This was more or less in the cards the day Trump took the oath. This has been a relentless, steady decline to this point. The decline will continue.
Will the US experiment survive? Stay tuned next week!
3 Likes
Wouldn’t other nations/actors look to get mushroom boom fuel and have an easier time getting it from a state/municipal based protection instead of federal/state/municipal based protection ?
2 Likes
Bellingcat are the ones for that, they did all of the analysis that showed who the Russians were who shot down the airliner over Ukraine.
5 Likes
I sincerely doubt that the federal government has completely foregone all documentation for this deployment, given the fact that they’re practically defined by the obscene quantity of paperwork involved with their operations.
1 Like
Police are civilians. The cop-slang that they’re somehow separate from the other civilians is just as dangerous as the military hardware that they’re packing.
18 Likes
This seems a bit counter-intuitive, but one way to deal with these goon squads is to call in the National Guard
That’s what they are for, and their presence might be enough to send the secret police outta their, since there will be credible witnesses and military oversight. If Trump co-opts them for federal mission to the area, it doesn’t make any difference at all. They are still there, and they aren’t going to be okay with watching secret police disappearing their own friends and neighbors.
15 Likes
My usual response is to say; “I’m sorry, but you’ve made a grave error”.
“Oh yeah, what’s that, then?”
“I’m afraid you‘ve mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck what you think!”
4 Likes
No no no. It’s the liberal bureaucrats who like obscene quantities of paperwork in government. The conservatives are the ones who pride themselves on cutting through red tape and getting those boots right out there onto people’s necks as efficiently and unaccountably as possible.
15 Likes
They don’t need to go boom to be dangerous. Radiological weapons (dirty bombs) are also a huge problem.
4 Likes
So to answer my own question:
The ACLU clearly come down on the side of “flat-out unconstitutional,” but I find that somewhat unsatisfying.
In theory, federal law enforcement can enforce federal laws, which includes vandalizing federal property. However, as a Washington Post article* makes clear,
“Arrests require probable cause that a federal crime had been committed, that is, specific information indicating that the person likely committed a federal offense, or a fair probability that the person committed a federal offense,” Orin Kerr, a professor at University of California at Berkeley Law School, told The Post. “If the agents are grabbing people because they may have been involved in protests, that’s not probable cause.”
The OPB article makes it clear that the people being kidnapped were not even near federal buildings (or even necessarily protests).
*Article:
So… no, not remotely constitutional or legal in the specific behaviors of these unidentified federal “law enforcement” officers (whatever agency they might be from). And what’s super-disturbing is that this is clearly only a test by Trump - he’s threatened a wider roll-out of this tactic in more cities. If there isn’t sufficient push-back, this is going to happen. (And that creates the specter that this might happen around the election, too.)
I’m reading that they’re using rental cars. Which probably doesn’t get you far, as the agency they work for is probably the one renting them. (Although it’s still not clear which organization it is, exactly, that’s kidnapping people.)
13 Likes
I thought conservative bureaucrats loved bookkeeping?
Conservatives hate accountants when the accountants try to hold conservatives to account.
If you know you’re doing something ethically dicey then you definitely try to minimize the paper trail.
13 Likes
They only love bookkeeping when it’s a non-conservative who needs something.
3 Likes
No, they’re not. From Wikipedia:
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder.[1][2] Their lawful powers include arrest and the use of force legitimized by the state via the monopoly on violence. The term is most commonly associated with the police forces of a sovereign state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility.
Regular civilians do not have the same legal powers of arrest and use of force. And police can use their legal powers, whether they’re on duty or not.
It’s not just “cop-slang”. Police may not be military, but they are not “just” civilians. I’m at work now and don’t have time to do the research, but I’m very sure it’s written into the laws at the state, county, and city levels.
That’s one way to look at it, I guess. If the protesters weren’t out there, the cops wouldn’t be, either. But that wasn’t my point. My point was, in any fight between protesters and cops, the cops are going to win. So maybe protesters need to find other groups to protest against, and other places to protest, that might yield more political benefits and be less physically painful. If that’s possible.
(ETA: I don’t mean to make it sound like police are the “victims” of protesters picking fights with them. In fact, I’d bet that some if not most cops would like nothing more than clashing with protesters.)
I’ll be down there peacefully proestintg. If you don’t hear from me for a couple weeks afterwards please raise a glass and kick a few bucks to the ACLU.
9 Likes
Revoke qualified immunity. There, now they’re 100% civilians again. No waffling required.
17 Likes
I am trying to find words that express my disappointment and disgust with the words you just said. But I’m coming up dry. If not us, who? If not now, when?
8 Likes
Well, I’m pretty disgusted, not only with the way police have manhandled and killed Black men and women, but also with the way the police have treated protesters. Some of the video posted in the “Summer Uprising: Enough is Enough” thread is flat scary. (ETA: And there doesn’t seem to be anyone holding the cops, in places like NYC, accountable for their actions.)
If you don’t like it, I personally think a good way to enact change is to change the laws. For example, take money out of the police’s budget (which would require a vote of the city council or equivalent) and put it in other places where it would do more good. Make things like choke holds and kneeling on peoples’ necks illegal. Make police more accountable for their behavior.
1 Like
That probably reflects the American origin of police as auxiliary militia, rather than anything to do with Robert Peel.
6 Likes
