, might find themselves with a slight logistical problem.

Those masks, technically, could be illegal. Occupy members are fond of the Guy Fawkes masks, but as Capitol Hill is zoned as a residential neighborhood, the shrouds would violate a 2010 D.C. law banning protesting while wearing a mask in residential neighborhoods.

Under the Residential Tranquility Act of 2010, masked protesting in a residential neighborhood without first notifying police or between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. is an arrestable offense. The law was pushed by Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) in response to a series of demonstrations by an animal-rights group that protested outside D.C. residents’ houses.

Much as we all loathe members of Congress, parading outside houses on Capitol Hill while wearing masks could very easily run afoul of the law. Also, I thought this was about the presidential election. Oh, right, Occupy, so whatever.