When I was a child, the US wouldn't open admit to torture. It didn't have publicly known programs to ship prisoners to other jurisdictions so the U.S. rules of conduct could be bypassed. It didn't have a (publicly known) prison filled with non-U.S. people that were denied a civil trial. It didn't have a president that actively preached for or against public companies outside of criminal matters. When I was a child, a president openly violating ethics concerns WAS a matter of that president getting removed - with such certainty they'd step down to avoid the inevitable result.
I'm totally willing to believe that an aberrant behavior doesn't have to become the norm, but I won't believe that should be expected. I've been told all my life to expect that dramatic reactions and concerns are overstated and not the case, that we should all be calm and expect things to work out well, but if I look at the actual events of my life, I see the opposite lessons being taught: Unless we react strongly, clearly, and persistently, progress will not happen and things will slide for the worse.
It's not the lesson I want to learn, it's not a lesson I am comfortable with, but it does appear to be what I've seen in the last few decades.
JFK - lying about the missile gap with Russia to get elected
Johnson - lying about his intentions in Vietnam
Nixon - too many to list
If anything, I'd say there is more transparency around unethical behavior by elected officials.
And that's what worries me - note in my post above I was careful to talk about "public". Before there was a veil of deniability, the idea that at least a pretense of innocence had to be maintained.
Now it feels like there is little care to hide it. Sure, many of us are outraged, but that outrage has done nothing to translate into stopping the actions.
When even pretence is no longer a concern, there's no limit really.
Yes, and it's because there are more watchdogs and reporting than ever before, and "the internet does not forget"
And politicians using inordinate behaviours as political currency and more people to condone the same absurdities
Go back a little more and you've got Mexicans at the border branded as dirty, forced to take bleach showers and have their clothes fumigated using Zyklon-B, inspiring the Germans to use it to mass-execute Jews. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots ).
Go back a little more and you've got slavery and states trying to segregate from the US to maintain the system.
Go back a little more and you've got immigrants genociding the native population using biological agents, bullets, and mass rape to conquer the land as their own.
The US has NEVER had the moral high ground; their best claim to fame is helping to liberate Europe from the Nazis, but other than that they've absolutely shit.
But no, let's focus on the Karens who claim oppression because they need to wear a mask in Walmart instead.
I recall the racially loaded term "Vanilla ISIS" being used.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-co...
Today it would be impossible to ignore something that big, it would show up on social media.
To people arguing these are "arrests", well funny the arrested are just let go when they ask for a lawyer. It's an intimidation tactic. The rubberhosing and disappearing will come too, when that's deemed an acceptable intimidation tactic.
It's going to backfire in cities with popular support for the protests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onmsFzEtK7U
> anyways the federal agents are not pulling out random genuine protestors (how would that make sense?). they are pulling out the violent ones.
You are assuming that the federal agents are interested in the well-being of protestors. There is no proof of that. Much more likely, the federal agents have 2 goals: stop and deligitimize the protests, and protect federal or local property from the looting.
The first goal is best achieved by detaining and threatening non-violent protestors, especially their leaders, and journalists friendly to the cause. Violent protestors are already giving the protests a bad name, so they are helping the government's cause. Of course, some violent protestors also need to be stopped, to fulfill their second goal.
Proving whether that person participated in the riot is a matter for the courts, all that's needed for an arrest is reasonable suspicion.
I don't know if you are a native speaker, but the word kidnap might not be the one you should be using. "Kidnap" has strong connotations, and while sime people will happily use that property of the word to create feelings I don't think it is appropriate here.
kidnap: abduct (someone) and hold them captive, typically to obtain a ransom.
There's a lot to be said about police, federal agents, TSA etc, but lets keep this serious.
It's not about accepting it, it's been knowingly used for decades in different countries around the world. Why would the US be immune to it?
And 'waiting for the details to come out in a few weeks' is never justified. If the government has just cause, they should ideally show it before they do seemingly illegal actions, especially in the current climate; at the very least, once the governor of the state is suing to get federal agents to stop, any evidence of a just cause should be immediately made public.
Since neither has happened, people should act now, not later. Any data that comes to light weeks from now is going to be rightfully suspected of being manufactured anyway.
Given how distorted and contextless the politically relevant information we get is, waiting a few weeks for the details is almost always the right choice. This situation may be an exception but I doubt it.
And it's just as bullshit when China says it and when the Feds say it. There is no justification for black-bagging people. When that happens, it is almost always for political reasons. If it wasn't, then they could use normal legal channels instead of violating the law.
By the way, civil disobedience is always illegal. That's what the "disobediance" means.
By the way, in Oregon, Federal agents are not allowed to carry out such actions without registering beforehand with the State. So this was literally an illegal arrest made by agents of a completely unrelated agency being used in order to do what Donald Trump wants instead of following the process of the law.
China's crackdown on dissidents is very similar, they also use the tactic where they push peaceful protests into riots and then use that as an excuse to arrest everyone.
That’s not a defense of the current situation; we should be putting more limits on what federal agents can do (like requiring them to identify themselves during an arrest).
[1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforc...
When I'll see the warrant signed by a federal judge against these people for a federal crime with probable cause, then maybe. But so far, no one was served with a warrant.
Again, that's not to say this isn't a bad situation. I'm explicitly advocating for changing the laws that allow this to be even possibly legal in the first place.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/07/23/us/u...
Does the United States have problems? Yes. Are those problems on the same level as China? No.
For the sake of argument, stipulate the US is not right now on the same level as some despotic states. What is going to tell us that we've arrived, next week or next year, if anonymous security forces can grab people off the street with no accountability? What sounds the alarm, that the feds are not doing things correctly, or that someone is pretending to be the feds, who kidnap people?
However, the US has absolutely huge issues that are much worse than anything comparable in China. Such as, I don't know, fabricating intelligence and feeding it to propaga- I mean corporate media in order to justify a war to kill over a million innocents.
The US is not better than China as far as human rights. There are some things that the Chinese do much worse than America, such as due process, in general - not in extreme cases, where both don't hesitate to extraordinarily rendition you into a black site. However, China also doesn't have the habit of turning a few million innocents into pink mist every decade or so, so there's really no argument of moral superiority you can make here. US problems are certainly on the same level as China.
And as far as detention, the direction the US is going certainly isn't the right one, either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Territorial_disputes_...
If you want to limit the ability of superpowers to kill millions with impunity, then really the best solution is to have a bipolar world.
I’d suggest you look at some local reporting from people like https://mobile.twitter.com/tuckwoodstock
The actual charges given to people after a “riot” are usually unrelated (jaywalking, illegal lodging, etc.) and are mostly dropped before this goes through the courts.
I haven’t looked at the figures but I would be very surprised to find the percentage of protestors arrested for the Black Lives Matter cause that are guilty of rioting is more then a single percent. To reword: I claim (though I don’t know the figure) that less then 1% of people arrested during a “riot” are found guilty of rioting.
Civil disobedience is always unlawful, the clue is in the name. Also violence against property (protesters) is not the same as violence against people (police) though they are often deliberately conflated.
It's sometimes moral to break the law, that's how law gets changed; civil disobedience is good trouble, necessary trouble.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/christopher...
Not really sure what else to say, even if he had done something to provoke a response aside from shouting(you can read the multiple articles for details) he wasn't resisting arrest, was stationary and the federal agent broke his hand in two places[1].
I can't think of any situation where beating the shit out of someone who's standing still and not reacting is an appropriate response. Much less from someone who is expected to uphold the law and supposedly trained to deal with stressful situations.
[1] https://twitter.com/Tazerface16/status/1284849286237151232
federal agent broke his hand in two places
That's a key point, and my concern is that some reports suggest that some of the arrests are being made in a manner that's "off the record", no paperwork done, officially never happened. If that's true, then there's no transparency, no due process, no accountability.
Really? I saw it covered relentlessly until it was shut down.
> If the US Marshall are arresting people with either warrants or holding them with evidence/charges, I'm totally okay with that.
That is not what is being contested. There is video evidence of am incident where "masked federal agents in camouflage gear, with no badges identifying who they work for, arrested a man without telling him what he was being charged with or reading him his Miranda rights. They put him in an unmarked van and drove away." [0]
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2020/07/18/federa...
The person arrested can challenge that if there is no probably cause (with the right attorney, there is money to be had there) but most don't because ... there's usually probably cause.
What is the requirement in your mind and legally to identify as LEO? The feds in Portland allegedly have the word POLICE on their shirts and that's it. Is that sufficient? Would you follow orders from someone in tacticool gear with the word POLICE on it?
Um, yes? That's literally the law. A police officer only has to identify AS an officer. They don't have to identify which branch (police, FBI, etc.) "Police" is enough. Ask any defense attorney.
> It is of unclear legality whether a federal agent can arrest a someone for violating state law
State law? They're literally destroying federal buildings. The federal agents are not enforcing ANY state laws. They are only enforcing federal laws:
Some have almost surely tried to vandalize federal buildings and others who've been arrested have protested peacefully, and still others have only violated state law. None have taken drastic action that would actually destroy a building. I don't care for hyperbole on such serious topics.
All that said I scrolled through your comments. I think at best we won't have a productive conversation on this topic, so I won't invest my time further in it.
It's illegal.
I saw a bumper sticker on a large diesel pickup truck the other day: "I identify as a Prius." If I say I "identify" as a policeman, is that good enough in your book?
1. Cops pull over people and arrest them all the time using unmarked cars - why is it an issue now?
2. The cops are identified as such (that's the badge on the shoulder). Undercover cops can arrest people too - why is it any issue?
3. These people are being arrested and released - doesn't sound like kidnapping to me. Sounds like law enforcement doing their job.
But hey, the never let the truth get in the way of your political goals, right?
People are arrested and released because they haven't committed a crime. Arresting people who haven't done anything wrong is not the job of the police.
The Portland Police are arresting people for disturbing the peace. So are the federal police, the only difference is the people they are arresting are being release because the Portland DA chooses not to press charges.
It's all political. I don't know about you, but I'd be more concerned about the Portland justice system being perverted just to stick it to Trump.
People arrested for disturbing the peace in the US won’t disappear or end up in a re-education camp where their organs may be harvested.[2] Hong Kongers are certainly fighting for the right to remain under common law, there’s a clear difference in theory and practice.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_(law)
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-china-rights-idUS...
I don't think people are trying to stick it to Trump. People have been angry about police brutality and police killing black civilians for a long time. The LA riots were 30 years ago, and things haven't really changed that much since then - there are still cases of the police killing people with far too much regularity. This is a political issue, but it's one that crosses party boundaries. People are only really angry about Trump because he's in office at the moment; if it was a different president they'd be angry at him.
In effect, he's arguing that rioting has been decriminalised in Portland without any popular vote and without any explicit decision ever having been made. If that's true it's unsurprising the police keep arresting people and they keep being released. The issue there wouldn't be the police. If Portland wants riots to be legal when the rioters support leftist causes, they should explicitly adjust the local laws to allow it.
That said, the link they provide states the guy was released "on own recognizance" which basically means he promised to turn up in court at a future date, albeit with no bail money paid. So it doesn't say charges were dropped.
Well, the entire context. The first is that they are barely marked, you mention this in point #2, but a badge that just says "police" with no further identification or badge number is basically anonymity. How do you report abuse in this situation?
In addition to this, you have a historical precedent where right wing groups have gone on patrols through the streets of Portland to beat up non-binary folks and where they've stopped to beat up people for flicking them off when they drive through with a trump flag. I gotta ask, who is stupid enough to not entertain the thought this is just another escalation? Especially in the moment.
Thirdly they're actively telling people that, if they're followed, they'll shoot them. That's pretty low in the accountability standards.
> 3. These people are being arrested and released - doesn't sound like kidnapping to me. Sounds like law enforcement doing their job.
Kidnapping doesn't entail being kept indefinitely, it means being whisked off the street at the threat of violence into a stranger's vehicle.
Every other time in history, this has been bad, but this is the one outlier, right? That's pretty convenient.
Going all the way back to May 29th, protesting has morphed into rioting on a nightly basis. Rioters have fired guns and hit bystanders. "The rioters and looters shattered store windows and tagged buildings with graffiti that police say stretched for 20 blocks." "Demonstrators broke into and started a fire inside the Multnomah County Justice Center, home to hundreds of inmates." "Other protesters set fires throughout downtown, torching dumpsters, trash cans, cars and pallets." -- That was all May 29th.
Here is timeline of the first 12 days. It's much the same every night. [1]
I believe it's Day 50+ now.
[1] - https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/protests-in-...
What's your point?
Wishing there was evidence of something is different than there actually being evidence of something.
Riiiiight.
It is happening in Oregon.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/18/call-kidnapping-...