Agency isn't such a bright line?

What about the professional journalist who stays past the curfew announced 10 minutes earlier, remains in the middle of a protest to live interview the event, and then gets caught in the police corral? Once the police collapse a large group of people into a very small area (say, with gas and shields), is there anyway that this journalist is not "involved"?

Or, should this journalist, to remain an observer and not become a participant, immediately leave when the state commands them to do so... perhaps going to an authorized "observation area"?

Civil disobedience has proven critical for societal progress. Why shouldn't those who are career professionals at documenting these events be given deference, acknowledging their service to the public interest?

Civil disobedience means breaking the law for a good reason and taking the punishment when it comes.

The modern method of suppressing it is to impose a penalty of twenty years in prison and three generations of bankruptcy for anyone caught ruffling the wrong feathers, when the offense in question would otherwise justify a night in jail or a modest fine. That's a problem we need to solve for everybody and not just state-sanctioned journalists.

They do.

> Law enforcement quickly identified media and escorted them to a line where they were asked for credentials and identification. Law enforcement took pictures of journalists' credentials and IDs as well as photos of the journalists’ faces.

The fact that the police are often the ones issuing the press passes seems like a serious conflict of interest: why would they give passes out to news outlets that are critical of their departments? They have almost nothing to gain from doing so.

Because that's how propaganda works.

I think if "everyone" is press, they'll just ruin it for actual press (kinda like emotional support dogs). Don't want to do a mandatory evacuation when there's a wildfire near your house? Just say you're press and exempt from the evacuation order.

If you’re part of a press organisation you’ll have things like risk assessments and training to mitigate those risks, fall back plans, people who know where you are and are responsible for your safety, people who liase with emergency services, etc

If you can prove you belong to such an organisation that’s great, you’re press. In the U.K. press have a card to prove this, issued on behalf of the police. It doesn’t give you any rights by law, but if the police started locking down the press like they do in countries without guarantees on the freedom of the press - China, Myanmar, USA, etc, then it becomes a political matter.

> Don't want to do a mandatory evacuation when there's a wildfire near your house? Just say you're press and exempt from the evacuation order.

So let them. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The government's job is to make people aware of the risk, not to stand between worthy recipients and their Darwin award.

For better or for worse, the people who fight fires often interfere with natural selection. Even when it means risking their own lives.

So do journalists. If you want a compelling picture of the fire, or the ability to document what it was like, you kind of have to be in the general vicinity of the fire.

And most people aren't suicidal, so most of the people who go there and take that risk are going to be doing it for a reason. We can suffer a few people lying about which reason it was when there aren't all that many of them and they still fundamentally had one.

If you are press, then wouldn't you have press credentials ?

Not necessarily, government agencies don't issue credentials, the news agencies give them to their staff. So we run into problems when independent journalists, freelancers, and citizen journalists either have passes they make for themselves (which cops probably won't respect) or no passes at all.

I have never heard someone propose this but I think I agree! Sharing and reporting and documenting news worthy events should be protected.

here's why credentialed press are a bit different:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate

What’s your solution to people claiming they are press to escape detention after unlawful assembly?

Someone could be smashing windows one moment and then claiming they are press the next.

If someone is smashing a window, arrest them for smashing a window. Simple.

- someone in a crowd smashing windows (police can't identify who)

- encircle the crowd and ask who is press

- person who was smashing windows (unbeknownst to the police) claims they are press

- person is escorted out

- person goes smashing windows somewhere else

If police can't identify who, they have no good justification for detaining anyone, much less everyone.

If the assembly is deemed unlawful because of threat of violence then they ask people to leave and if people refuse to disperse they can arrest them.

What would you change about this process?

If the purpose of to get people to leave, then kettling them achieves the opposite. Having seen kettling used, I've yet to see an example where it was not abused as an authoritan means of punishing people.

So I don't buy the premise in the first place. In practice it's an authoritarian, abusive method.

If you have a legitimate reason to disperse people because elements are threatening violence, then disperse them - don't lock the those who are peaceful in with the violent elements.

> then disperse them

This is more difficult than you expect. Police are drastically outnumbered in any crowd control situation. You can watch videos from Minneapolis riots where police just watch windows being smashed and shops being looted because they don’t have enough people.

It takes more than once officer to arrest someone too so things like Kettling need to be done for safety of everyone.

The rules are simple: if you get dispersion order it’s time to go. It’s not like they are not given a choice. I think a lot of people showing up to protests are just a bit unaware of the law. The number of times you see someone complaining about being asked to move on and they shout back that they are “on the sidewalk - can’t I just walk in my own city blah blah”. It’s just a misunderstanding of the law or a willingness to violate democratic law.

No, I fully expect it to be difficult. But that does not justify authoritarian abuses of power.

If you believe keeping everyone squashed together in a small space is safe, then you've basically admitted the crowd is not a risk to each other and can be contained, in which case there is not justification for it.

I don't care that the "rules are simple". Every authoritarian governments tends to have simple rules like that. That does not make this kind of authoritarian use of power justified.