WASHINGTON (CNN) — Protesters occupying two Washington parks say they will stand their ground when National Park Service police come calling mid-day Monday to enforce a law against camping.

“I’m going to do the best I can to stay here,” said Emily Margaret, who has been staying at Occupy DC’s McPherson Park camp. “If they want to arrest me, they can.”

Protester John Zangas said many protesters have removed prohibited gear from McPherson Park, but others have moved in and deliberately set up camp in an effort to challenge police.

About a dozen park police toured the camp Monday morning, prior to the noon deadline. Protesters taunted the officers, who left without taking any action.

Occupy DC protesters have been camping in McPherson Park since October in an ongoing demonstration against what they consider to be corporate greed and financial abuses. An occupy camp has also been set up in Washington’s Freedom Plaza.

After tolerating the camps for months — two weeks ago, National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis said demonstrators were within their constitutional rights to stay — officials announced Friday that they would begin enforcing a law banning camping in the parks.

Police said they will allow tents to remain in the parks, but protesters must remove camping gear and leave one side of the tents open at all times.

Occupy DC said in a statement on its website Sunday that members “will defend the public space we have used as our center for activism,” calling the move a “politically motivated attempt to suppress the free speech of the disenfranchised 99%.”

One man was arrested Sunday night after he allegedly went from tent to tent removing notices from the Park Service. A video posted online showed the man walking away from police as officers tried to grab him. One officer used a stun gun on the man, who fell to the ground and was handcuffed.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s website indicated that more than 14,000 people had signed an online petition criticizing the incident and calling on the Park Service to “stop buckling to political pressure and to respect free speech on federal land.”

The threat of further confrontation in Washington comes two days after police and Occupy protesters clashed on Saturday in Oakland, California.

City officials said protesters broke into city hall, painting graffiti on the walls and committing other acts of vandalism after police refused to allow them access to a vacant auditorium.

Police arrested about 400 people in clashes following the incident.

Demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at police, who returned fire with bean bag rounds, tear gas and smoke grenades.

Oakland has been a flash point of the Occupy movement since October, when police used tear gas to break up demonstrators who refused to leave downtown.

Until now, the Washington camps have been allowed to remain under a Park Service interpretation that considered the activity a “24-hour vigil.”

In an interview with CNN two weeks ago, Jarvis said he saw no reason to move against the encampments.

“We have the National Mall, McPherson Square, Freedom Plaza, all of those are First Amendment sites,” he said, “and I think if there’s any place in this country, Washington, D.C., is the place where we need to be the most tolerant of individuals that are exercising their First Amendment activities.”

California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa disagreed, saying Jarvis was “completely out of line.”

“It is not his job to interpret the Constitution over law,” Issa said.

Issa, who last month wrote a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar citing damage to part of a $400,000 renovation of McPherson Square, continued his criticism at a House hearing last week and came away unsatisfied with Park Service answers.

Occupy DC is part of a larger activist surge that began last year in New York and quickly spread. While the protesters have highlighted a number of causes, the overarching theme has remained largely the same: populist anger over what activists portray as an out-of-touch corporate, financial and political elite.

Pastor Brian Merritt of Washington’s Palisades Community Church said area churches have discussed helping house some of the protesters overnight so that they could continue a 24-hour vigil if park police began enforcing the rules against overnight encampments.

Whatever happens with the camps and police, Caty McClure said it would not alter her and fellow demonstrators’ commitment to their cause or their activism.

“The park and the occupation of the park is a tactic, it’s not the movement,” she said, calling the camps “a really important symbolic statement.”

“If we can’t sleep here, that does not end the movement,” McClure said.

— CNN’s Ed Payne, Athena Jones, Courtney Battle, Paul Courson Brian Todd and Dugald McConnell contributed to this report.