Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/06/05/law-enforcement-seizes-hun.html
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It appears that this seizure by the USPS by the order of some as yet unnamed government entity took place because they were secretly monitoring the perfectly legal Black Lives group. Either through an informant placed in the group, or electronic surveillance.
This is foreshadowing steps that could be undertaken to fuck with the vote-by-mail process. It is yet another example of the extremes that this lawless administration will take to undermine the democratic process and destroy the rule of law. They will keep doing it, and dare anyone to try to stop them. Power is all that matters.
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Not saying it’s directly related, but…
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As we all know, and as the Barr Department of Injustice is proving daily, legal protections are only as good as the officials who are tasked with enforcing them. Until this godawful administration is driven out, we will get more of the same.
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and we need to see if we can design the system to prevent something like this again.
The damage this administration has done will take decades to repair.
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That was my bigger concern: how did they know about what was in the box? Grabbing a box of masks during a protest would be one thing (on the fly orders, individual cop initiative, other?). But intercepting a sealed box of anything (unless there was some suspicious labeling*) is a sign of serious intent to breach privacy and the rules of the Postal System.
'* For example, if the box said N95 masks labeled with BLM, this would be a problem. N95 requires FDA clearance, but that clearance both takes time and likely wouldn’t allow custom text. Customs has had to block lots of “N95” masks from China because they were not made at US inspected facilities and thus could not claim to be N95 in the USA. So the USPS could be on alert for fraudulent N95 masks. I actually hope it’s this sort of hold on the package rather than spying and seizing legit masks.
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I’m going to err on the side of optimism. With a determined group unwilling to double down on incompetence, recklessness, and profit over people, sensible regulations with oversight can be restored in a couple of terms of office. Keep in mind that a lot of qualified people who quit rather than deal with the current administration could come back to help rebuild and repair what never should have been broken.
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We already knew the depths of depravity possible for the oligarchs’ trustee thugs. No murder, no assault, no casual torture of innocents is below them.
But now we begin to see the breadth and utter stupidity of their depravity.
Never forget: the police are here only to “protect and serve” the wealthy.
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You maybe forget how badly the courts are stacked and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
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If one or more government agencies violate the law (4th amendment, etc). What recourse do people have. Do we vote them out next election as Pelosi suggests? Should file a case against them in a court? Do we protest outside every state capital building?
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Agreed; SOME of the damage created by this administration can be repaired relatively quickly, some will take a generation or more to set straight, some damage will never completely heal.
From now until the end of the United States we will never again be a nation that was too committed to our best ideals to allow a person like Donald Trump to become President. That’s something we never get back.
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These protests have to keep up until meaningful change is made. Right now, mostly young people are taking the lead on protesting. Everyone else is going to need to step up as the young get tired, injured, arrested, etc. to step in to keep the pressure on. People like me have to get out of our comfort zone in order to save our democracy. As a speaker very eloquently said at the protest I went to this week, “This can’t be a moment - it has to be a movement.”
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If only there were a well regulated militia that would uphold the law and secure a free state.
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Historically speaking, that’s a very bloody path. We can barely get people over 30 to show up to protests right now. Asking them to defend their freedom with their own life is going to be a very hard sell.
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They’ve been deployed to quell the uprising.
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And they will use every nefarious tool at their disposal. The next president must do something to rein in the executive.
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Is this about the protests, or simply the ongoing theft of PPE by the federal government?
The Constitution allows suspension of Habeas Corpus in response to events like a rebellion. It’s clear that some people in government view this as a rebellion, even if they make vague excuses that this is a health and safety issue.
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“Inadvertently”.
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Those were not surgical/medical masks and thus not PPE worth stealing.
