There seems to be wild speculation about freedom of speech rights or hacking Signal.
The FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff.
Do you mean just technically trivial? I agree with that.
If you mean more broadly trivial, I see that quite differently. An administration that has repeatedly abused its power in order to intimidate and punish political opponents is opening an investigation into grassroots political opponents. That feels worth being concerned about.
The FBI infiltrating political groups of all stripes is to be assumed by default at this point. A particularly high profile example would be the plot to kidnap a state governor a few years ago.
As to actually acting on what they learn, within this context yeah that would be troubling.
>particularly high profile example would be the plot to kidnap a state governor a few years ago.
iirc that was something more than infiltration. The FBI found an extremist loser who lived in a basement, egged him on, helped him network & gave him resources. Without them, he probably would have been thinking really hard about it, not much more.
They've been doing it from day 1.
It's how they found about Martin Luther King's affairs and what led them to write him a letter telling him to kill himself.
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I don’t like political power being used to go after an intimidate opponents at all, but we can’t pretend that it wasn’t a constant during the previous admin.
If I recall correctly, they actually set the precedent here by adding civil war era conspiracy charges to put an additional 10 years on women who protested in front of an abortion clinic.
AI summary…
> Six of the protesters (including Heather Idoni) were convicted in January 2024 of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in prison—and felony conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241, which carries a maximum of 10 years. The conspiracy charge stemmed from evidence that the group planned and coordinated the blockade in advance to interfere with clinic operations.
> As a Health Center staff member ('Victim-1') attempted to open the door for the volunteer, WILLIAMS purposefully leaned against the door, crushing Victim-1’s hand. Victim-1 yelled, "She’s crushing my hand," but WILLIAMS remained against the door, trapping Victim-1’s hand and injuring it.
> On the livestream on June 19, 2020, WILLIAMS stood within inches of the Health Center’s chief administrative officer and threatened to “terrorize this place” and warned that “we’re gonna terrorize you so good, your business is gonna be over mama.” Similarly, WILLIAMS stood within inches of a Health Center security officer and threatened “war.” WILLIAMS also stated that she would act by “any means necessary.”
A member of the conspiracy admitted to the planning; they have text messages and detail of deciding who will risk arrest, after going over the fact they'd be trespassing and violating the FACE act.
Do you think the administrative and medical staff present in 2020 would agree with you? That the group that blockaded, threatened and assaulted in one instance access to health services are in fact the victims here of government overreach?
'protested' by forcibly precenting individual civilians access to medical care? Sure, this seems the same.
It is deliberately obtuse to pretend that a group 60 year old women were "forcibly" preventing anyone from doing anything. They stood in a hallway and sang hymns.
Is it a violation of the FACE act? Absolutely.
Conspiracy? If that's a conspiracy then virtually any protest that involves any planning whatsoever could also be twisted into a conspiracy.
Ahhh, gender equality! Since we're going there, neither the age nor the gender of protestors is really relevant to anything. Stop cherrypicking just because whining could support your argument.
Seems like there are hundreds of people in those groups.
Can't be hard to get into for some skilled undercover cops. TV shows have shown me they do these things all the time!
They had already been outed by internet sleuths possibly, but not necessarily, informed by leaks from the police. The FBI is making a press release about an investigation only to save face because the criminal conspiracy is already common knowledge among those interested. In the universe of a competent FBI, which I think is ours, they already know who is in the network. They have well-publicized, patently unlawful dragnet signals intelligence collection capabilities. The targets are people who organize openly on Zoom and Discord, and broadcast volumes of their ideology on bumper stickers, Mastodon, and Blue-Twitter. So why does (if the press is to be believed) an authoritarian, fascist, ultra-right-wing regime allow them to operate? I feel like ICE is Floyd/BLM repeated as farce.
> In the universe of a competent FBI, which I think is ours, they already know who is in the network.
Certainly they know the handles of those people, and what they've said and what documents they've exchanged.
Connecting Signal accounts to real-world identity... well, that's definitely the FBI's wheelhouse, but some might make it easier or harder than others.
But there are a few cases where even the Internet sleuths are pretty confident about identity.
> So why does (if the press is to be believed) an authoritarian, fascist, ultra-right-wing regime allow them to operate?
Rationality requires treating behaviour inconsistent with a quality as evidence against that quality.
It would help if they stopped holding demonstrations in front of facilities with huge amounts of facial recognition technology.
Protesting is not something you should do "casually."
Protesting is absolutely something you can and should be able to do casually and without having to protect your face/identity. It was enshrined in the First Amendment as a fundamental check on the federal government in order to recognize the natural right of a self-governing people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.
What is not something that should be gone casually – or really at all – is an attempt to engage in insurrection with black bloc or globalized intifada insurgency tactics to prevent the enforcement of law.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
…
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
…
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
- Some insurrectionists
>What is not something that should be gone casually – or really at all – is an attempt to engage in insurrection with black bloc or globalized intifada insurgency tactics to prevent the enforcement of law.
I disagree. If the feds, or any law enforcement, wants to enforce law that is so unpopular that people feel compelled to make it hard in this way then, IDK, sucks for them. Go beg for more budget.
And I feel this way about a whole ton of categories of law, not just The Current Thing (TM).
A huge reason that law and government in this country is so f-ed up is that people, states, municipalities and big corporations in particular, just roll over and take it because that keeps the $$ flowing. A solid majority of the stuff the feds force upon the nation in the form of "do X, get a big enough tax break you can't compete without it" or "enforce Y if you want your government to qualify for fed $$" would not be support and could not be enforced if it had to be done so overtly, with enforcers paid to enforce it, rather than backhandedly by quasi deputizing other entities in exchange for $$.
The law being alluded to here is not "so unpopular".
Immigration enforcement is overwhelmingly favored by Americans, including immigrants.
The implementation has been awful, for lots of reasons everyone already knows. However, the situation has also been significantly escalated by often-violent obstructionists.
Obstructing enforcement of the law when it's something Americans voted for is not patriotism. It's undermining democracy.
Our law is explicit: immigration is the domain of the Federal government exclusively. State and local governments should "take it" as you say, because that's the law, and we should respect the law. If you don't like it, protest. But most are fine with enforcement in a reasonable way.
Trump and his cronies shoulder a lot of blame for how things have gone in Minneapolis. But so do democrats for stoking the flames.
Vote independent.
> Protesting is absolutely something you can and should be able to do casually
Then you are going to be identified and your conversations monitored. This is precisely the outcome the article is complaining about. I find that expectation absurd.
> of a self-governing people
This describes the majority not the individual.
> and petition the government
There is no expectation or statement that your anonymity will be protected. The entire idea of a "petition" immediately defies this.
> to prevent the enforcement of law.
How does "tracking ICE" _prevent_ the enforcement of the law? Your views on the first amendment suddenly became quite narrow.
> How does "tracking ICE" _prevent_ the enforcement of the law? Your views on the first amendment suddenly became quite narrow.
Because the whole point of tracking ICE is to help people dodge them. It's absurd that people cry foul when the government goes after people actively opposing the rule of law.
> It's absurd that people cry foul when the government goes after people actively opposing the rule of law.
I expect the vast majority of government abuses in recent history the world over have to at least some degree followed the law according to those carrying out the acts. Thus it is almost to be expected that as a situation escalates those crying foul might occasionally find themselves opposing the rule of law as described by those in power.
To state it plainly, not all "rule of law" is subjectively equal.
> Because the whole point of tracking ICE is to help people dodge them.
Seems completely reasonable given ICE is murdering, arresting, and deporting citizens and legal residents.
The government wronging 1 person to rightfully enforce the law on 10 is unacceptable.
Law enforcement only works when the people have trust in those doing the enforcement.
ICE have lost the trust of a significant portion of the people in Minnesota because they are using unreasonable force, eroding constitutionally protected rights and behaving with impunity.
They are, in reality, just conducting a politically motivated campaign of harassment. If they truly wanted to deport as many people as possible they'd start with border states like Florida and Texas, places with 20x more undocumented immigrants.
Rule of law? Innocent people are being shot.
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> They were at the very least intentionally being a nuisance and in most cases breaking actual laws in the process
Pretti was breaking zero laws. You’d have to do some prosecutorial voodoo to conjure up a misdemeanor.
There is lawbreaking in that videos. But the felony-level stuff is all from folks in uniform. (Which, thankfully, they’ve started wearing.)
> calling them "innocent" is quite dishonest
You're not actually arguing that American citizens shouldn't be able to film the cops are you? That would be pretty un-American.
Being a nuisance is not illegal. In the eyes of the law, someone being a nuisance is, indeed, innocent - and to say so is not dishonest.
So now being a nuisance is justification for summary extrajudicial executions?! If people on HN believe this then we’re toast.
Which law makes it illegal to track ICE? If there isn't a law against it, but you think the government should arrest people for it anyway, then you don't support rule of law.
The obvious retort is "obstruction". Of course it doesn't hold up to scrutiny because courts have consistently held that obstruction has to be a physical act. Simply being nearby, filming or calling them names doesn't count.
Nonsense.
ICE are engaging in violence, warrantless forced entry to homes, at least two shootings that border in murder, they even tried to force entry into an Ecuadorian embassy.
They are detaining citizens at random, relocating them physically and in some cases releasing them; if they don't die in detention due to lack of access to medical care.
If you cannot see how these activities should be observed, documented, protested whilst still standing for professed Amercian values...
Protesting is a fundamental human right and obligation. It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting, volunteering, and taking out the garbage: something you do from time to time when the moment demands it.
No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here.
> and obligation
No. It's not.
> It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting
I would say voting is _not_ something you should do casually.
> something you do from time to time when the moment demands it.
Then you should expect some consequences in your life. If you actually want to avoid those then put your casual demeanor down and get serious. Otherwise there's a decent chance you will make things worse and do nothing to solve your original problem.
We all know what a chilling effect is. You have no right to communicate on signal. This does not apply.
> No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here.
You could make the same moot point about all societal laws. Fundamental rights are determined by the constitution, the UN declaration of human rights, as well as any other local charters.
Rights are granted by God, the Constitution merely acknowledges them. If you don’t believe in God, or think human hierarchies determine rights, then they aren’t really rights anymore. They are privileges.
Barring physical limitations, what you can and can't do is ultimately determined by what the society you are by and large a part of deems to be acceptable behaviour.
Government rules and social norms can change over time, it ultimately doesn't matter what you feel is "right" or what some law says is "right", it's really about what you can get away with.
A large part of what you can get away with is determined about whether or not you will ultimately be penalized for your actions (possibly through violence), and laws can keep people aligned on what is or isn't going to be accepted and when people deemed to be acting in a socially unacceptable way are likely to be penalized in some form.
While "rights" may be somewhat philosophical, they can have very real physical "weight" behind them in the form of other people "enforcing" them.
And finally, in case you are mistakenly under the impression that I think it's okay for anyone to do anything they want so long as they can get away with it, I don't, but that discussion drifts into the territory of morality and ethics which, while related, are nevertheless different and very large topics of discussion in themselves.
If you believe rights are what God and the Constitution grant, then they're meaningless. Some piece of paper has no real–world relevance. Cops shooting people in the face has real–world relevance.
God doesn't have a typewriter, as far as I know. When he gets one I hope he clears up which 99.9% of human religions are heretical and which 0.01% are divine law, that would be really helpful.
In the meantime, rights are not granted by anyone. They are a contract between the governed and those that govern. Breaking that contract is the sort of thing that doesn't end up working out well for the governing class.
Governments are natural; nature abhors a vacuum.
Governments which at least pay lip service to the premise of respecting people's rights are another matter entirely.
> Protesting is a fundamental human right
That doesn't include vandalism, it doesn't include blocking roads, looting, or assaulting people. What's obvious to me is that a certain class of protestors are intentionally provoking a response from the government by breaking the law. Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, and that is used as an excuse for more protests. The protests get increasingly violent in an escalating cycle.
That process isn't exercising a "fundamental human right", it's a form of violence. If you don't agree with the Government the correct answer is to vote, have a dialog, and if you choose to protest do it in a way that's respectful to your neighbors and the people around you.
Yeah, this is what I don't get. People have the right to peacefully protest (and they should). However, once you actively get in the way of official federal policing business, you are no longer a peaceful protester. Interjecting yourself into already stressful situation will only make things worse for you.
> a certain class of protestors
Yes, a proportionally large and significant number of local Minnesota community members of long and good standing.
> are intentionally provoking a response from the government
are reacting to excessive over reach by outsiders, directed by the Federal government to act in a punative manner.
> Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed,
This has already happened. Multiple times. As was obvious from the outset given the unprofessional behaviour and attitudes of the not-police sent in wearing masks.
> [the people aren't] exercising a "fundamental human right"
they are exercising their Constitutional rights. Including their right to free speech, to bear arms, to protest the Federal government, etc.
> the correct answer is to vote, talk to your neighbors and friends, and peaceably protest,
for more about the local community of neighbour loving US citizens acting in defence of their community.
> Protesting is not something you should do "casually”
Neither is violently undermining our Constitutional order.
These folks should be on notice that they will be prosecuted. If we played by Trump’s book, we’d charge them with treason and then let them appeal against the death penalty for the rest of their lives.
> played by Trump’s book
I'm betting that's exactly what will happen - the FBI will single out some core organisers and let them serve as an example.
Realistically, we now know that the Hunter Biden Pardon (preemptive) is available and the Capitol Riots Pardon (mass pardon) is available. Given that, it’s only optimal for an outgoing cynical Republican President to preemptively pardon his allies on the street.
That only works for federal charges. Just don’t tell that to the president. Or do, he won’t remember anyway.
> we now know that the Hunter Biden Pardon (preemptive) is available and the Capitol Riots Pardon (mass pardon) is available
No we don’t. Nobody has tested these in court. Trump has no incentive to.
If Trump actually wanted to violently undermine the constitutional order there would be a lot of dead judges by now.
Unnecessary when he owns the Supreme Court and his thugs routinely ignore court orders.
Here is a more pedantic description then for you - "undermine the constitutional order by employing elevated (to various degree) amount of violence."
> If Trump actually wanted to violently undermine the constitutional order there would be a lot of dead judges by now
Hitler’s brown shirts didn’t start by killing judges. They started with voter (and lawmaker) intimidation.
> Neither is violently undermining our Constitutional order.
Ah, the "ends justify the means" then? Is this something you want applied _against_ you? Seems reckless.
> These folks should be on notice that they will be prosecuted.
They will not.
> If we played by Trump’s book
Moral relativism will turn you into the thing you profess to hate.
> we’d charge them with treason and then let them appeal against the death penalty for the rest of their lives.
Words have actual meaning. We're clearly past that and just choosing words that match emotional states. If you don't want to fix anything and just want to demonstrate your frustrations then this will work. If you want something to change you stand no chance with this attitude.
I'm not choosing sides. I'm simply saying if you want to avoid FBI attention then take your heart off your sleeve and smarten up.
> Is this something you want applied _against_ you?
It’s literally happening. And sure. If I try to murder the Vice President or murder Americans as part of a political stunt, hold me to account. Those were the rules I thought we were all playing by.
> If you want something to change you stand no chance with this attitude
Strongly disagree. There are new political tools on the table. Unilaterally disarming is strategically stupid.
> if you want to avoid FBI attention then take your heart off your sleeve and smarten up
I’m going to bet I’ve gotten more language written into state and federal law than you have. That isn’t a flex. It’s just me saying that I know how to wield power, it and doesn’t come from trying to avoid crooked federal agents. If they’re crooked, they’ll come for you when you speak up. In my experience, they’re more bark than bite.
"FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff."
Isn't the simply inserting an agent into the secret circle the most time honored way to crack security.
Or just got control of 1 person’s phone/account.
Yea, I just assume any easily joinable movement like this is a honeypot of sorts.
Most of these groups are centered around a neighborhood, or a school, or a church. For anything school related, people are very suspicious of outsiders trying to join. Churches and neighborhood groups might be more open, I suspect, but still gotta get somebody who lives there or goes to the church to vouch for you.
But the worst case for an outsider joining is not very bad; they get to see what's going on, but the entire point of the endeavor is to bring everything to light and make everything more visible. And if an outsider joins and starts providing bad information or is a bad actor, typical moderation efforts are pretty easy.
Most people are not professional conspiracists and know how to handle secret meetings, communication etc.
But the more the whole thing shifts towards that, the closer civil war is.
In other words, if you think any easily joinable movement is a honeypot you already seem to think along the lines of resistance movement in a dictatorship. (If it is .. I will not judge, I am not in the US)
That seems like quite a stretch from reality. I just know the glowies enjoy lurking websites where people openly post how to use Tor.
>The FBI simply
i don't think an investigation by FBI has ever been "simply" to the subjects of such an investigation. And to show bang-for-the-buck the "simply reading chat" officers would have to bring at least some fish, i.e. federal charges, from such a reading expedition.
In general it sounds very familiar - any opposition is a crime of impeding and obstruction. Just like in Russia where any opposition is a crime of discreditation at best or even worse - a crime of extremism/terrorism/treason.
> any opposition is a crime of impeding and obstruction
No; conspiracy to impede and obstruct is a crime.
If you are about to do something I don't want you to do, but which is lawful for you to do, 1A covers me saying "hey, don't do that". It does not cover me physically positioning myself in a way that prevents you from doing it. And if you happen to be an LEO and the thing you're about to do is a law enforcement action, it would be unlawful for me to adopt such positioning. It is unlawful even if I only significantly impede you.
And ICE are federal LEO.
Conspiracy to impede and obstruct criminal behaviour is not a crime, it's legitimate self-defence.
The fact that federal agents are breaking the law doesn't change that. At all.
In spite of what you've been told federal LEO are bound by the law.
Executing random bystanders on a whim, operating without visible ID, failing to allow congressional oversight of facilities, failing to give those captured access to a lawyer - among many, many others - all put this operation far outside of any reasonable claim to proportionality or legality.
> Conspiracy to impede and obstruct criminal behaviour is not a crime, it's legitimate self-defence.
The behaviour being impeded and obstructed is not criminal. It is, in fact, law enforcement.
> In spite of what you've been told federal LEO are bound by the law.
I have not been told otherwise, nor does my argument assume or require otherwise.
> Executing random bystanders on a whim
This objectively does not even remotely describe either killing, and I have seen no evidence for the other things. Nor can I fathom what "congressional oversight" you have in mind, nor why it would be legally necessary.
You're truly lost down some path if you think those people weren't state sponsored execution. If this happened in other countries with a "regime" it would be easier to recognize, but apparently if you dress it up a certain way and use a particular verbage that changes anything?
If you believe that, then the right process is for the legal system to deal with it. If you feel aggrieved by the legal system you should vote to change it. Nowhere in the social contract is it even remotely acceptable to act as a vigilante and respond with violence.
One of the victims was blocking half the low traffic road and intending for people to pass freely on the other half. The other was filming from a distance.
The recent male vigilante was directing cars traffic the area and attacked a law enforcement official the female vigilante was also resisting arrest and ran her car into a cop.
Don’t be disingenuous. The people in these groups are coordinating for a specific reason: to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs. That’s textbook Obstruction of Justice. It is illegal to prevent an officer from doing their job.
These groups are also documented to have harassed people who are _not_ federal officers under the mistaken impression that they are. That’s just assault. Probably stalking too. Anyone who participates in these groups will be committing crimes, and should be prosecuted for it.
If you don’t like the job that an officer is doing then the right thing to do is to talk to your Congress–critter about changing the law. Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law that was passed in 1995 with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. No attempt has been made to modify that law in the last 30 years. If Democrats didn’t like it, they had several majorities during that time when they could have forced through changes. They didn’t even bother.
>The people in these groups are coordinating for a specific reason: to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs.
To observe them, and prevent them from committing crimes. Which if it isn't legal, is moral as all get out.
"Jobs" Nurmberg lol. Not an argument.
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>Being Disingenuous
Crying disingenuous when I disagree with you isn't an argument.
>but it won't change anything about what the FBI should and shouldn't do.
What does that have to do with the price of wheat.
>And neither does crying "Nazi" whenever someone does something you don't like.
Why do you suddenly cry "Crying Nazi". Do you have sins to confess?
well, DHS does openly use white supremacy memes in their recruitment posts
These groups exist to observe and document the actions of federal agents and share that information with their communities. That is constitutionally protected activity.
Sure, and the FBI shouldn't go after the mafia either - they are only providing protection and other services to the community after all.
Their stated purpose and their actual function can be different, and speech that would otherwise be free can be illegal if involved in incitement, bribery, collusion, etc.
If I’m having a conversation with my friend, it’s free speech. If we’re plotting the overthrow of the government, it’s insurrection.
> to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs. That’s textbook Obstruction of Justice. It is illegal to prevent an officer from doing their job.
Filming officiers performing their jobs is not obstruction, even if it does make them uncomfortable. If it makes their jobs harder that's only because they know what they're doing is unpopular and don't want to be known to have done it.
> If you don’t like the job that an officer is doing then the right thing to do is to talk to your Congress–critter about changing the law. Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law that was passed in 1995 with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. No attempt has been made to modify that law in the last 30 years. If Democrats didn’t like it, they had several majorities during that time when they could have forced through changes. They didn’t even bother.
Yeah, there's a massive disconnect between politicians and their voters. This is pretty strong evidence of that disconnect. Even now Democrats refuse to support abolishing ICE, despite majority support among their constituency. Who are voters who want immigration reform supposed to cast their ballots for? There hasn't been such a candidate since ICE was created in the wake of 9/11. Conservatives got to let out their pent up frustration with an unresponsive government by electing Trump. Liberals have no such champion, only community organizing.
> Filming officiers performing their jobs is not obstruction
This is irrelevant, because many people have been observed physically obstructing officers, whether or not they were filming at the time.
> Even now Democrats refuse to support abolishing ICE
I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest" without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
And you're aware that the Signal groups in question are alleged to include Democratic state officials and a campaign advisor?
For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced? Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
Not to mention that the point is also to alert illegals of the LEO presence so that they can get away.
> This is irrelevant, because many people have been observed physically obstructing officers, whether or not they were filming at the time.
Not the last guy they executed. He was recording, then backed away when an officer approached him. Then he got dogpiled, his holstered gun was taken, and then he was shot repeatedly.
> Have you heard the constant blowing of whistles in these videos? Did you know that protesters have organized the mass 3d-printing and distribution of these whistles?
I'm quite aware of the intentionally annoying whistles. You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference." I didn't realize that feds had a protected right to a calm and quiet work environment.
> I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest" without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
Yeah, Walz is a weak Democrat who can't even condemn the organization killing and abducting his State's citizens. Exactly the kind of politician voters are tired of. All he can say over and over is to "not take the bait" by resisting occupation more forcefully.
> And you're aware that the Signal groups in question are alleged to include Democratic state officials and a campaign advisor?
I've not heard that alleged, but it wouldn't be surprising for some to be monitoring the situation. If you mean to imply that Democrat officials are organizing the resistance then that's laughable. If you're a Conservative then there are only a handful of Dems you should be afraid of, and the rest of the Dems will help you make sure they're not too influential.
> For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced?
A more focused INS under the DoJ would be a good reset. A paramilitary with twitchy trigger fingers is no way to enforce any law, much less something as nonviolent and bureaucratic as immigration. If someone is being violent, send the Police, hold a trial. If you need to sort out immigration status you can send a pencil pusher to get papers in order.
> Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
No barriers? No. Extremely low ones though, absolutely. You do realize that almost all undocumented people living in the US are on overstayed visas, right? We let them in after checking they weren't dangerous, then they started working and living here. Now they make up a sizable chunk of the population. Clearly our immigration system is broken if it leaves this many residents undocumented. And your proposed solution is strict enforcement?
Imagine, if you will, applying this standard to, say, speeding. Repeated instances of speeding result in increasing fines, and eventually revocation of your license. That's what the law says! Should we not enforce this law?? Well. If we used cars' and phones' GPS and cameras to reconstruct a few days of driving behavior, then handed out punishment as dictated by law, 90% of drivers would instantly lose their license. Half of the population would be unable to go to work, buy food, of get their kids to school. It would be a disaster of historic scale. The problem then, is the law. To put it more succinctly: I am not a proponent of enforcing bad laws, and neither is just about anyone else here in reality.
> I'm quite aware of the intentionally annoying whistles. You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference." I didn't realize that feds had a protected right to a calm and quiet work environment.
This kind of behavior would not be tolerated any more if it targeted other work environments. Harassment (and that's the most generous interpretation) is not free speech.
> This kind of behavior would not be tolerated any more if it targeted other work environments
Yeah? It's exactly the fact that their work environment is public streets and other people's homes, schools, and churches that prompt this behavior.
> then backed away when an officer approached him.
The video shows him physically interposing himself between the officer and a woman, and appearing to resist physically.
> You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference."
It is not broad, as explained by the one sentence you omitted from that paragraph.
> Walz is a weak Democrat who can't even condemn the organization
He has very clearly done this on multiple occasions. As I said, he has even been making public speeches claiming that ICE aren't even LEO, which is false.
> abducting his State's citizens
This has not occurred. Arrest is not abduction.
> If you mean to imply that Democrat officials are organizing the resistance then that's laughable.
I do mean to say that Cam Higby asserts exactly that, and appears to believe he has considerable evidence to substantiate the claim.
> You do realize that almost all undocumented people living in the US are on overstayed visas, right? We let them in after checking they weren't dangerous, then they started working and living here.
I don't understand why you think they should be permitted to stay under those conditions.
> Clearly our immigration system is broken if it leaves this many residents undocumented. And your proposed solution is strict enforcement?
Yes; if you have a time-limited visa, you should be expected to leave the country when it expires, and you should expect for there to be strict enforcement of that rule. Otherwise the time stamped on the visa is meaningless.
> Imagine, if you will, applying this standard to, say, speeding.
I see no reason why this is comparable.
First you are lying. Second, noise is not an obstruction. It is ok and legal to produce whistles.
What is not legal is point guns at journalists, beat people who record you on the phones and shoot people in the back because they had phone in hand and you are frustrated. What is not legal is to throw pepper spray at people who are no threat. One gotta love the "they mass produce whistles" as a grave accusation while ICE men literally openly threaten to kill people who are no threat. Or kill them and then are proud of their murdering colleagues.
> I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest"
Yes, he had good speeches.
> without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
Lol, heavily armed cowards jump at observer, 8 on one, there is no resistance and then they call it resisting arrest.
> For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced? Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
ICE is basically a violent gang with impossible to reform culture. You dont hire gangmembers to do law enforcement. It needs to be abolished and people in it need to be banned from working in law enforcement.
This is an inaccurate description of what they are doing. For example Renee Good was actively blockading a street, by placing her car perpendicularly across it. Some may be engaged in observation, but that is not broadly the case, and organizationally, their apparent goal is to obstruct.
If she was trying to blokade the street she was doing a pretty bad job. A car goes past hers in the video where the murderer shoots her three times and calls her a "fucking bitch" while her corpse weights down the gas and her SUV goes careening down the road.
That's just normal law enforcement behavior though. I'm sure if she hadn't been short with him he would've otherwise been well-behaved and enforced our immigration laws without incident.
> despite majority support among their constituency
Oh, that's one blue state; right? What do the rest of Americans think?
> The Economist/YouGov poll, 55 percent of respondents said they had “very little” confidence in ICE, while 16 percent said they have “some” confidence in the agency. Sixteen percent said they have “quite a lot” of confidence in ICE and 14 percent said they have “a great deal.”
> Democrats overwhelmingly support eliminating ICE (76% vs. 15%), as do nearly half of Independents (47% vs. 35%). Most Republicans (73%) continue to oppose abolishing ICE. Only 19% of Republicans support eliminating the agency
What i saw on video is ICE executing 2 American citizens. The existing law already prohibits that, so what changes you're talking about?
I am talking about 8 USC chapter 12 subsection II (<https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/chapter-12>). This is the law that defines how immigration works in the US, and how illegal aliens are removed. ICE is the Federal agency assigned to the task of locating and removing illegal aliens. Even if you don’t like that illegal aliens are being removed, it is illegal to try to prevent a federal agent from doing just that. Instead you should be trying to change the law so that the job doesn’t exist.
Can you quote the part of 8 USC chapter 12 subsection II where it says you get to murder everyone you disagree with?
which part of the immigration code lets ice agents kill citizens?
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You can't invoke self-defence against someone filming with an iPhone.
Don't be ridiculous. This whole line of argumentation is embarrassing.
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Does murdering someone who is driving away from you prevent immediate harm to you? Uncontrolled moving vehicles with bricks on the accelerator are very dangerous.
Self–defence is extremely limited in scope. Basically, if someone is about to stab you, you can do anything necessary to prevent that stabbing. Self–defence doesn't include that after someone fails to stab you and runs away, you can shoot them while they are running away. It doesn't include revenge. If you shoot someone who fails to stab you and runs away, it is murder like any other shooting. Self–defence doesn't include shooting someone who invades your house and isn't currently trying to hurt you, that is castle doctrine.
Why change? I've just randomly clicked through, and it is a good law, for example :
(1) Right of counsel
The alien shall have a right to be present at such hearing and to be represented by counsel. Any alien financially unable to obtain counsel shall be entitled to have counsel assigned to represent the alien. Such counsel shall be appointed by the judge pursuant to the plan for furnishing representation for any person financially unable to obtain adequate representation for the district in which the hearing is conducted, as provided for in section 3006A of title 18.
When you're saying that ICE is executing that law, are you saying that the guys sent to that Guatemala prison were afforded that right of counsel and were given a lawyer? Or anybody else in those mass deportations.
I also couldn't find in that law where it makes it legal to randomly catch dark skinned people on the street, including citizens.
There are two conceptions of law currently in the US. The first is what we see on TV, with lawyers and judges and law enforcement attempting, most often successfully, to apply a set of rules to everyone equally.
The second conception of law is what the federal government is doing now: oppression of opponents of the powerful, and protection of the powerful from any harm they cause to others.
We are currently in a battle to see which side wins. In many ways the struggle of the US, as it has become more free, is a struggle for the first conception to win over the second. When we had the Civil War, the first conception of law won. I hope it wins again.
I think the two can be called "rule of law" or "rule of men". I would have thought more people would support "rule of law".
It was always people who ruled, it's just more apparent when the people who rule are bullies itching for a fight, who care even less about the appearance of consistency.
For moral accountability, it should always in the end be "I say", not "the law says". No one should "just be obeying orders", they should make choices they can stand behind on their own judgment, regardless of whether some group of possibly long dead legislators stood behind it or not.
The extraditions are of people who have already had a hearing and are subject to a final order of removal.
That is just simply not true as was illustrated by many stories in the news. And in particular why would the ICE then use that checklist - young, Latino, tatoos ... -> gang member to extradite (to Guatemala).
And what final order of removal were for example the US citizens picked by ICE subject to?
US citizens were extradited? Who? To where?
Invariably someone will shoot back with "citizen children of illegal immigrants."
Sure, that happens a lot despite Court orders to the contrary.
ICE has also deported full adult citizens, eg: Pedro Guzman, Mark Lyttle, etc.
Currently there's a running problem simply having access to the names and files of those that disappear into the ICE Gulag.
How many other developed countries in the world allow tourists to unconditionally birth citizens?
allow to birth? Only God does that. US does entice tourists by granting citizenship to anybody born on US territory. If you don't like it - change the Constitution. If you aren't changing it, then you want it for some reason.
Edit: to the commenter below - what "moral" has to do with the Constitution provision? I mean beside the general understanding that Constitution is a law and following law is in general a moral thing, and that US Constitution was generally an attempt to write a good moral thing.
I first have to ask: do you personally think it makes sense that couples can enter the US illegally, remain in the US illegally until a child is born, and have that child automatically become a citizen? Do you think it is moral? Why?
But just to clarify, GP was asking you whether that particular path to citizenship exists in other developed countries.
> ICE has also deported full adult citizens, eg: Pedro Guzman, Mark Lyttle, etc.
Per your sources, these happened in 2007-2008, so that hardly seems relevant to the current discussion. Trump is not responsible for law enforcement overreaches that occurred under GWB.
> Currently there's a running problem simply having access to the names and files of those that disappear into the ICE Gulag.
What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
> Why change? I've just randomly clicked through, and it is a good law…
Since you’re being deliberately obtuse, I will spell it out further.
See “8 U.S. Code § 1226 - Apprehension and detention of aliens”, which says this:
(c) Detention of criminal aliens
(1) Custody
The Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who—
(A) is inadmissible by reason of having committed any offense covered in section 1182(a)(2) of this title,
(B) is deportable by reason of having committed any offense covered in section 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii), (A)(iii), (B), (C), or (D) of this title,
(C) is deportable under section 1227(a)(2)(A)(i) of this title on the basis of an offense for which the alien has been sentence [1] to a term of imprisonment of at least 1 year,
(D) is inadmissible under section 1182(a)(3)(B) of this title or deportable under section 1227(a)(4)(B) of this title, or
(E)
(i) is inadmissible under paragraph (6)(A), (6)(C), or (7) of section 1182(a) of this title; and
(ii) is charged with, is arrested for, is convicted of, admits having committed, or admits committing acts which constitute the essential elements of any burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, or assault of a law enforcement officer offense, or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person, when the alien is released, without regard to whether the alien is released on parole, supervised release, or probation, and without regard to whether the alien may be arrested or imprisoned again for the same offense.
This is a long sentence, but I think you will agree that it is fundamentally very straight forward. It says that “the Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who [meets any one of this list of criteria].” Obviously the country is too big for the Attorney General to do the whole job themselves, so they have delegated it to ICE. Before ICE existed the job was done by the INS. As long as this law exists someone must be doing this job at all times. It’s required. It would be unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to ignore the law and not assign the job to anyone.
Therefore anyone who thinks that illegal aliens should not be deported should not be harassing ICE. They should be looking to _change the law_. Harassing ICE won’t change the fact that what they are doing is simply required of the Executive Branch by Congress.
> When you're saying that ICE is executing that law, are you saying that the guys sent to that Guatemala prison were afforded that right of counsel and were given a lawyer? Or anybody else in those mass deportations.
Absolutely. You’ll have to follow up on individual cases, but anyone who has had a Final Order of Removal entered against by by a judge is supposed to be immediately deported as soon as they are picked up by law enforcement. By the time that order is issued they have already gone through the court process and had all the due process that the Constitution requires. The fact that they evaded deportation, or were deported and later reentered the country illegally, does not get them a new trial. The existing order still applies and they are still inadmissible and deportable.
> I also couldn't find in that law where it makes it legal to randomly catch dark skinned people on the street, including citizens.
Notice that the law does not limit _where_ law enforcement can enforce the law. They can pick people up off the street, or at work, or at school, or at home, or anywhere. Skin color likewise is irrelevant. Keep in mind that the majority of illegal immigrants have “dark skin” simply because most illegal immigrants come across our southern border from countries where the average skin tone is darker. That’s not evidence of racism.
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> The people in these groups are coordinating for a specific reason: to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs. That’s textbook Obstruction of Justice. It is illegal to prevent an officer from doing their job.
If that's the case, then why has no one been prosecuted on those grounds?
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She was fully within her legal rights, as has been pointed out many times by US civil rights lawyers including those that have successfully defended MAGA people deplatformed during the past administration.
Your "assumption" is simply incorrect.
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She didn't refuse to move. She was filmed turning away, slowly and carefully.
Stop trying to lie about this. The video is clear, and far too many people have seen it by now.
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More specifically, right-wing agitators joined the chats and posted screenshots online.
In what way are they "agitators"?
You know, they're dangerous radicals who believe that in general, borders exist, and that immigration law should be enforced. Look at them, "agitating."
Can you explain where immigration law justifies murdering innocent bystanders?
The Pretti shooting has been ruled a homicide, by the way.
> The Pretti shooting has been ruled a homicide, by the way.
A homicide isn't a "ruling" in court, it just describes the manner of death. We all saw several ICE agents shoot this man. It's a homicide.
"ruled a homicide" is a "ruling"
No it hasn’t. Cite a link if you have one.
Ah yes, enforcing border laws means you: kill American citizens, intimidate at political events, tear gas protestors, and brutalize citizens anonymously with a mask.
No one falls for this bullshit except right wingers with a very fucked up media diet. ICE is a secret police force that is being used for more than just immigration enforcement, obviously. Their budget is now bigger than some countries entire defense budgets.
EDIT: oh and don't forget that ICE is going to the Winter Olympics in Italy as a security detail. So much immigration enforcement, you wouldn't even believe!
Reading the comments on this is the first time I've hoped that most HN comments are made by bots.
nah, HN comments have always been this flavor of awful.
This is one of the reasons it's crucial that the next set of secure messaging systems does away with tying real phone numbers to accounts.
One phone gets compromised and the whole network is identified with their phone numbers.
You still need to use your phone number to sign up, though.
> You still need to use your phone number to sign up, though.
Which defeats the whole point. What if the FBI politely asks Signal about a phone number?
All they'd learn that way is that that phone number has a Signal account, when it was registered, and when it was last active. In other words, it doesn't tell them whether it's part of a given Signal group. (See https://signal.org/bigbrother/.)
They publicly publish these requests. You can see how little information is provided — just a phone number and two unix timestamps IIRC.
https://signal.org/bigbrother/
I might be misremembering or mixing memories but i remember something about them only storing the hash of the number.
So the FBI cant ask what phone number is tied to an account, but if a specific phone number was tied to the specific account? (As in, Signal gets the number, runs it through their hash algorythm and compares that hash to the saved one)
But my memory is very very bad, so like i said, i might be wrong
It would be absolutely trivial for the FBI to hash every single assigned phone number and check which one matches. Hashing only provides any anonymity if the source domain is too large to be enumerable.
Brief research says that Signal does store phone numbers.
Regarding hashing: while unsalted phone number hashes would be easy to reverse then I doubt that any hashing scheme today is set up like that.
You don't even need to think about how the hashing scheme and salt is set up. If Signal can check if a phone number matches the hash in any reasonable amount of time (which is the whole point of keeping a hash in the first place) then the FBI can just do that for all phone numbers with very realistic compute resources once they get Signal to cough up the details of the algorithm and magic numbers used.
Well, Signal would have to disclose the salt of course.
If the Signal Messaging LLC is compromised, then "updates", e.g., spyware, can be remotely installed on every Signal user's computer, assuming every Signal user allows "automatic updates". I don't think Signal has a setting to turn off updates
Not only does one have to worry about other Signal users being compromised, one also has to worry about a third party being compromised: the Signal Messaaging LLC
Signal Messaging LLC is US-based and needs to follow CALEA[1] by law.
Hiding your phone number is a setting now. Has been for well over a year.
You can't sign up without one, and it being an option means people who are in danger won't do it.
Also, if someone's phone is confiscated, and you're in their Signal chats and their address book, it doesn't matter if you're hiding your number on Signal.
It's better to just not require such identifying information at all.
That's true for any system where you have contacts linked. Same thing happens when you have names and avatars.
If you don't want to link your contacts... don't link your contacts...
But this doesn't have the result that the GP claimed. The whole network doesn't unravel because in big groups like these one number doesn't have all the other contacts in their system.
For people that need it:
| Settings
|- Chat
| |- Share Contacts with iOS/Android <--- (Turn off)
|- Privacy
| |- Phone Number
| | |- Who Can See My Number
| | | |- Everybody
| | | |- Nobody <----
| | |- Who Can Find Me By Number
| | | |- Everybody
| | | |- Nobody <----
| |- App Security
| | |- Hide Screen in App Switcher <---- Turn on
| | |- Screen Lock <---- Turn on
| |- Advanced
| | |- Always Relay Calls <-----
If you are extra concerned, turn on disappearing messages. This is highly suggested for any group chats like the ones being discussed. You should also disable read receipts and typing indicators.
Some of these settings are already set btw
I would imagine that the issue that people have here isn't so much that you can hide from other users, but whether or not you can hide your information from the company behind Signal. I'd assume that if you can't hide from the company, then you can't hide from the US government. We know that you can extract messages from a compromised phone because they aren't encrypted at rest. Which I guess would mean that even if you have disappearing messages and similar, your messages could proably still be extracted from a group chat with a comprimised user in it.
If we go full tinfoil, then do you really trust Apple and Google to keep your Signal keys on your device safe from the US government?
It's probably not that bad, but I do know that we're having some serious discussions on Signal here in Europe because it's not necessarily the secure platform we used to think it was. Then again, our main issue is probably that we don't have a secure phone platform with a way to securely certify applications (speaking from a national safety, not personal privacy point of view).
Signal's messages are encrypted at rest though? Because Android and iOS are both full disk encrypted.
I do agree with that when you can't hide from the company, you can't hide from the US government either.
Regarding attacks, even if your current app is e2ee then this could be subverted by simply updating it to a newer version that isn't. Yet another is that when somebody gets full control over your phone, then no system will protect you as the device is functioning as intended (showing you the messages), it just doesn't know that it's no longer the owner of the phone reading them.
Can you easily sign up without a phone number though?
Keep in mind that with secure messaging, if the other side gets compromised, your chats with them are compromised. This seems obvious, but with signal groups of a large size, they're effectively public groups. Signal insists on using your phone number too, refusing user ids or anything that will make analysis hard.
Don't use Signal for organizing anything of this sort, I promise you'll regret it. I've heard people having better luck with Briar, but there might be others too. I only know that Signal and Whatsapp are what you want to avoid. Unless your concern is strictly cryptographic attacks of your chat's network-traffic and nothing more.
> Signal insists on using your phone number too, refusing user ids or anything that will make analysis hard.
That is no longer true, you can use user IDs now.
For the other problem, you can enable self-deleting messages in group chats, limiting the damage when a chat does become compromised. Of course, this doesn't stop any persistent threat, such as law enforcement (is that even the right term anymore?) getting access to an unlocked phone.
No cryptography will protect a group that allows a traitor to join. The fundamental problem is vetting, and you really just can't do that remotely.
It can protect the identity of the members, though.
Apparently, one member of the group uploaded a personal photo as an avatar.
I've also heard of side-channel attacks on Signal that could allow for profiling a user's location, which with the FBI's resources could presumably eventually result in identification.
Sure, I was not talking about Signal. Something like Bitmessage[1] can.
What is it like in the US these days? I'm on the outside (occasionally) looking in, and it looks like something out of European history class! The ice seem to have roughly the same priorities and roughly the same methodology as the SA had in the beginning.
Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is saying. But I'm curious to hear Americans view on matters?
As a European I'm also somewhat confused. I always thought that the reason the second amendment was made into such a big deal was because Americans felt they needed to be able to protect themselves in case the government ran amok.
Isn't this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk?
Stuff seems rough over there, if they actually are, take care everybody! Also please tell me how things actually stand inside the US cause it's making very little sense right now.
People are experiencing wildly different Americas depending on their circumstances and level of political involvement.
If you're a tech worker and you still have a job and you think AI is pretty cool and you don't follow news very closely, things seem okay...ish. You are maybe dimly aware of some social problems, but they're all somebody else's problems.
If you're one of the many many thousands of people who have been abducted by federalized lunatics, or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps, things seem urgently and unimaginably bad.
If you're politically involved, things seem tenuous, at best. You likely know someone who either feels justifiably terrified by what's going on, or someone whose life has been seriously impacted by it.
I've spent several months successfully combating one of YC's contributions to all this mess. Tonight, federal law enforcement fired pepper rounds, flashbangs, and tear gas into a crowd of protestors who were noisy -- not violent, not even causing property damage, just noisy. One of the officers aimed the tear gas weapon directly at a protestor's head and caused a serious head injury (the kind that causes convulsions and foaming at the mouth after impact). And, they'll get away with that.
The local police department was flying half a dozen drones directly over this, but they are only there to surveil and look for an excuse to put on riot gear.
There were an assortment of reporters there, but most of them have editors or owners that won't run much of a story about any of it. A few politicians showed up, but they made a short speech and then left immediately. The building where this all happened is in a city center, so, just a block away, life and traffic continues as normal and most people are entirely unaware.
So that's also why nobody's really been making an organized 2A effort either. For most people, this isn't "real", in the sense that it isn't something they're experiencing, and for those that are experiencing it, they're trying to walk a tightrope that resists the current administration without spiraling into a widespread civil war.
> in one of our concentration camps
As a European, I find the use of "concentration camp" to be a very strong word. Trump and its administration are often touted as a Nazi and such. How much of this is hyperbole, and how much of this is real?
Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US?
Note: this is not snark to defend Trump, I'm French and I could not care less. I genuinely want to understand. I feel like the Nazi lexical field is much much weaker in the US, and people are more eager to use it over there than here in Europe.
I think maybe OP was using the traditional definition of the word, and hopefully not trying to imply we have Treblinka’s across the US.
But there is some cause for concern regarding the detention centers and the lack of oversight.
For example, even Congress members have to provide 7 days of notice if they wish to visit a center [1]. So, the only real oversight is from the executive. And these centers are often ran by private companies somewhat notorious for bad conditions and lawsuits related to bad conditions / civil rights violations.
Here’s a story about where we’re holding families and children:
Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US?
It is often useful to differentiate between "concentration camps" and "death camps" or "extermination camps". The Nazis had both. Some of their concentration camps were focused on concentrating and detaining people, some of them also systematically killed them -- they are not the same. If you fail to make this distinction, then saying "America has concentration camps" could make it sound like they're running extermination camps.
The US does to my knowledge not yet have those, nor as large-scale application of concentration camps as Germany did, and whether you even want to use the term "concentration camp" rather than something more like "detention facility" is up to you, but the federal government certainly has camps where people detained by ICE are being concentrated. Sometimes they are also subject to human rights abuses and/or die there.
Thats a textbook concentration camp. You are correct in your descriptions and distinction from extermination camps, concentration camps are not that rare even these days around the world in troubled places.
They are as name suggests just to herd bunch of people behind the fence, not much more. Of course, the reasons are usually far from nice and thus due to at most OKish treatment even there some sad things happen due to amount of people crammed together for a long time.
In Europe during WWII we had tons of concentration camps all over conquered Europe but only few were actual extermination ones, usually converted/expanded from concentration ones. When allies were coming nazis often turned concentration -> extermination due to orders given from above.
Thank you for the clarification!
I do agree that there are three slight between "concentration", "death", and "extermination" camps when speaking about Nazi Germany. In France virtually only "concentration" is used in history classes as an umbrella term for all three. It's only very recently (less than 5 years) that I've seen people start to use the more nuanced term. (as an example, any French will tell you that Auschwitz is a concentration camp while it was, in fact, a death camp).
Yet I stand behind what I said about the word "concentration camp" be a strong and heavy word, since those were integral part in the final solution.
I'm not denying that the US has detainment camps akin to the "gentlest" camps from Nazi Germany, far from it. However, I fail to see the difference between e.g. the East Montana one and a large-scale 5k inmate prison, other than it's less regulated than a federal/regular prison thus with more abuse, and filled with regular people instead of criminals. According to the linked Wikipedia articles, the camp has been dubbed after the Alcatraz prison (known for all sorts of violations).
I may be wrong, and they may be indeed set up by ICE and the government to torture and kill the immigrants. I have a hard time to believe it though, as making a detainment camp to frighten and push immigrants to "go back" would me much more effective and less controversial. My guess would be the intent is the latter form of facility, but ends up being the former due to being staffed with ICE and not professional prison crew.
At any rate, even having detainment camps for non-convicted civilians is already too much. We're quick to point fingers at China and their labor camps for Uyghurs, but this is on the way. (as with the Nazi discussion, this is still far from what china does: ad-vitam detainment, children born in captivity, forced sterilization of people, forced religion, etc).
>even having detainment camps for non-convicted civilians is already too much.
How do you suggest enforcing immigration law when millions have entered your country illegally? (If you believe in enforcing it all.)
Fellow European. They are not death camps, but what information does come out of them does sound a lot like concentration camps, already prior to Trump coming to office.
These are all stories about the facility the 5 year old toddler from last week is kept, a facility known as "baby jail".
The first nazi concentration camp was founded in 1933, gas chambers and systematic killing were only added in 1941 when the "final solution" was implemented. Those last four years are the most well-known period, but for the majority of Hitler's rule concentration camps were just what it says on the tin: camps where undesirables were concentrated. Places that became overcrowded, hotbeds for disease, labor camps and places of medical experimentation. Plenty of people died there even in that period, but from causes like illness, work accidents, malnutrition and bad medical care.
ICE detention centers are not comparable to a 1942 nazi death camp, but comparisons to a 1939 concentration camp seem apt
> The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people.
First concentration camps were create right after the election 1933 and the gas chambers were not invented yet. They were used against political opposition first, minor criminals second and only then Jews/homosexuals/etc. The regime had to consolidate power and invent the gas chambers first. The deportations, general violence, arrests on made up excuses, exclusion of jews and opposition from public life happened at the beginning.
Trumps rhetoric against Somalis in particular has strong echoes. So does the strategy of arresting and beating people on ethnic membership only.
> Nazis were systemic against a religion
Kinda yes kinda no. Religion was competitor against power ... but klerofascism was a thing. The pope was kinda neutral. And then you have places like Slovakia where catholic church priests were not just facilitating holocaust, but literally leading it. Religion was fairly frequently anti-semitic itself.
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Then you need better reading glasses, unless you killing of two innocent people is actually people guilty or illegals.
While one of these seems like an accident where the officer may have some blame, then both of them can be avoided if you don't behave aggressively or don't show up with a gun at a protest. I.e, bad things sometimes happen, but they are not the situation you wish it to be.
I’m no fan of guns but showing up with a gun is not illegal or criminal in itself that deserves instant death sentence. So you might want to introspect what you’re saying here.
Neither is showing up to a bank with a gun. Yet a robbery is likely to have much more severe consequences if you are armed.
It's funny how people use the lawfulness argument for carrying a gun to protest, but don't use the same argument against deporting illegals.
I have introspected this thoroughly. What I'm saying is if you're confiscated a gun in some highly urgent situation, then the people doing the seizing get even more tense in their mental state, so accidents are easy to make.
While it may be worth it to investigate the situation and there may some blame on the officer, then the allusions people are making (perhaps not you) are completely out of whack.
I'm sure it's inconvenient if your party or candidate lost the presidential election, but you shouldn't turn to lying for retribution.
> If you're one of the many many thousands of people
Correction, criminal illegal aliens. Some false positives have occurred and those people get released. Stop lying.
> or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps
I must be one of those comfortable and oblivious tech workers because I don't know about any concentration camps in the US. So you'll have to tell me what this is about.
I believe this[0] article shows the other side of that door. To clarify, I believe the seeming lack of justice system involvement is what chafes for most.
There aren’t Nazi-style extermination camps in the U.S., but an extermination camp is just a subset of concentration camps. There are large-scale immigration detention facilities, with 60k+ people on any given day, where tens of thousands of people are held without criminal trials. Enforcement often targets identity proxies like race, accent, neighborhood, sweeps up citizens and legal residents, uses expedited deportations with effectively suspended habeas, and operates with extremely limited judicial oversight and blatantly ignores judicial rulings.
These are concentration camps, or at least so close that I’m rhetorically OK with it. All of the famous concentration camp programs of history started the same way. And there’s always an excuse for why “no no no, our program is different, these people are illegal, we have to operate like this (suspended legal rights and oversight) to stop the bad people, it’s not targeted by race/religion/etc it’s just the bad people all happen to be like that…”
> Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things?
If you think what you've seen is bad, consider how bad the stuff you don't see is, and then consider how bad it is for those who aren't the type to post on HN.
Also consider that there are 340 million people in the US. With that sort of population size, you can construct whatever narrative you want out of daily video clips of 1-in-a-million events.
>the type to post on HN.
When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site? The userbase here is considerably further left than a very left-wing state such as California. That will very much be reflected in what gets posted here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791909
> When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site?
Today, several. They made themselves known in several threads related to recent events.
It's against the guidelines to call out posts/posters, but you can use the HN Algolia to list the most popular threads from this week/month and you'll see plenty of them.
I think it should be fine for you to link a few "I support Trump" comments from the past week? Note that believing the Trump administration is correct on a particular issue, or that they are being unfairly criticized, is not the same as advocating that people vote for Trump. I wasn't able to find anything I would consider actual Trump support from a quick skim of recent threads. I don't believe I've ever seen it on HN.
Or perhaps people can support deportation of illegal immigrants without being a "Trump supporter".
Yeah, but what he's doing to the country is so much worse than illegal immigration that it would be silly to bring it up.
>When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site?
Many in this very thread, actually.
>The userbase here is considerably further left than a very left-wing state such as California.
Considering any fixture in American politics "very left-wing" is already an indicator of how skewed right the perspective is. The signature policy goal of the stereotypical "far-left" American politician (Bernie Sanders) is a government healthcare system already present in many countries around the world, including many less developed than the US.
Most techies are libertarians and/or moderates. They definitely live in liberal hot spots, but they aren’t going out of their way to address social wrongs and protest. Heck, most Californians are moderate, mostly concerned about making money and living the good life, the only reason they are called liberal at all is because Pete Wilson alienated most of the states Hispanics from the Republican Party in an ill planned illegal immigration witch hunt. It didn’t just go from Reagan to Newsom overnight, the change was mostly for anti-racism reasons.
California is also hardly a far left state, it still has more trump voters than Texas.
I don't think HN is representative of techies, especially not when discussing politics.
unrelated tangent, sorry. i agree with your comment, just ranting/venting about a detail.
> a very left-wing state such as California.
seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are depending on who you ask. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!
> The userbase here is considerably further left
can't agree, from my own experiences of discussing political topics on here. again, socially open, free minds, sure. but positive towards Silicon Valley, VC-funding, investments and a general lean towards Imperialism(for freedom, of course, not the bad kind). yes, overtly racist comments get downvoted until they're dead.
"further left than very left-wing" could be the description of an anarcho-communist, self-hosted mastodon instance, not a US state.
sorry for being pedantic, and maybe wrong. please show me y'alls POV, i'm not saying that i'm right, it's just kind of my opinion, man.
>seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are between US and Euro. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!
California is considering a wealth tax which is already causing billionaires to flee the state.
It's the Europeans who want us to ship more weapons to Ukraine.
> It's the Europeans who want us to ship more weapons to Ukraine.
well, you chose the one "good" example, where weapons are actually used for defense against a different Imperialist. what about the money going towards the Palestinian Genocide? what about other wars/invasions/operations, started or backed by Democrats/Bi-Partisan support.
> California is considering a wealth tax
a one-time tax of 5% on the net worth of residents with over $1 billion, bunch of commies!
some decades ago, wealth tax was a high, double-digit number.
even so, do you think a one-time 5% wealth tax is enough to be called very left-wing?
>well, you chose the one "good" example, where weapons are actually used for defense against a different Imperialist.
It's interesting that in the conflict you have the greatest familiarity with, you support greater US involvement. In other conflicts, you appear to fall back on simple thinking like "dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad".
I would suggest that many Americans have internalized the simple message Europeans have been sending for years: "dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad". And that's why we lack enthusiasm to help Ukraine. We know helping Ukraine will be added to our rap sheet as supposed warmongers.
Personally I am quite envious of the Swiss, and think a Swiss foreign policy would be very good for the US. We have to stop trying to take responsibility for what is going on in other continents. Dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad -- in Ukraine, Israel, everywhere really.
>even so, do you think a one-time 5% wealth tax is enough to be called very left-wing?
You can’t have a genocide where the population increases.
That's the problem with trying to put political opinion on a one dimensional scale. California is definitely very far left wing on the matters that concern the discussion at hand, that is illegal immigration and law enforcement actions related to it.
California isn't "very left-wing". It's liberal, centre-left if you're being kind. The democrats are a centre-right party with some mildly-leftist pockets of members.
I am pointing out that HN is not very representative of the US political spectrum, and opinions about what's going on in the US will be filtered based on that. You're largely just hearing from one set of partisans here.
By US standards, California is very left-wing. International standards are not super relevant. (I'm also a bit skeptical of the cliche that the Democrats are a right-wing party internationally. For example, Obama endorsed Trudeau in Canada. But again, not super relevant.)
Democrats are (or were) considered "right wing" on some stuff and really "left wing" on other stuff. It's really futile trying to compare the political parties with different incentives internationally and putting a single left/right wing label on them.
Democrats were also just a big tent party for a long time, with more 'real right wing' members than 'real left wing' members, maybe that's the reason for the platitude.
Use of 2nd amendment rights to combat government overreach is an outright declaration of rebellion. Cross that line and you are no longer playing rebel. If you dont have enough people behind you it will not go well.
The second amendment as a serious option for a regime reset button was always a fantasy.
This federal government would happily take a lesson from the Chechen wars and use ballistic missiles against a rebelling city if the chips were down. Any 2A fans have their own Patriot missile defense systems? No?
> The second amendment as a serious option for a regime reset button was always a fantasy.
This federal government would happily take a lesson from the Chechen wars and use ballistic missiles against a rebelling city if the chips were down. Any 2A fans have their own Patriot missile defense systems? No?
If it's that easy, why did we spend 20 years in Afghanistan only to suffer defeat by goat herders holding AK-47s?
A quick review of the last 100 years will educate you on the viability of asymmetric warfare.
There are plenty of examples of asymmetric warfare where the stronger party crushed the weaker one. WW2 was full of such examples. People point to Afghanistan and Vietnam as if they apply in every situation, for some bizarre reason (I assume motivated reasoning).
The rebels (against the American regime) were all rural, ballistic missiles weren’t very effective when your enemy is wandering around the desert coming in out of rural Pakistan.
To get rid of the libs…they live in dense cities, trump would just have to lob a missile at Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Austin, etc…it’s a war he can actually win quickly. Heck, why do you think it’s so easy for him to sh*t stir right now with a few strategic ICE surges. It’s easy when 90% of the left in Minnesota lives in one urban area.
The NATO forces defeated the Taliban in a timeframe that could be measured in hours. The remaining years were an exercise in nation building, there was never “defeat.” The military simply isn’t the right tool to lift a nation out of poverty and eventually the voters got bored.
In Vietnam, the US was fighting an army backed by the Soviet Union and China that had anti-aircraft and artillery.
No, the US insurgency would turn into a Grozny unless the insurgents get backing from China or some other serious player.
I don’t think it’d be easy to get a Chinese ABM to Minneapolis without anyone noticing.
What could happen in this scenario would be either local military defecting or guerrilla warfare while the US military targets them from afar. You can easily bomb anyone back to Stone Age in hours, but taking control of the ground can be a lot more challenging if the locals don’t cooperate.
Anyway, a full-on civil war is a very unlikely - and undesirable - scenario.
Think of a rebellion as national "unbuilding" and you get some idea of how things might go.
If things get that hot, there will be substantial defectors and various state and federal security services fighting each other.
Lol thats so untrue, are we already at the phase of rewriting this recent history?
US and coalition held Kabul (mostly) and their bases, and that was about it. Rest of the country was lets say contested territory, never really conquered, never yielding to Kabul government or coalition.
Ambushes, attacks, suicide bombers were daily grind. Not really conquered territory, is it.
Whether it was or wasnt defeat - when you see soldiers desperately running away from the country in a very similar fashion that happened in Vietnam, I struggle to not describe it as a full military defeat. The fact that it was orchestrated by politicians doesn't change much.
[deleted]
> Isn't this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk?
It was never really a practical idea, more a sort of latent threat that has proven to be ineffective. Also, yeah, the "don't tread on me" folks mostly aren't very principaled and don't mind authoritarian actions so long as they're dressed up right. Obama wants a public healthcare option? How dare the government institute Death Panels to decide who live or dies! ICE shoot random protestors? That's what they deserve for "impeding" and "assaulting" law enforcement.
The Second Amendment was written so that the US could avoid having a standing federal army and quickly gather up defense forces from States as necessary when attacked. It was thought that having a standing army would lead to bad incentives and militarism. Just like the Executive branch only has enumerated powers, with all main governing functions belonging to Congress. The founders were worried about vesting too much power in one man, so made the President pretty weak. Of course, we've transmogrified ourselves into a nation primed for militarism and authoritarianism by slowly but surely concentrating power into one station. Exactly what the Constitution was written to prevent. I guess they did a bad job.
> The Second Amendment was written so that the US could avoid having a standing federal army and quickly gather up defense forces from States as necessary when attacked.
Too narrow. It secures an individual right, not a federal mobilization clause.
> Isn’t this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk?
Only if you think the second amendment is an on demand partisan defense force. It is not. It is a personal guarantee and a reserve of capacity, not a subscription service where “second amendment supporters” are obligated to show up on cue.
> It was never really a practical idea, more a sort of latent threat that has proven to be ineffective.
“Latent” is largely the point. Deterrence is not measured by constant use, and a right is not refuted by the fact that strangers do not take on extreme personal risk to prove it to you. The first line checks are still speech, courts, elections, oversight. This right exists for when those fail.
> Exactly what the constitution was written to prevent. I guess they did a bad job.
If power has drifted, enforce the constraints. It is the second amendment, placed immediately after speech and assembly, not the third or the tenth. Do not redefine the right into irrelevance and call that proof it failed.
As a footnote, it was also written at a time when a bunch of guys with muskets could face down another bunch of guys with muskets. When one side has tanks and attack helicopters and training and outnumbers you a hundred to one it doesn't really work any more.
That would explain why it was so easy for the US to suppress insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan...
It's actually rather difficult to think of tyrannical regimes which persisted against an armed citizenry in the long term.
Especially when you consider the US citizenry have direct access to logistics and infrastructure. You can't bomb a city or factory into producing more fuel or bombs or any of the million other things that are required to keep the US economy working well enough to fund any military operations. It would be hell on earth to be in the US, but the US military/ICE/cops/courts don't work if the citizenry aren't being productive and playing along nicely.
Is armed with knives enough?
Presumably it isn't, and you'd need a certain minimum level of technological parity with your tyrants.
Presumably that also isn't fixed. So even if rifles might have been sufficient in the early US even though the government had cannons, rifles may not be sufficient when the government has chemical weapons and armored cars.
So where's the industrial base which makes the weapons? Or the money to buy the weapons? For Iraq, Afghanistan, and for that matter in lots of conflicts the US weren't involved in (or were involved in on the anti-government side!) the answer seems straightforward enough: in foreign countries which also don't like your government. Without a bunch of neighbors and rival powers which really didn't want the US in Iraq/Afghanistan, could the insurgents have done much?
Who do you propose should arm the resistance in the US, if government supported "police" paramilitaries run amok? (Let's for the sake of argument not get into whether that has happened yet). It's going to have to be quite an impressive level of support, too, to stand up against systems developed precisely against that sort of eventuality and battle-tested in the US' sphere of influence.
> Is armed with knives enough?
It depends on the numbers. Do they have 100,000 guys with guns but you have a hundred million with knives? Then you have a chance. But your chances improve a lot if your side is starting off with something more effective than that.
> Presumably it isn't, and you'd need a certain minimum level of technological parity with your tyrants.
You don't need parity, you need a foothold to leverage into more.
> So where's the industrial base which makes the weapons? Or the money to buy the weapons?
In a civil war, you take the domestic facilities and equipment by force and then use them. But first you need the capacity to do that. Can 10,000 guys with knives take a military base guarded by a thousand guys with guns? Probably not. Can they if they all have guns? Yeah, probably.
Then the government has to decide if they're going to vaporize the facility when you do that. If they don't, you get nukes. If they do, now you have a mechanism to make them blow up their own infrastructure by feigning attacks. And so on.
> Can they if they all have guns? Yeah, probably.
Heck no, they can't. Even if they could, the government's advantage isn't just in weapons. Long before you'd get your 10000 people with their gun safe stash together, they'd know exactly who you were and what you were planning.
I think your proposal reads like bad power fantasy fiction. You can resist a powerful authoritarian/occupying government with force, but not without a lot of foreign backing - like in Iran right now - and I don't think you are prepared to ask the Russians for help. It would of course open a huge can of worms if you did, and you'd be right to ask if the world where you win with such support will even be better than the world where you lose.
> Heck no, they can't.
Well that settles it then.
> Long before you'd get your 10000 people with their gun safe stash together, they'd know exactly who you were and what you were planning.
It's almost like anonymity and private communications tech belongs next to weapons on the list of things needed to resist authoritarianism.
> not without a lot of foreign backing
Why does it require any foreign backing whatsoever? You're not going to do it if you're three people, but a civil war is when some double digit percentage of the country is on the other side. You don't think that's enough people to supply substantial domestic resources?
Look, I don't want to be mean because if you're in the US right now you're in a situation which sucks. But that situation of 10000 people with guns seizing a military base to bootstrap an effective civil war, is just so absurd I don't even know how to begin.
You're right, private communication is an essential tool of resistance, more important than any weapons. But if you start buying up old Blackberries to give to your kids and all your friends, don't you think that gets you on a watchlist in itself? Not only should your 10000 people have guns to take on a military base, they should have impeccable infosec too?
Pretty much all civil wars in history had foreign backing for one or more sides. It seems no one ever had enough domestic resources to confront the domestic resource control machinery - which makes sense when you think about it. Though the more optimistic way to look at it was that if you had that level of control, you'd win without a civil war.
Knives are basically obsolete technology in military terms. Firearms are not obsolete; that's why almost every soldier (or "paramilitary") carries one. Your technological parity point is technically correct, but it doesn't really apply here.
There are more privately owned guns than people in the US. We are already profusely armed.
I'm not contesting that you're armed. I'm not contesting that guns can still be "useful". But not in resisting a government with anti-"insurgence" drones battle tested against various levels of resistance from Palestine to Ukraine to Afghanistan.
The Afghans won - not without foreign support, by the way - against a foreign occupying force, in the end by promising a lot of amnesties to people who had been working with the occupying government, and convincing them to turn en masse. Promises which they from what I understand, mostly kept. They fought for years and died in droves, then they suddenly won "without firing a single shot", figuratively speaking, with diplomacy directed at their own countrymen. I'm sure there are some lessons to be learned there for resisting your own government too there, but I really only mentioned them as a place where anti armed insurgence technology has been extensively battle tested by the government you're considering picking a fight with.
the insurgencies in Afghanistan at least were difficult to suppress because they based of out pakistan, a supposed american ally and notable nuclear power.
to actually do the job of taking out the taliban would require going into pakistan to stop them in their bases.
in iraq, the insurgency was the former iraqi military, not just random citizens with small arms
That however is a political issue, not a military one.
Given free rein the military absolutely can do that.
If the US military wasn't willing to simply flatten cities all over Iraq and Afghanistan, why would you expect them to do that in their own country to their own homes and family members?
Because Iraq or Afghanistan weren't threatening the man in power. Just take a look at what is currently happening in Iran if you wonder what happens when the local authority fears the crowd.
I would say Iran is a much better illustration of what happens when your citizenry is disarmed. The crowd isn't very scary. They don't pose a real threat. There's little risk in crushing them. They can't fight back meaningfully.
If you don’t care about how many you kill, these kinds of insurgencies can be ended. I don’t think the US Armed Forces could be convinced to attack their fellow Americans but if they did it would be worth remembering that the Warsaw Uprising ended poorly for the uprisers.
This is not like Ukraine where there are lots of underground manufacturing facilities.
If you tried building drones to stop US tanks and IFVs then the Californians would tell you that your factory needs to first go through environmental review. By the time the review is done the war will be lost.
> If you tried building drones to stop US tanks and IFVs then the Californians would tell you that your factory needs to first go through environmental review. By the time the review is done the war will be lost.
this would very obviously not be the case if California needed them for war, or had been in on again off again war already for a decade
I don’t think it’s that obvious. The US was delayed in building shells for Ukraine because they couldn’t scale up production at a factory on account of it being historically listed. It’s been 10 years since Ukraine was first attacked in Crimea and we’ve been involved on again off again.
Californians frequently will tell you that we’re in a housing “crisis” and then oppose all housing. I’m sure when another crisis arrives it’ll be different.
What’s the other “crisis” popular as a cause in California? Climate change? Man, this state must be at the forefront of fighting it then. Oh what’s that? Ah, wind and nuclear opposed by local homeowners. I see, I see.
Oh yes, when the next crisis arrives I’m sure it’ll be different. We’re just waiting for a real crisis, guys. Any second now.
Ukraine is taking out tanks and helicopters, as well as infrastructure daily, using 3D printed drones and AliExpress electronics.
Not suggesting anyone tries it, but modern warfare has evolved. Just like the tanks changed warfare in WW1, and tanks/planes changed warfare in WW2, drones are changing warfare once more.
a $10000 drone took out a multi million dollar Russian warship, and while not exactly 3D printed (at least not all of it), drones are cheap enough to manufacture to be expandable, especially if they can target and destroy things that are not that.
For comparison, a single cannon/mortar shell fired on the Ukrainian front costs €3500, and they fire up to 10000 of them per day. Making a few hundred $10000 drones is cheap compared to that, and while they likely don't hold the same "barrage level" destructive power, they are focused weapons and can destroy much more with less.
Have you seen expensive tanks and helicopters being taken out by 500$ drones? No? I have a surprise for you
It also applied to other things existing at that time, like warships, canister shot in cannons or machine guns.
I see a lot from the left about how right-wingers are supposedly hypocritical on gun control. However, concrete examples of hypocrisy are rarely provided. In terms of actual concrete statements, what I'm seeing from gun rights people like Thomas Massie and the NRA is consistent with previous stances:
I'd say the left is actually much more hypocritical. Just a few years ago they had essentially no issue with the government taking everyone's guns. Now suddenly they understand the value of an armed citizenry as a final last resort against tyranny, something the right has understood for years, and then they start calling the right "hypocritical"...
The NRA is not a very honest or good gun association, their immediate statement was quite different:
> “For months, radical progressive politicians like Tim Walz have incited violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs. Unsurprisingly, these calls to dangerously interject oneself into legitimate law-enforcement activities have ended in violence, tragically resulting in injuries and fatalities.
(they then go on to say "let's withhold judgement until there's an investigation" despite them passing quite extreme judgement, with a direct lie, and getting their judgment extremely wrong when there was lots of video showing it wrong when they posted...)
In light of their large change of attitude, the initial critiques were quite correct.
In another Minnesota case, they refused to defend a gun owner that was shot for having a gun, despite doing everything right when stopped by police.
Other gun associations besides the NRA have been more principled and less partisan.
Rep. Massie is barely a Republican, he's pretty much the only one willing to go against Trump on anything. Right now the Republican party is defined by one thing only: slavish obedience to Trump. For Republicans' sake, and the sake of the Republic, I hope that changes soon.
I don't see inconsistency between the two NRA statements. Your interpretation seems imaginative/unsupported.
Gun rights people understand that owning a gun comes with certain responsibilities. The accusation of "hypocrisy" seems to be based on a cartoon understanding of gun rights from people on the left. Find me a gun rights person who previously claimed that resisting arrest while armed is all fun and games.
Always being able to come up with some exception [0] doesn't mean that you're not being hypocritical, it just means that you've tricked yourself into being unable to see it. For another incident that resulted in a widespread display of hypocrisy, look at the public reactions to what happened when Kenneth Walker exercised his right to night time home defense - one of the basic scenarios the NRA is always rallying around. But I'm sure you've settled on some coping excuse for that one as well.
The real thing you need to understand is that this fascist movement will always find some grounds to characterize its targets as worthy of othering. If (when) you get tripped up by it, no amount of conforming or having supported it is going to redeem you in the mind of the mob. Rather it's going to be people just like yourself condemning you.
[0] this one seemingly based on an outright shameless lie of "resisting arrest"
I have no opinion on Kenneth Walker. I'm just annoyed by what I see on social media -- people claiming hypocrisy without any supporting evidence. The flip side of your "exception" point is that you have to actually understand what the person said, and what they believe, before you claim hypocrisy... something that lefty activists in the US largely have no interest in doing.
> I'm just annoyed by what I see on social media -- people claiming hypocrisy
Fixed that for you.
(If you had made a concrete point, I would have sought to understand and address it. Instead you basically just did a wordy version of "nuh-uh")
All I want people to do is link to evidence of hypocrisy when they claim it. Argue with an actual person instead of your hallucination of them. Was that too much to ask?
You say hallucination, I say reasonable prediction based on past behavior.
It wasn't too much for you to ask, but apparently my response was too much for you to handle. I brought up Kenneth Walker precisely because that was a situation for which the dust settled long ago and so we don't need to make such predictions. But to this you merely said "I have no opinion"
You then went on to poison the discussion with your own preemptive "I'm not listening" nonsense - "something that lefty activists in the US largely have no interest in doing"
Perhaps it might shock you, but some of us opposed to this regime are actual principled libertarians. I'm a gun owner who actually believes in the natural right to keep and bear arms. My opinion of the NRA is that its main function is fundraising from the gullible, which is why they can't avoid leaning into the culture war bullshit.
>You say hallucination, I say reasonable prediction based on past behavior.
You're also welcome to make a prediction, but label it as a prediction rather than a statement of fact.
Apparently you only address non-substantive points that you can nitpick. So I guess we're done, unless you'd like to go back and do your homework.
To me, this is the substantive point. It's about intellectual honesty. That's the key thing for me.
From my perspective, most of what you're saying is either (a) not substantive/outright disingenuous, or (b) I don't have much to add. If there is a particular point you really want me to respond to, you're welcome to highlight it and I will consider responding (but honestly probably not, for the reasons I gave).
It's not hard to find examples.
"You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple."
- Kash Patel
“I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign."
- Kristi Noem
“With that being said, you can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t.”
-Donald Trump
And are these really 2nd amendment advocates to begin with?
They don't strike me as principled people in general.
That's MAGA, which is the overwhelming majority of the right in the United States.
If you mean to say that officials in Trump's administration are hypocritical, then say that. But many are accusing thousands of rank-and-file gun rights supporters of hypocrisy on a thin to nonexistent evidence base.
Here's how one gun rights group responded to some of the statements you quoted:
Massie is the odd man out out of 1000s of Republican politicians in being willing to publicly criticize his own party. He is very not typical. Everybody else marches in lockstep with whatever insanity trump puts out.
PBS: "Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into fatal Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti"
> Now suddenly they understand the value of an armed citizenry as a final last resort against tyranny, something the right has understood for years
What? I thought it was pretty clear that I don't consider an armed citizenry to be doing us any good. The government can take the guns, I don't give a shit. It should also stop arming Police and other goons. We can all slug it out in the streets with batons ;)
It's confusing and messy, like most of American history.
Most cosplayers exit when they meet a real villain
> As a European I'm also somewhat confused. I always thought that the reason the second amendment was made into such a big deal was because Americans felt they needed to be able to protect themselves in case the government ran amok.
Americans, yes - not illegal immigrant invaders. As it would turn out, American citizens aren't ready to die for these people just yet.
The man killed was not an illegal or immigrant
Nobody said he was? Are you in the right thread?
I'm wondering pretty much the same thing ...
The news media is not saying a lot of what is happening. So if anything you are missing some of the insanity.
Minneapolis has 0.1% of the total USA population. It is to the USA as Dresden, Lisbon, or Genoa is to the EU in terms of population.
While ICE is mass deporting people nationwide, the murders of citizens and general mayhem they’re perpetrating are primarily just in Minneapolis.
2A supporters are mixed. Some genuinely outraged at the gov, some just making up reasons to support Trump anyway. Following the definition of conservatism, liberals are the group the law binds but does not protect, and they are the group the law protects but does not bind.
In the US, Republicans managed to stack the judicial system with acolytes in a well organized, long term operation over years. They broke rules to steal Supreme Court seats, giving them a majority. They control all branches of government. In that situation, the president has massive power to do what he wants. So he is.
Trump doesn’t really seem to care about any issue really. He’s not much of an ideologue. But his advisors certainly are. Stephen Miller is an open fascist who’s playing Trump like a fiddle and loving every minute of the chaos.
But for most of those of us lucky enough to be citizens, most of the time, we’re just dealing with institutional dysfunction exacerbated by Federal dysfunction. Funding cuts, broken commitments, uncertainty.
We also are all seeing the Federal government pre-emptively brand the citizens it’s new gunning down in the street every two weeks or so “domestic terrorists” and posing with signs saying “one of ours, all of yours,” and so on. So it’s very clear that the government is now building right wing paramilitary forces to try and intimidate us. Clearly that’s not working too well in Minnesota, however!
Liberal Americans overall are:
1. Disgusted with Trump et al
2. Keeping relatively calm and carrying on, because he genuinely did win the popular vote in a free and fair election
3. Figuring out constructive ways to deal with ICE, pressure the Democratic Party to pick better candidates, and thinking about how to protect elections in 2026 and 2028.
On a day to day basis, life feels normal where I live, for me, for now.
What you describe seems to fit the term 'Dual State', and you live your day to day life in the normative state. I hope foe your sake you don't get much contact with the prerogative one.
Interesting, that was a work I wasn't familiar with.
It doesn't feel like you keep calm 'because he won the elections'. It's either that citizens can't do much in the US, fear of getting killed is real especially when disobeying police orders, or, you aren't too affected by Trump's actions to act.
The point is that the overwhelming majority of the country isn’t facing down ICE brutality right now, not the way Minneapolis is. So yes, most are much less immediately and violently affected by Trump. Hence, calm.
The question I was getting at is why those of us disgusted by Trump are protesting less vigorously, despite his government being much worse this time around. It’s a phenomenon widely noted.
For me, that largely comes down to the fact Trump not only won 2024 fair and square, Biden really was manifestly not up to the task of governing. Biden, and careerist Democrats hoping to ride on Biden’s coattails to another term in the White House failed utterly at the critical moment.
A democracy or republic isn’t guaranteed to deliver good governance. The primary goal is to enable peaceful transitions of power.
Trump is threatening that, explicitly. But how to actually address that threat is less clear.
In 2016, we were outraged to see a turd like Trump win. But at that time, the story wasn’t about electoral threats and fascism, it was his disgusting personal character.
The election threat only really manifested on Jan 6. It failed, he exited office, and was facing prosecution. It looked potentially done and dusted, and like the Democrats in federal government were successfully dealing with the problem, as is their role. We were ridin’ with Biden.
Then they slow walked the prosecution that mattered. Biden got on stage to debate Trump and we were absolutely horrified. Then we noticed how vacant he was at other public appearances. It was “my god, he’s not just sleepy, he is incapacitated, and they’ve been lying about it to us for who knows how long?”
Then there was the last ditch effort to field Kamala instead, another weak candidate who wasn’t even liked in the Biden admin. That was pathetic.
So we got Trump. And it wasn’t “we could have had ultra-qualified Hillary, but we got this POS from out of nowhere” like in 2016. It was “holy shit, I am extremely disappointed in my own party.” Nothing added up. We lost trust in our own party and leadership, and it hasn’t come back. Nobody’s excited for any Democrat. We all just know Trump’s gotta go and we’ll line up for Any Democrat (TM). But that doesn’t mean we are proud to do so. It’s a bitter, demoralizing pill to swallow.
Of course fundamentally, we are dealing with all the normal politics problems. Bad voting system, fake news, social media brainwashing, economic illiteracy, checked out voters. American presidential history (and its history as a whole) is full of depressing candidates and terrible shit, political violence, and disenfranchisement we’ve only even approximated eliminating for the last 61 years, since the Voting Rights Act.
So I am hopeful that in the grand sweep of things, we will pull through and keep finding ways to make progress. I think the main thing right now is to keep your energy, hope and belief in the future. They’d like to take that away, and I just won’t let them.
It's bad, we are living under Hitler 2.0 in every single sense of the word. He admires Hitler and says he keeps Hitler's books by his nightstand.
That said, do not rely on a single or even a few Americans for insight into what is going on, as you might get a wildly different perspective from each one, as a consequence of the billions of dollars put into generational propaganda and subliminal mind control out here. We are a nation divided.
> Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is saying. But I'm curious to hear Americans view on matters?
The US media is downplaying things because they are terrified of Trump, who now has either direct or indirect control of most of it.
If you're talking about EU media, I can't assess, but I did see a clip of an Italian news crew getting harassed in Minneapolis that's fairly accurate.
It's bad. Really bad. I never thought this would happen in the US. But it's also inept. Really inept. Minnesota is super-majority white, but has taken great pride in being a home for refugee communities, and has gained many from around the world. Minnesotans are, of all the places I've lived in the world, the most open-hearted, caring, and upright moral I've encountered as a group. Hard winters make people trust community. The Georgy Floyd murders, and the riots afterwards, have made communities very strong as they had to watch out for each other, there were no police that were going to come.
For this area with hundreds of thousands people, there are only 600 cops, but 3000 ICE/CBP agents swarming it, a HUGE chunk of their forces. Yet people self-organized to watch out for their schools and their neighbors. Churches serve as central places for people to volunteer to deliver meals to families that can not leave the house due to the racialize abduction of people. Several police chiefs have held news conferences where they say in so many words "You know I'm not a liburul but my officers with brown skin are all getting harassed by ICE when they're off duty, until the show that they are cops, and that's pretty bad." A Republican candidate for Governor withdrew his candidacy because he felt he couldn't be part of a political party that was doing such racialized violence against his own people, and his job was literally to be a defense lawyer to cops accused of wrongdoing!
The deaths are so tragic, but because Minnesotans have been so well organized, so stoic, so non-violent, it fully exposes ICE/CBD for the political terror campaign that they are. That the entire endeavor has nothing to do with enforcing the law, it's all about punishing Minnesota for being Minnesota, for its politics, for its people. If the legal deployment of cameras and whistles and insults and yells is enough to defeat masked goons who wave guns in people faces, assault non-violent people with pepper sprays directly to the eyes, and tear-gas canisters thrown at daycares, then these stupid SA-wannabes are not going to win.
I live in a coastal California bubble that's even whiter than Minnesota, but here we are all rooting for Minnesota. I was talking to another parent today at the elementary school, an immigrant from Spain, a doctor, whose husband is from Minnesota. They are rethinking their choice of staying in the US.
The second amendment thing was always a charade. There are a few people that think it's for protection from the government, but what they really mean is it's for shooting liberals. There's no grander principle. There are a bunch of people that enjoy guns as a hobby, and support the 2nd amendment for that. But we all know that the time for armed defense against the government is only when you're in a bunker in woods or when you're storming the capital to overturn an election because you've been tricked into saying it's a fraudulent election.
They are buffoons, as the Nazis were, but they are very unpopular buffoons and I think the past week shows that after a few more years of grand struggle, normal americans will win. It will be hard. We need to have truth and reconciliation afterwards, and the lack of that after the Civil War and after January 6 are huge causes in today's struggles.
I'm just glad Minnesota is defeating ICE/CBP, as many states would give in to violence faster, and many states would give up faster.
Tremendous post. Is there anything people in other parts of the country can do to help in Minnesota?
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Outside of a couple of outlier cities, is business as usual. Deportations have been occurring for much longer than Trump has been president. It's just in the news now because Democrats want to make a spectacle out of it.
Most people want illegals removed.
To put things in perspective, US is a massive country. All this news is coming from one tier 3 city. (Roughly speaking LA, NYC etc being tier 1. Seattle, Dallas etc being tier 2)
While being the focus, Minnesota is not the only place it's happening. For example, ICE took at least 15 people in the Los Angeles area today[1].
That article is from a local food publication that has largely shifted to covering all ICE behavior in the greater LA area. It's a good place to get a better picture of the kind of stuff that has just become background noise to the degree that it doesn't make the news elsewhere. People could also throw a few bucks their way if they think documenting this is important.
And I'll point to a single example from 13 hours ago[2] for the "the deporting of illegal immigrants is not oppression" type of people like that other commenter. Just a video of a nameless person, taken who knows where, for who knows what, screaming and crying out. This just doesn't make the news, but it's happening countless times every day all over the country in the name of the American people.
Twin cities are 16th largest metro, between Tampa/St. Petersburg and Seattle/Tacoma.
Yeah it’s a slightly blurry line. What metric are you using? I’d say Seattle is way ahead of Minneapolis in terms of economic influence.
> What is it like in the US these days?
For the average American citizen, status quo.
For the scofflaws and illegal immigrants, the realization that accountability for their actions might be right around the corner must be unnerving.
People aren't shooting yet because they know it will turn into a blood bath and should only be used as a last resort. Also as bad as it is in some areas, vast swaths of the US are still only really seeing this in the news. I think the outcome of whats going on in Minnesota will be a sign of whats to come so we won't be waiting long. If citizens start shooting at government employees though, it will be chaos, the US population has had a VERY negative attitude about the government for a long time now.
It’s ironic to me that a European such as yourself would sit comfortably in a context where people are being regularly arrested and jailed for statements made online, in the UK and Germany, particularly, and look elsewhere to find oppression.
The deporting of illegal immigrants is not oppression - it’s fundamental to a free society that a people have the right to determine who may enter into and participate in their society.
This is simply not true.
Some people are investigated because they spread lies, insults and threats. Things that would be investigated (and punished) as well, if done "off line".
The freedom of speech does not mean "freedom to harass, threat or insult people".
The oppression of free speech seems to be happening much more in the USA, where you are not allowed to criticize the politics of the ruling party any more.
You should look up the number of lawsuits German politicians dish out for being criticized online. Funded by the tax payer of course.
Except it does mean exactly that if you have money
This misses the point of how "deportation", snatching of those from communities and decision-making for whom is illegal is actually occurring, and how people are being snatched with disregard to their actual state as a citizen, resident or otherwise of the United States of America.
When facial recognition is said to outrank any other proof, such as a birth certificate, one cannot claim to be operating in good faith when one allows for fallible systems to decide the lives of American citizenry, encourages false imprisonment and allows for violence to be recklessly committed against people who were guilty of no crime at all.
(also, the United States and Canada are alike in their statuses as countries formed of immigrants; we close the door now simply because we feel those coming today are ineducated or don't fit our racial preferences? No different than was done to Chinese people say a hundred years prior.)
Is any law enforcement guaranteed to be exactly correct? No, because every person is fallible, and every system is made up of fallible people. This is why we separate arrest (police) from trial (judge) and judgment (jury), to mitigate those risks.
To malign a system because it is imperfect is to be unrealistic. Surely, we should minimize those harms, but they are not a reason to abdicate our laws.
There's a difference between honest mistakes and gleeful assholery.
These things are not being separated though. Your agents are executing citizens in the street. This is not about illegal immigration at all. It's just straight up oppression.
Deportation of illegal immigrants happened in the previous administrations and nothing like the current chaos unfolded.
I grant that some people protesting against the raids are likely doing that because they don't want illegals to be deported,
but I suspect most of the pushback is against the way this whole thing has been set up and the way agents handled the encounters with protesters so far, leading towards a spiral of distrust and a polarization of the issue.
There seems to be an indication that many of the ICE agents have been insufficiently trained to perform police work in a proper and safe way. and instead behave very aggressively. The abuse of racial profiling is making non-white citizens (including native Americans!) feel unsafe too. To make things worse, there is a loud group of people who are cheering the though guys from the sidelines/armchairs.
People who share those concerns are not necessarily pro-illegal immigration. I know things can be done differently because they have been done differently.
But in this case, one political movement is leveraging the deportation rhetoric to rile up their base, providing another political movement the ammonito to call them tyrannical and riling up their base, which in turn causes the first movement to justify their aggressiveness as counterinsurgence.
This doesn't lead to a good place and it has nothing to do with the fact that the country deserves a sane immigration policy.
The current immigration situation is utterly broken, but it has become such over time (and has many complicated facets) but the idea that this can be fixed in a haste by applying lunt force is the product of a new low point in politics.
If you want a case study in Silicon Valley fascist tendencies, this douche Empact is perfect.
He's spent his life in a society where immigrants, without papers and with, have served his every need. And then you can check out his crappy linktree about his (sic) "wholistic" approach to investing.
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FYI, as a center left from a European perspective that is a beautiful picture of just how right-leaning American politics is. The Democrats is such a big tent it contains pretty much the complete political spectrum in Europe, but for the actuall politics they have been doing, at least regarding economics (excluding identity politics) they are pretty solid right / center right from a European perspective.
From another European perspective I think it says more how absurdly left leaning European politics have become. The US is much more in line with historical norms as well as with non-western societies today.
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I would probably argue the opposite, given that Y Combinator is a venture capital firm. This would be more true for Lobsters than here.
(Edit: to go further, it's like... ok, if HN is far-left, what does that make Bluesky? What does that make the Fediverse? It feels almost reductive to compress the range of HN onwards down to "far-left".)
Discussion on this site has little to do with Y Combinator. You see people railing against big tech billionaires every day here.
Bluesky is pretty close to being fellow travelers for the userbase here. If you do a comment search for "bluesky" you can see most comments are neutral or positive. HN might be a bit more genteel in how they discuss things, but there are many users here whose politics are pretty similar to what you find on bluesky.
With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced, it won't take more than a few minutes for FBI to start taking actions, IF they had anything tangible.
This is just an intimidation tactic to stop people talking (chatting)
I'm never sure why people assume that Palantir is magically unlike the overwhelming majority of tech startups/companies I've worked at: vastly over promising what is possible to create hype and value while offering things engineering knows will never really quite work like they're advertised.
To your point, but on a larger scale, over hyping Palantir has the added benefit of providing a chilling effect on public resistance.
As a former government employee I had the same reaction to the Snowden leaks: sure the government might be collecting all of this (which I don't support), but I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
Incompetence might be the greatest safety we have against a true dystopia.
Because Snowden, agree with him or not, showed us that reality blew away our imagination.
It may feel normal now, but back then, serious people, professionals, told us that the claims just were not possible.
Until we learned that they were.
Until that moment, the general sentiment about the government and the internet is that they are too incompetent to do anything about it, companies like Microsoft/Apple/Google/Snapchat are actually secure so lax data/opsec is okay, etc.
Meanwhile, the whole time, communications and tech companies were working hand in hand with the government siphoning up any and all data they could to successfully implement their LifeLog[1] pipe dream.
> Until that moment, the general sentiment about the government and the internet is that they are too incompetent to do anything about it
In 2008 I worked with a retired NSA guy who had retired from the agency 5 years prior. He refused to have a cellphone. He refused to have a home ISP. Did not have cable tv, Just OTA. He would only use the internet as needed for the work we were doing and would not use it for anything else (news, etc). He eventually moved to the mountains to live off grid. He left the agency ten years before Snowden disclosed anything.
An example like that in my life and here I sit making comments on the internet.
I question the wisdom of that path though. Like yes the government can probably read a lot of your stuff easily, and all of it if they really want to. But why does that mean you have to live like a medieval hermit in a hut in the mountains?
I have opinions but at the end of the day I'd rather live within the system with everything it has to offer me, even knowing how fake a lot of it is. Living in remote huts is just not that interesting
Maybe he wanted that regardless (remote hut life), and this was just a final push for change. I can see myself, under different circumstances (no family) to enjoy such life and hardships (and simplicity) it brings, at least for some time.
If NSA employs primarily some high functioning people on spectrum or similar types, which often don't work well in societies with tons of strangers, then moving off is also not the worst idea if one has enough skills and good equipment to not make it into constant hellish survival.
Sounds like a guy who doesn’t enjoy the internet or cellphones. Shit, my grandparents never owned a computer, paid for internet, had cable tv, etc.
Are they suspicious of the government? No, just poor and uninterested.
That was not the sentiment, at least not in my experience. There was a far more pervasive and effective argument - if somebody believed that the government is spying on you in everything and everywhere then they're simply crazy, a weirdo, a conspiracy theorist. Think about something like the X-Files and the portrayal of the Lone Gunmen [1] hacking group. Three borderline nutso, socially incompetent, and weird unemployed guys living together and driving around in a scooby-doo van. That was more in line with the typical sentiment.
People don't want to be seen as crazy or on the fringes so it creates a far greater chilling effect than claims that e.g. the government is too incompetent to do something which could lead to casual debate and discussion. Same thing with the event that is the namesake of that group. The argument quickly shifted from viability to simply trying to negatively frame anybody who might even discuss such things.
dont worry lifelog was cancelled in 2004 according to that wiki. Phew!
The very same day Mark Zuckerberg's "The Facebook" launched. A total coincidence, with zero evidence that the two are related in any way whatsoever ;)
> Snowden, agree with him or not, showed us that reality blew away our imagination.
pretty much everything Snowden released had been documented (with NSA / CIA approval) in the early 80s in James Bamford's book The Puzzle Palace.
the irony of snowden is that the audience ten years ago mostly had not read the book, so echo chambers of shock form about what was re-confirming decades old capabilities, being misused at the time however.
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Considering the US military has historically had capabilities a decade ahead of what people publicly knew about, anyone who said it just wasn't possible probably wasn't a serious professional.
Which claims? HN around that time was taking anything and everything and declaring it conclusively proved everything else.
I honestly have no god damn clue what was actually revealed by the Snowden documents - people just say "they revealed things".
Why are you asking here, versus going to Google and reading the original article from The Guardian? Or the numerous Wikipedia links that are on this page?
that takes effort :)
Because saying "experts said things were impossible and then Snowden" could mean literally anything. Which experts, what things?
Like I said: I've read a ton of stuff, and apparently what people are sure they read is very different to what I read.
You can read about PRISM, Upstream, FAIRVIEW, STORMBREW, NSA Section 215 (PATRIOT Act) in a lot of places. But essentially they collected all call records and tapped the Internet backbone and stored as much traffic as they could. It’s not all automatic but it’s overly streamlined given the promises of court orders. Which were rubber stamped.
Again: which experts were saying what was impossible, which was then revealed to be possible by the Snowden documents?
Is the claim that there was adequate court oversight of operations under those codenames which then turned out not to be the case? Are they referring to specific excesses of the agencies? Breaking certain cryptographic primitives presumed to be secure?
Why is absolutely no one who knows all about Snowden ever able to refer to the files with anything more then a bunch of titles, and when they deign to provide a link also refuses to explain what part of it they are reacting to or what they think it means - you know, normal human communication stuff?
(I mean I know why, it's because at the time HN wound itself up on "the NSA has definitely cracked TLS" and the source was an out of context slide about the ability to monitor decrypted traffic after TLS termination - maybe, because actually it was one extremely information sparse internal briefing slide. But boy were people super confident they knew exactly what it meant, in a way which extends to discussion and reference to every other part of the files in my experience).
What I learned in that revelation was that the NSA was deliberately tampering with the design of products and standards to make them more vulnerable to NOBUS decryption. This surprised everyone I knew at the time, because we (perhaps naively) thought this was out of bounds. Google "SIGINT Enabling" and "Bullrun".
But there were many other revelations demonstrating large scale surveillance. One we saw involved monitoring the Google infra by tapping inter-DC fiber connections after SSL was added. Google MUSCULAR, or "SSL added and removed here". We also saw projects to tap unencrypted messaging services and read every message sent. This was "surprising" because it was indiscriminate and large-scale. No doubt these projects (over a decade old) have accelerated in the meantime.
You know how it's considered a kind of low-effort disrespect to answer someone's question by pasting back a response from an LLM? I think equivalently if you ask a question where the best response is what you'd get from an LLM, then you're the one showing a disrespectful lack of effort. It's kind of the 2026 version of LMGTFY.
If you still want a copy-paste response to your question, just let me know – I'm happy to help!
Incompetence could also be incredibly dangerous given enough destructive willpower.
They're not trying to use the data to act efficiently (or in the public good for that matter), and they sure as fuck don't want you to see it. They're trying to make sure that they have dirt on anyone who becomes their enemy in the future.
I've often said we're recreating Brazil [1] instead of 1984. It's an excellent film if you haven't seen it btw, and in many ways rather more prophetic and insightful than 1984. But the ending emphasizes that incompetence just leads to a comedy of absurdity, but absurdity is no less dangerous.
As for PRISM, it's regularly used - but we engage in parallel construction since it's probably illegal and if anybody could prove legal standing to challenge it, it would be able to be legally dismantled. Basically information is collected using PRISM, and then we find some legal reason of obtaining a warrant or otherwise 'coincidentally' bumping into the targets, preventing its usage from being challenged, or even acknowledged, in court. There's a good writeup here. [2]
> I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
Someone else on HN said it would be nice if the NSA published statistics or something, data so aggregate you couldn't determine much from it, but still tells you "holy shit they prevented something crazy" levels of information, harder said than done without revealing too much.
The NSA tried to do this during the Snowden leaks!
There were stories like "look at how we stopped this thing using all this data we've been scooping up"... but often the details lead to somewhat underwhelming realities, to say the least.
It might be that this stuff is very useful, but only in very illegal ways.
Secrecy enables several things, including:
- abuse
- incompetence
- getting away with breaking rules and laws
Sometimes, those are desirable or necessary for national security/pragmatic reasons.
For instance, good luck running an effective covert operation without being abusive to someone or breaking rules and laws somewhere!
Usually (80/20 rule) it’s just used to be shitty and make a mess, or be incompetent while pretending to be hot shit.
In a real war, these things usually get sorted out quickly because the results matter (existentially).
Less so when no one can figure out who the actual enemy is, or what we’re even fighting (if anything).
In addition to terrorist stuff, they are probably passing of bunch of stuff to the military or defense industry to do things like fine tune their radar to cutting edge military secrets.
Would be nice if we had some form of statistics in a way that wouldnt endanger any of the intel that just tells the general public "we dont just sit here collecting PB of data daily"
Any statistics that didn't endanger the intel would also be unverifiable and easily falsified, and therefore not particularly trustworthy for the proposed purpose.
You've never seen it because when it's efficient you won't see it.
If they throw out things like due process and reasonable doubt they can do a whole lot with the data they've collected.
That may sound hyperbolic but I hope it's obvious to most people by now that it's not.
They can do parallel construction or use "undercover" informants etc.
Fuzzy Dunlop (it's from The Wire). Their CI was a tennis ball (with an unauthorized camera inside).
> ... I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
It isn't usually a question of efficiency, it is a question of damage. Technically there is an argument that something like the holocaust was inefficiently executed, but still a good reason to actively prevent governments having ready-to-use data on hand about people's ethnic origin.
A lot of the same observations probably apply to the ICE situation too. One of the big problems with the mass-migration programs has always been that there is no reasonable way to undo that sort of thing because it is far too risky for the government to be primed to identify and deport large groups of people. For all the fire and thunder the Trump administration probably isn't going to accomplish very much, but at great cost.
>I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
As a former intelligence officer with combat time I promise you there are A LOT of actions happening based on that data.
doing Bad Things poorly is still doing Bad Things.
I see palntir as a techno whitewashing Mckinsey consultant. But the tech is there to make a much bigger problem than prior art, halucinations et al.
They are still dangerous even if theyre over promising because even placebos are dangerous when the displace real medical interventions.
Because palantirs selling proposition is: you can’t find the answers in your own data, but we can.
It sure would be convenient if they were always ineffective. Sadly there have been periods in history where governments have set themselves to brutality with incredible effectiveness.
No, incompetence is terrifying. No one wants to get caught in a machine driven by imbeciles who don't care about truth or honoring the Constitution.
Competence is also terrifying, but for different reasons.
Except you don't need to solve any remotely hard technical problems for the capabilities to be terrifying here.
I honestly tempt fate for fun to see how good police surveillance tech is the last few years.
I let one of my cars expire the registration a few months Everytime, because I'm lazy and because I want to see if I get flagged by a popup system Everytime a police officer passes near me. My commute car is out of registration 3 months right now. And old cop friend told me they basically never tow unless it's 6 months. I pay the $50 late fee once a year and keep doing my experiment for the last 6-7 years. Still no real signs they care.
My fun car has out of state plates for 10 years now. Ive been pulled over once for speeding, and told the officer I just bought it. I've never registered it since I bought it from a friend a decade ago. They let me go. It makes me wonder if one day they'll say "sir, we have plate scanners of this vehicle driving around this state for a year straight.. pay a fine." Not yet.
Cops use those systems to make easy arrests for things like active warrants, stolen vehicles and they feed into systems that keep track of where licensed vehicles are and when.
In a way that's worse, because the systems aren't looking up your car or to target your vehicle for fines, but to look up and target you for arrest.
Same systems can be used to identify, track and arrest undesirables.
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The algorithm was sorting punch cards and then putting the cards in different stacks on a table.
We can only hope that the surveillance state is still working with the same algorithm…
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The nazi transformation didn't happen over the course of half an hour. Or one election cycle, even. The history is rhyming pretty hard right now.
Hitlers security group that transformed a small section of the SS into brutal killing machines happened rather fast and that is what people are talking about when they are digging up the Totenkopf wearing brown shirts. These never existed in the United States of America and never will. Not even the modern day skin-head neo-nazi's or the neo-nazi militias could be compared. They would have been extinguished by the SS nearly instantly for daring to wear the insignia.
The brownshirts were actually the SA, a police force Hitler originally used for years to brutalize people before the formation of the SS. The SA are very similar to modern day ICE being made up of militant supporters (like proud boys, J6’ers pardoned) who are willing to commit violence without provocation or any fear of being prosecuted for their violence.
The SA was eventually hung out to dry, because Hitler feared Ernst Röhm had too much power (among other reasons)— by executing SA leadership during the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer)…
To say the violence of the SS was quick to be extreme really forgets the ten plus year road they took to get there. I’d really suggest, as disheartening and sad as it is, to read about all this yourself. The parallels between Nazi Germany and the US right now are astonishing. It’s almost as if someone in the White House is using history as a playbook.
Which sort of goes full circle since Hitler took a lot from how brutal and racist the US towards slaves and non-whites.
Yeah if deportation is now Nazism, then the Allies after WW2 were Nazis too for the millions of mass displaced persons to match new borders.
lol. came here to say pretty much the same thing.
I've generally held this position, but assume a sufficient combination of models could do a lot more than was possible before.
It's noteworthy at this point in time that there is a contradiction. The government is currently ramping up Palantir and they are using "precise targeting" of illegal aliens using "advanced data/algorithms". And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever.
Maybe now is exactly the right time to publicly call out the apparent uselessness of Palantir before they fully deploy their high altitude loitering blimps and drones for pervasive surveillance and tracking protestors to their homes.
(My greater theory is that the slide into authoritarianism is not linear, but rather has a hump in the middle where government speech and actions are necessarily opposite, and that they expect the contradiction to slide. Calling out the contradiction is one of the most important things to do for people to see what is going on.)
I think this is mostly because they don't care about false-negatives. They have forgotten the idea that our justice system was supposed to hold true to: "better a hundred guilty go free than one innocent person suffer" (attributed to Benjamin Franklin).
This can be seen in the case of ChongLy Thao, the American citizen (who was born in Laos). This was the man dragged out into freezing temperatures in his underwear after ICE knocked down his door (without a warrant), because they thought two other men (of Thai origin I think) were living there. The ICE agents attitude was that they must be living there, and ChongLy was hiding them. That being wrong does not cost those ICE agents anything, and that is the source of the problems.
Do you mean false positives? A false negative would be "we checked to see whether Alice was in the country illegally, and the computer said no but the actual answer turned out to be yes".
But they were wrong about the Thai people living there. That's the poster's point. Not that they don't care, but that they were wrong from the get-go because they don't actually have good information.
No, it's pretty clear they don't care and will never care.
They are two points and they are both true.
> And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever.
If the end goal is that the broad, general public are intimidated, then they're not necessarily "finding the wrong people." With the current "semi random" enforcement with many false positives, nobody feels safe, regardless of their legal status. This looks to be the goal: Intimidate everyone.
If they had a 100% true positive rate and a 0% false positive rate, the general population would not feel terrorized.
That's exactly what I'm saying though. I agree that their intent is manufacturing fear and uncertainty.
What I'm saying is that congress and the public should be holding them to their word and asking where all this Palantir money is going if the stated intent of "targeted operations/individuals" is completely misaligned with operational reality.
ICE/DHS are not NSA, they probably don't share efficiently. All the intelligence services are rivals and duplicate capabilities to some degree.
Maybe the wrong people are, in reality, precisely the people they intended to target.
> we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever.
Generally speaking, that is a tactic of oppression, creating a general sense of fear for everyone. Anyone can be arrested or shot.
> we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people
There is a difference between what you are seeing and what is actually happening.
99.9% of the time they are finding the right people, but "illegal alien was deported" is as interesting a news story as "water is wet".
They are going door to door in the neighborhood I grew up in.
They're bringing in a lot of US citizens here in Minneapolis/St Paul, including a bunch of Native folks.
The sex offender they'd been looking for at ChongLy Thao's house had already been in jail for a year.
The Dept of Corrections is annoyed enough about the slander of their work that they now have a whole page with stats and details about their transfers to ICE, including some video of them transferring criminals into ICE custody https://mn.gov/doc/about/news/combatting-dhs-misinformation/
I am pretty nervous about the possibilities for trampling peoples' Constitutional rights in ever more sophisticated ways, but the current iteration can't even merge a database and then get accurate names & addresses out to field agents. (That doesn't stop the kidnappings, it just makes it a big waste of money as adult US citizens with no criminal record do by & large get released.)
The evidence goes strongly against your claims.
[Citation needed.]
How does Palantir defeat Signal's crypto? I suppose it could be done by pwning everybody's phones, but Palantir mostly does surveillance AFAIK, I haven't heard of them getting into the phone hacking business. I think Israeli corps have that market covered.
My guess is that Signal has been compromised by the state for a very long time. The dead canary is their steadfast refusal to update their privacy policy which opens with "Signal is designed to never collect or store any sensitive information." even though they started keeping user's name, phone number, photo, and a list of their contacts permanently in the cloud years ago. Even more recently they started keeping message content itself in the cloud in some cases and have still refused to update their policy.
I can easily think of reasons why an intelligence agency might not want to act immediately against members of a group they're interested in, simply because they've managed to identify those members.
I'm sure that people who actually work in intelligence agencies could think of more reasons.
I'm far too lazy to go to a big protest or do anything terribly interesting, but at this point I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid publicly criticizing this administration. Palantir is weird and creepy and has infinite resources to aggregate anything that the government wants, and they could be building a registry of people who they're going to deem as "terrorist-leaning" or some such nonsense.
It's not hard to find long posts of me calling the people in the Trump administration "profoundly stupid", with both my "tombert" alias and my real name [1]. I'm not that worried because if Palantir has any value they would also be able to tell that I'm deeply unambitious with these things, but it's still something that concerns me a bit.
[1] Not that hard to find but I do ask you do not post it here publicly.
> I'm far too lazy to go to a big protest
Then you are part of the problem. Get off your ass and do something, before it's too late. FFS!
How exactly am I part of the problem? I vote in every election I'm allowed to vote in, I didn't vote for Trump, I donate to political organizations that support causes I believe in. Because I don't go outside and hold a sign that no one is going to read I'm enabling this? Get off your high horse.
My wife is a Mexican immigrant. She's a citizen now, but that doesn't appear to be something that matters to this organization. There is no way in hell I am going to put her in jeopardy just to go protest.
I admire your optimism. They already started killing civilians openly on the street in bright daylight.
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While we’re getting rid of the first amendment maybe we should also get rid of the fourth and fifth amendment too since they make law enforcement harder? I’m sure cops in North Korea have a much easier and safer job.
So are you saying that the first amendment should protect government insiders leaking personal employee info to the public for the purposes of endangering those government employees, and to cause harm to their families? based on subjective opinions on whether the people think the actions of said employees are just or unjust?
That's wild if so. That's quite the precedent to set.
Note: I don't support ice or their actions. nor do i support vigilante justice.
Government employee names are public information. What it sounds like is you want to keep that information secret, and maintain a literal secret police.
It is not surprising that people don't agree with you.
Not sure what you are talking about. License plate information that is plainly visible is not “personal employee info”.
> for the purposes of endangering those government employees, and to cause harm to their families?
Isn't this also subjective and depends on the information leaked.
Can't argue with their 110% conviction rate, North Korean tactics work.
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And protesting is not vigilante justice.
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The protesters aren't the ones doing that. Have you not seen the news?
There are protesters that are obstructing law enforcement. It is undeniable that such protestor exist and this HN thread is about going after those people.
The thread is about going after people on Signal who are tracking officer locations. There are entirely legitimate reasons to want that information including exercising your first amendment rights at that location.
And there are illegitimate reasons too like going there to obstruct law enforcement operations. Since there are people obstructing law enforcement, the mechanisms that which such groups of people operate need to be investigated.
That’s not the standard. It doesn’t matter whether there could be illegitimate reasons. There could also be illegitimate reasons for using Google Maps. It’s still allowed.
What matters is the intent of the people publishing the information, which the government will need to prove was illegal.
As part of an investigation Google Maps could be subpoenaed. It's allowed but there may be a need to investigate.
Oh no, not civil disobedience. The horror.
Yes, it is horrible for people to break the law. Glorifying it for protesting purposes is destructive to a civilized society and downgrades us to a third world country.
The protests are because the trump regime is breaking the law.
I see the problem here. So, actually, the ones in masks who are randomly assaulting (sometimes murdering) nonviolent bystanders are ICE, not the protestors. Hope that helps.
I am talking about protestors who obstruct law enforcement and their operations. Protestors who threaten regular people and law enforcement. Protestors who damage other people's property. Protestors who violate noiseordnance. Protestors who are trespassing.
I am not referring to actual bystanders. Implying that I am is purposefully being ignorant of what I am talking about.
4th amendment???! Osama killed that decades ago… they may as well take it off the books… Once we were OK having our junks touched to go from here to there the 4A effectively ceased to exist.
You only have rights you exercise. Don't let the cops trample on your rights. Though... this does seem to work better for white, rich, older dudes than for other people.
I’m reminded of (I think) people in Shanghai complaining that their posts about covid lockdowns were censored, saying “we have free speech”. And if you believe in universal rights, they’re right. They do.
The question is whether the government will respect and protect those rights or not.
I love that THIS is the post that gets me down-voted.
Thanks.
If ICE agents were actually in danger or subject to "vigilante justice", the administration would be CROWING about it SO LOUDLY we'd never hear the end of it. They're spending their entire working days searching for evidence of it. They can't hardly wait!
That's not what is happening here.
s/searching for/manufacturing
Remember, they're accusing the people they killed of heinous motives for their narrative. They can't find it, so they make it up. Keep filming, y'all.
Seems like citizens are the ones who need protection from law and immigration enforcement, considering the public executions we've all witnessed in the past week or so.
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Woof
“Citizens of law enforcement”
What a phrase
you're aware that LEO are citizens right? with rights as well?
If they completed their I-9
The comment was trying to replicate the same feelings as “people of color” but in regards to a lifestyle choice instead of an immutable characteristic, hence my flabbergasted statement at the audacity
the fine nation of law enforcement, which has only colonised the united states for its own good and to bring civilisation to the heathen masses
... that is correct.
The whole premise of the second amendment is about citizens being armed in order to resist/overthrow a government
Of course, if you're taking up arms to resist/overthrow a government, then you should be entirely anticipating that the government will shoot back. Or shoot first.
If protest is approaching/crossing the line into insurgency, people need to seriously consider that they may be putting their life on the line. It's not a game.
I'm pretty sure that if people are taking up arms to resist their government, things have already gone far enough down that path that they feel their lives are in jeopardy.
> Just this week there were Catholic PRIESTS who were advised to draw up their last will and testament if they were going to resist ICE in Minneapolis
Episcopal (the US branch of the Anglican Communion), not Catholic, and it wasn't conditioned on going to Minneapolis, it was a statement about the broad situation of the country and the times we are in and what was necessary for them, with events in Minneapolis as a signifier, but not a geographically isolated, contained condition.
Thanks for the feedback, you're right and I've (tried) to mark the incorrect stuff with what markdown would show as strikethroughs)
> How can you think it's a "game'?
Everything seems fueled by social media radicalisation, and the social media side of things is very much 'gameified', all about scoring likes/upvotes/followers (and earning real revenue) for pushing escalating outrage.
Which is VERY different to the discussion at hand.
Is it?
Good’s wife after yelling DRIVE BABY, DRIVE DRIVE and the fallout screamed at agents “Why are you using real bullets!”
These people seem to have thought it was a game.
She was unarmed when she was killed.
A vehicle can be just as deadly as a firearm. And vehicles had previously been used aggressively by the protestors.
There were claims (no idea if true) that the agent who fired the fatal shots had been dragged down the road and injured in a previous vehicle-based altercation.
If him being previously injured affected his mental state such that he needed to kill someone who was not presenting an immediate threat to life, he should not have been on duty.
Every police agency and training in the world will clearly explain that a vehicle is absolutely considered a weapon.
A single rental truck in Nice France killed more people than any mass shooting in the USA, ever.
Show me where the car was being used as a dangerous weapon.
In which case it's no longer relevant because nobody is going to overthrow a government that has nukes, tanks, drones, and chemical weapons using a hunting rifle or a handgun. The idea was cute enough back when the firepower the government had to use against the people was limited to muskets and cannons, but currently the idea of guns being used to overthrow a government with a military like the US is a complete joke.
Today you'll still find a bunch of 2nd amendment supporters insisting against common sense regulations because they need their guns to stop government oppression and tyranny yet you can open youtube right now and find countless examples of government oppression and tyranny and to no surprise those guys aren't using their guns to do a damn thing about any of it. In fact they're usually the ones making excuses for the government and their abuses.
There are reasonable arguments for supporting 2nd amendment and gun ownership but resisting/overthrowing the government is not one of them. That's nothing more than a comforting power fantasy.
>nobody is going to overthrow a government that has nukes, tanks, drones, and chemical weapons using a hunting rifle or a handgun.
The Chechens in the first Chechen war more or less did so by starting with guns and working up the chain via captured weapons. Eventually gaining complete independence for a number of years, against a nuclear power.
I think that it's fair to say that the military power Russia had in the 90s was very different from what the US has today. Even back then, as you say, the war still wasn't won with rifles and handguns. That isn't to say that what the Chechens accomplished wasn't impressive though.
Which is why Chechnya today is an independ... Oh wait.
Wow, in two comments we moved the goalposts from impossible to independence didn't last as many years as I'd have liked.
The text of the second amendment, as written, would seem to indicate that the premise of the second amendment is to arm "a well-regulated militia" (which was relevant to the government that adopted the second amendment, as it had no standing army).
It was basically crowdsourcing the military. We've been running through all the various problems with that idea ever since, including:
- oops, turns out not enough people volunteer and our whole army got nearly wiped out; maybe we need to pay people to be an army for a living (ca. 1791)
- oops, turns out allowing the public to arm themselves and be their own militia can lead people being their own separate militia factions against the government, I guess we don't want that (e.g. Shay's Rebellion, John Brown and various slave rebellions fighting for freedom)
- oops, turns out part of the army can just decide they're a whole new country's army now, guess we don't want that (the civil war)
- oops, turns out actually everyone having guns means any given individual can just shoot whomever they like (like in hundreds of school shootings and mass shootings)
- oops, turns out we gotta give our police force even bigger guns and tanks and stuff so they won't be scared of random normal people on the street having guns (and look where that's gotten us)
Honestly, the whole thing should've been heavily amended to something more sane back in 1791 when the Legion of the United States (the first standing army) was formed, as they were already punting on the mistaken notion that "a well-regulated militia" was the answer instead of "a professional standing army".
No it isn't -- that's an ignorant myth. Madison was the last person in the world who would have endorsed overthrowing his new government ... the Constitution is quite explicit that that is treason and the penalty is death. The first use of the 2A was Washington putting down the Whiskeytown Rebellion.
> In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army ... would be opposed [by] militia." He argued that State governments "would be able to repel the danger" of a federal army, "It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops." He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as "afraid to trust the people with arms"...
This was posited as the nice sounding reason for the second amendment, when the more accurate reason was to ensure citizens had guns to drive out the indigenous peoples and steal their lands.
We rather quickly saw the federal government rolling over the people even with weapons in the Whiskey Rebellion.
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I don't disagree.
But it's still very funny seeing the Right wrestle with "wait, the other team has guns?!" and "wait, Trump sounds like he wants gun control?!" right now when this claim has been the basis of their argument for decades.
To be fair, the right struggle with the argument every time it's put to the test.
I recall the 2016 shootings of Dallas Police Officers and the right were apoplectic about the individual
They wrestled with it for about 5 minutes, then got the memo, shrugged and resumed to deep-throat the boot.
Don't forget the very profound usefulness of a "well-armed militia" in putting down slave rebellions and catching escaped slaves.
In 46, Madison was discussing foreign danger in response to Hamilton in 29. but... thx for providing a citation. That's a much better response to downvoting.
>With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced
Palantir is SAP with a hollywood marketing department. I talked to a Palantir guy five or six years ago and he said he was happy every time someone portrayed them as a bond villain in the news because the stock went up the next day.
So much of tech abuse is enabled by this, and it's somewhat more pronounced in America, juvenile attitude toward technology, tech companies and CEOs. These people are laughing on their way to the bank because they convinced both critics and evangelists that their SAAS products are some inevitable genius invention
You don't need sophisticated tech to cause damage, you just need access to data. Palantir is dangerous not because it has some amazing technology that no one else has, it's that they aggregate many data sources of what would be considered private data and expose it with malicious intent (c.f. any interview with the Palantir CEO). Reading my email doesn't require amazing programming, it just requires access.
Postgres can aggregate many data sources of private data. So can SAP. So what is it about their tech that you think makes it different? SAP is a good comparison.
Like I said, their tech is meaningless. It's the deals they cut to gain access to data and the deals they cut to expose that data.
Why would they be the ones cutting deals to gain access to data? The Party is cutting those deals and has been for ages. Deals like these:
> Spyware delivered by text
> In August, the Trump administration revived a previously paused contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli-founded company that makes spyware. A Paragon tool called Graphite was used in Europe earlier this year to target journalists and civil society members, according to The Citizen Lab, a research group based at the University of Toronto with expertise in spyware.
> Little is known about how ICE is using Paragon Solutions technology and legal groups recently sued DHS for records about it and tools made by the company Cellebrite. ICE did not respond to NPR's questions about its Paragon Solutions contract and whether it is for Graphite or another tool.
> Graphite can start monitoring a phone — including encrypted messages — just by sending a message to the number. The user doesn't have to click on a link or a message.
> "It has essentially complete access to your phone," said Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a legal and policy group focused on privacy. "It's an extremely dangerous surveillance tech that really goes against our Fourth Amendment protections."
Deals with Flock, and so on. It makes no sense for Palantir to be the one doing those deals rather than the Party. They've been doing so for a long time now. That's the whole point of data brokers, on this site alone there are hundreds of comments and posts about how the Party abuses those to get around laws on mass surveillance - can't legally (or are too incompetent to) gather data ourselves? Just buy it off a data broker. And Snowden showed us more than a decade ago that even without them they can just.. not care about the "legal" part.
Palantir is not the only threat, Paragon is equally nasty. Any company with a mission to enable fascism or supremacism is a problem. Palantir is very open about what they strive to do. I have no doubt their tech is mediocre, but their motive is as malicious as it gets.
Of course they're threats. In the exact same way that companies such as AWS/Amazon and Meta, their motive isn't any different. If you think Bezos and Zuckerberg are even a sliver more ethical than Palantir execs I've got some bad news for you.
I agree, but there’s a difference between overt and covert. Overt can normalize this stuff, so it’s good to push back.
Meh. Palintir is optimized to sell data to the government. Said governments usually don't care about the quality of data about any one individual. Wear sunglasses when you go out and stay off facebook and it's amazing how little palintir signal you send up. Bonus points if you created an LLC to pay your utility bills. But... Palintir is not as good as you seem to be implying.
When the government wants to oppress people, they surveil the activists trying to fight oppression.
Deporting illegal immigrants is not oppression.
Nope, but executing law abiding citizens in the streets is
Neither of them were abiding by the law. Nor were either of them executed. Such hyperbole.
What laws did they break?
Abiding the law?
What law did they break to constitute being shot dead on the spot?
Or do you now support vague charges like "obstruction of justice"?
One person showed up with a gun, the other tried to flee (or run over) an officer.
Wold you as a police officer always behave perfectly in any urgent situation?
It is famously against the law to own a gun, and carry it with a permit in the United States.
It's famously peaceful if you carry a gun to a protest and it famously drives no officer around you even more to their edge.
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My man loves that boot.
If only take sides and don't make any actual arguments, then unfortunately you won't convince anyone either.
Killing your own citizens is.
One person showed up with a gun, the other tried to flee (or run over) an officer.
Carrying a gun, or fleeing, is not punishable by death. In any decent country, of course.
These were accidents, not court proceedings where you have weeks or months to think things over.
My prediction is that if you investigate them, then in the case where the woman was trying to drive away, the officer likely has no fault at all, as the drive may have easily be interpreted as driving towards him. On the armed protestor occasion, there might be some fault as the gun seemed to have gone off unexpectedly. But it won't be punished too hard, if at all, as the victim was actively escalating the situation.
These weren't punishments ("death sentences" as someone else called them). These were accidents where the victims themselves were (mostly) at fault.
They were not accidents. No one accidentally draws, aims a gun and shoots. If that whole sequence is accidental, that person shouldn't be in charge of a weapon.
The shooting part was the accident. Of course you draw and aim a gun if you're detaining someone who also has a gun.
What I'm saying is that he did have a gun, this particular gun was taken away, then he was apparently reaching for something else, which may have been mistaken for a gun, hence the shot. Or, the officer fired at him for some other suspicion. Regardless, you don't have perfect information in a situation like this. The guy wasn't behaving peacefully either.
My suggestion would be to obey orders, don't bring weapons to protests, don't resist when you're being detained. And so on.
He didn't have a gun when he was shot, what are you talking about? He didn't even have a gun in his hand. Or you mean that you can accidentally shoot somebody who had a gun, at some point in the past?
I'd forgive you for thinking they were accidents if you hadn't seen the videos or heard them described to you. They were cold blooded murder.
I did see the videos, that was what made me come to that conclusion.
I don't need any forgiveness from you. You should forgive yourself instead, become part of the grown-ups!
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A wise man told me, you know signal works because its banned in Russia. I also find it incredibly ironic that they have a problem with this, when the DoD is flagrantly using signal for classified communications.
I have full confidence in Signal and their encryption but this argument doesn't make sense to me. It could be the opposite, that Russia knows it's compromised by the US government and don't want people using it. I don't believe that's the case but the point is you can't put too much weight on it.
Wouldn't the Russian government just say that then?
My personal connections who are in the military use it for texting from undisclosed locations.
I've heard from people who have worked with the Signal foundation that it was close to being endorsed for private communication by one branch of government, but that endorsement was rescinded because another branch didn't want people knowing how to stay private.
> I've heard from people who have worked with the Signal foundation that it was close to being endorsed for private communication by one branch of government, but that endorsement was rescinded because another branch didn't want people knowing how to stay private.
The US government recommended Signal to for personal communication. See this article, in the section "Signal in the Biden administration and beyond":
They aren't taking issue with Signal, per se... they are upset that people are sharing the whereabouts and movements of ICE officers. Signal just seems to be the medium-of-choice. And this just happens to give them a chance to declare Signal as "bad", since they can't spy on Signal en masse.
It doesn't mean much. Roblox is banned in Russia.
They've been just gradually banning everything not made in Russia.
You know it works because they banned it in Russia? Works for whom?
Yes, at best it implies Russia cannot easily get confidential information from them. Everyone else, the jury is still out for.
There aren't a lot of things I would claim Russia is a leader in, but state sponsored hacking and spying on its own people would both definitely make the list. That's not to say no one has cracked it, but if the Russians couldn't do it there aren't many who could.
Sure, but using Signal for classified info is a violation of policy.
The DOD is not using "flagrantly using Signal." The Secretary of Defense, whatever his preferred pronouns are, is breaking the law.
CISA recommended Signal for encrypted end-to-end communications for "highly targeted individuals."
The best part is that, in trying to comply with this guidance, the government chose Telemessage to provide the message archiving required by the Federal Records Act.
The only problem is that Telemessage was wildly insecure and was transmitting/storing message archives without any encryption.
Recommendations to the private sector don't condone violating security and retention laws for people working in the public sector.
Military personnel are currently only allowed to use Signal for mobile communications within their unit. Classified information is a different story, though.
I don't think I agree with the following from this guide:
> Do not use a personal virtual private network (VPN). Personal VPNs simply shift residual risks from your
internet service provider (ISP) to the VPN provider, often increasing the attack surface. Many free and
commercial VPN providers have questionable security and privacy policies. However, if your
organization requires a VPN client to access its data, that is a different use case.
What do you disagree with?
> Personal VPNs simply shift residual risks from your internet service provider (ISP) to the VPN provider, often increasing the attack surface.
That's true. A VPN service replaces the ISP as the Internet gateway with the VPN's systems. By adding a component, you increase the attack surface.
> Many free and commercial VPN providers have questionable security and privacy policies.
Certainly true.
> if your organization requires a VPN client to access its data, that is a different use case.
Also true: That's not a VPN service; you are (probably) connecting to your organization's systems.
There may be better VPN services - Mullvad has a good reputation around here - but we really don't know. Successful VPN services would be a magnet for state-level and other attackers, which is what the document may be concerned with.
Come on, man. We're talking about classified information, not general OPSEC advice. I worked in a SCIF. Literally every piece of equipment, down to each ethernet cable, has a sticker with its authorized classification level. This system exists for a reason, like making it impossible to accidently leak information to an uncleared contact in your personal phone. What Hegseth did (and is doing?) is illegal. It doesn't even matter what app is used.
I don't know signal very well but when I have spoken to others about it they mention that the phone number is the only metadata they will have access to.
This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem.
I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years.
Turns out they were right.
They weren't though? Signal requires a phone number to sign up and it is linked to your account but your phone number is not used in the under the hood account or device identification, it is not shared by default, your number can be entirely removed from contact disovery if you wish, and even if they got a warrant or were tapping signal infra directly, it'd be extremely non trivial to extract user phone numbers.
In past instances where Signal has complied with warrants, such as the 2021 and 2024 Santa Clara County cases, the records they provided included phone numbers to identify the specific accounts for which data was available. This was necessary to specify which requested accounts (identified by phone numbers in the warrants) had associated metadata, such as account creation timestamps and last connection dates.
Yep however that only exposes a value of "last time the user registered/verified their account via phone number activation" and "last day the app connected to the signal servers".
There isn't really anything you can do with that information. The first value is already accessible via other methods (since the phone companies carry those records and will comply with warrants). And for pretty much anyone with signal installed that second value is going to essentially always be the day the search occurred.
And like another user mentioned, the most recent of those warrants is from the day before they moved to username based identification so it is unclear whether the same amount of data is still extractable.
I would think being able to subpoena records for all active signal users would be a cause for concern.
I was genuinely surprised when I went to Reddit and saw that as the most voted comment on the story.
I think that's a fair assessment on their part however it's worth noting that your phone number does not serve as your account ID. It can be used to look up an account but there are caveats to that.
The lookups go through a secure enclave, the system is architected to limit the number of lookups that can be done, and the system has some fairly extensive anti-exfiltration cryptographic fuckery running inside the secure enclave to further limit the extent to which accounts can be efficiently looked up.
And of course you can also remove your phone number from contact discovery (but not from the acct entirely) but I'm not sure how that interacts with lookup for subpoenas. If they use the same system that contact discovery uses, it may be an undocumented way to exclude your account from subpoena responses.
The rest of what they say however is pretty spot on. The priority for signal is privacy, not anonymity. They try to optimise anonymity when they can but they do give up a little anonymity in exchange for anti-spam and user-friendliness.
So of course the ending notes of "use a VPN, configure the settings to maximise anonymity, and maybe even get a secondary phone number to use with it" are all perfectly reasonable suggestions.
This was before Signal switched to a username system.
Others mention you must still register with a phone, although you can remove it from your account after you go through the username stuff? Usually HN is pretty good about identifying that the default path is the path and that opt-out like behavior of this means very little for mass usage.
It's not that you can remove it from your account entirely. Your account is still linked to that number. It's that you can remove the number from contact discovery.
And re: defaults the default behavior on signal is that your phone number is hidden from other users but it can be used to do contact discovery. Notably though you can turn contact discovery off (albeit few people do).
Which of those links actually say that your phone number is private from Signal? If anything, this passage makes it sound like it's the reverse, because they specifically call out usernames not being stored in plaintext, but not phone numbers.
>We have also worked to ensure that keeping your phone number private from the people you speak with doesn’t necessitate giving more personal information to Signal. Your username is not stored in plaintext, meaning that Signal cannot easily see or produce the usernames of given accounts.
> it'd be extremely non trivial
Extremely non trivial. What I'm hearing is "security by obfuscation".
Absolutely nothing in this article is related to feds using conversation metadata to map participants, so, no they weren’t.
If you follow the X chatter on this, some folks got into the groups and tracked all the numbers, their contributions, and when they went "on shift" or "off".
I don't really think Signal tech has anything to do with this.
Yeah. It's notable they didn't crack the crypto. In the 90s when I was a young cypherpunk, I had this idea that when strong crypto was ubiquitous, certainly people would be smart enough to understand its role was only to force bad guys to attack the "higher levels" like attacking human expectations of privacy on a public channel. It was probably unrealistic to assume everyone would automatically understand subtle details of technology.
As a reminder... if you don't know all the people in your encrypted group chat, you could be talking to the man.
That’s really interesting extra context, thanks!
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My Session and Briar chats don't give out the phone numbers of other users.
Yes, but they have their own weaknesses. For instance, Briar exposes your Bluetooth MAC, and there's a bunch of nasty Bluetooth vulns waiting to be exploited. You can't ever perfectly solve for both security and usability, you can only make tradeoffs.
Briar has multiple modes of operation. The Bluetooth mode is not the default mode of operation and is there for circumstances where Internet has been shut down entirely.
For users who configure Briar to connect exclusively over Tor using the normal startup (e.g., for internet-based syncing) and disable Bluetooth, there is no Bluetooth involvement at all, so your Bluetooth MAC address is not exposed.
Neither does Signal.
Both Session and Briar are decentralized technologies where you would never be able to approach a company to get any information. They operate over DHT-like networks and with Tor.
Signal does give out phone numbers when the law man comes, because they have to, and because they designed their system around this identifier.
Signal can still tell law enforcement (1) whether a phone number is registered with Signal, and (2) when that phone number signed up and (3) when it was last active. That's all, and not very concerning to me.
To prevent an enumeration attack (e.g. an attacker who adds every phone number to their system contacts), you can also disable discovery my phone number.
While Session prevents that, Session lacks forward secrecy. This is very serious- it's silly to compare Session to Signal when Session is flawed in its cryptography. (Details and further reading here https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/ ). Session has recently claimed they will be upgrading their cryptography in V2 to be up to Signal's standard (forward secrecy and post-quantum security), but until then, I don't think it's worth considering.
I agree that Briar is better, but unfortunately, it can't run on iPhones. I'm in the United States and that excludes 59% of the general population, and about 90% of my generation. It's not at fault of the Briar project, but it's a moot point when I can't use it to talk to people I know.
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We don't do the "duct-tape an insult to the end to drive your point harder" gimmick here. It will lead to loss of your account.
whoa, losing access to a throwaway account created for specifically posting trolling comments? i'm sure they're shaking in their boots at the prospect
This throwaway account wasn't created specifically for posting trolling comments, this is just my personality :-(
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Signal's use of phone numbers is the least of your issues if you've reached this level of inspection. Signal could be the most pristine perfect thing in the world, and the traffic from the rest of your phone is exactly as exposing as your phone number is when your enemy is the US government who can force cooperation from the infrastructure providers.
Your point is correct but irrelevant to this conversation.
The question here is NOT "if Signal didn't leak your phone number could you still get screwed?" Of course you could, no one is disputing that.
The question is "if you did everything else perfect, but use Signal could the phone number be used to screw you?" The answer is ALSO of course, but the reason why we're talking about it is that this point was made to the creator of Signal many many times over the years, and he dismissed it and his fanboys ridiculed it.
I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for something better.
Is there any reason they didn't use email? It seems like something that would have been easier to keep some anonymity., while still allowing the person to authenticate.
email is notoriously insecure and goes through servers that allow it to be archived. also, email UIs tend not to be optimized for instantaneous delivery of messages.
I have no idea if that was true 20 years ago, but it's not true now. XMPP doesn't have this problem; your host instance knows your IP but you can connect via Tor.
Tor has the problem that you frequently don't know who's running all the nodes in the network. For a while the FBI was running Tor exit nodes in an attempt to see who messages were being sent to. maybe they still are.
OTR has been on XMPP for so long now
Is that good? According to the wikipedia page it seems last stable release was 9 years ago. Is anyone using that? Last time I had a look at XMPP everybody was using OMEMO.
Sorry, I don't pay attention to anyone who disses PGP. I don't care if it's easy to misuse. I focus on using it well instead of bitching about misusing it.
If there's one thing we learned from Snowden is that the NSA can't break PGP, so these people who live in the world of theory have no credibility with me.
Before my arrest (CFAA) I operated on Tor and PGP for years. I had property seized and I had a long look at my discovery material, as I was curious which elements they had obtained.
I never saw a single speck of anything I ever sent to anyone via PGP in there. They had access to my SIGAINT e-mail and my BitMessage unlocked, but I used PGP for everything on top of that.
Stay safe!
Would be curious to know (if you're willing to share) how you were found if you were working to obscure / encrypt your communications. What _was_ it that ultimately gave you away or allowed them to ID you?
I'd be curious as well, though I completely understand if they don't want to talk. Someone should write a book just listing the usual mistakes.
if you sign PGP messages with a key you associated with your identity, the have high confidence you sent emails signed with that key. i.e. - PGP does not offer group deniable signatures as a default option.
wow. that's a phenomenally bad policy. There are many legit critiques which can be leveled at PGP, depending on your use case. [Open]PGP is not a silver bullet. You have to use it correctly.
"You have to use it correctly" is true for everything. Stop parroting garbage you read and exercise some critical thinking.
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Briar and Session are the better encrypted messengers.
Session lacks forward secrecy, which isn't ideal.
I remember listening to his talks and had some respect for him. He could defeat any argument about any perceived security regarding any facet of tech. Not so much any more. He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never be secure. I get why he did it. That little boat needed an upgrade and I would do it too. Of course this topic evokes some serious psychological responses in most people. Wait for it.
> He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never be secure
I assume because of the baseband stuff to be FCC compliant? Last I checked that meant DMA channels, etc. to access the real phone processor. All easily activated over the air.
All easily activated over the air.
Indeed. The only reason this is not used by customer support for more casual access, firmware upgrades and debugging is a matter of policy and the risk of mass bricking phones and as such this is not exposed to them. There are other access avenues as well including JTAG debugging over USB and Bluetooth.
I don't think the FCC requires DMA channels. That's done out of convenience because it's how PCIe works.
The FCC doesn't require DMA channels, but the baseband processor may have access to it among anything else.
That's done for convenience because that's how PCIe works.
Any citation on this? I’ve never heard that.
47 CFR Part 2 and Part 15
FCC devices are certified / allowed to use a spectrum, but you must maintain compliance. If you're a mobile phone manufacturer you have to be certain that if a bug occurs, the devices don't start becoming wifi jammers or anything like that.
This means you need to be able to push firmware updates over the air (OTA). These must be signed to avoid just anyone to push out such an OTA.
The government has a history of compelling companies to push out signed updates.
There are hobbyist groups that tinker with these things. They are just as lazy as me and do not publish much. One has to find and participate in their semi-private .onion forums. Not my cup of tea. Most of it goes over my head and requires special hardware I am not interested in tinkering with.
I could have sworn Signal adopted usernames sometime back, but in my eyes its a little too late.
Suppose they didn't require that. Wouldn't that open themselves up to DDoS? An angry nation or ransom-seeker could direct bots to create accounts and stuff them with noise.
I think the deal is you marry the strong crypto with a human mediated security process which provides high confidence the message sender maps to the human you think they are. And even if they are, they could be a narc. Nothing in strong crypto prevents narcs in whom ill-advised trust has been granted from copying messages they're getting over the encrypted channel and forwarding them to the man.
And even then, a trusted participant could not understand they're not supposed to give their private keys out or could be rubber-hosed into revealing their key pin. All sorts of ways to subvert "secure" messaging besides breaking the crypto.
I guess what I'm saying is "Strong cryptography is required, but not sufficient to ensure secure messaging."
Yes. Cheap–identity systems such as Session and SimpleX are trivially vulnerable to this, and your only defence is to not give out your address as they are unguessable. If you have someone's address, you can spam them, and they can't stop it except by deleting the app or resetting to a new address and losing all their contacts.
SimpleX does better than Session because the address used to add new contacts is different from the address used with any existing contact and is independently revocable. But if that address is out there, you can receive a full queue of spam contacts before you next open the SimpleX app.
Both Session and SimpleX are trivially vulnerable to storage DoS as well.
There are a lot of solutions to denial of service attacks than to collect personal information. Plus, you know, you can always delete an account later? If what Signal says is true, then this amounts to a few records in their database which isn't cause for concern IMO
The steps to trouble:
- identify who owns the number
- compel that person to give unlocked phone
- government can read messages of _all_ people in group chat not just that person
Corollary:
Disappearing messages severely limits what can be read
Unless they compel people at gunpoint (which prevents the government from bringing a case), they will probably not have much luck with this. As soon as a user sets up a passcode or other lock on their phone, it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US government to look inside.
It's much more likely that the government convinces one member of the group chat to turn on the other members and give up their phone numbers.
> which prevents the government from bringing a case
Genuinely, from outside, it seems like your government doesn't give a damn on what they are and aren't allowed to do.
Yes, but I’m not going to unlock my phone with a passcode, and unlike biometric unlock they have no way to force me to unlock my phone.
The district courts will eventually back me up on this. Our country has fallen a long way, but the district courts have remained good, and my case is unlikely to be one that goes up to appellate courts, where things get much worse.
There’s an important distinction: the government doesn’t care about what it is allowed to do, but it is still limited by what it is not capable of doing. It’s important to understand that they still do have many constraints they operate under, and that we need to find and exploit those constraints as much as possible while we fight them
They are capable of putting you in prison until you unlock your phone, or simply executing you.
Feels like the latter would be counter-productive unless there's an app for that.
They are, but again, district courts have been pretty good, and I would be out of jail in <30 days, unless my case goes up on appeal.
And if I die in jail because I won’t unlock my phone: fuck ‘em, they’ll have to actually do it.
I don’t plan on being killed by the regime, but I don’t think I would’ve survived as a German in Nazi Germany, either. I’m not putting my survival above everything else in the world.
Looks that way from the inside as well.
Yes and all of the credulous rubes still whinging about how they "can't imagine" how it's gotten this bad or how much worse it can get, or how "this is not who we are" at some point should no longer be taken as suckers in good faith, and at some point must rightly be viewed as either willfully complicit bad faith interlocuters, or useful idiots.
Learning about WWII in high school, I often wondered how the people allowed the Axis leaders gain power. Now I know. However, I feel we're worse for allowing it to happen because we were supposed to "never again".
Worse, I often wondered how some people collaborated. Now I know that many people would rather have a chunk of the population rounded up and killed than lose their job.
"Whoever can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
and
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
etc, etc. So it goes
Agreed. To see "Never Again" morphed into "Never Again for me, Now Again for thee" has been one of the most heartwrenching, sleep depriving things I've witnessed since some deaths in my family.
Watching it in real time, I still don't understand it. I could see how Trump won the first time around; Hillary Clinton was unpopular with most people outside of her party's leadership, but the second just seems insane. The kinds of things that would happen were obvious to me, and I am no expert.
Two party system. As many people didn't like Hillary, clearly there were a lot of people unhappy with Biden->Harris. When you don't like the current admin's direction and/or their party, there's only one other party to select. I think there were plenty of voters that truly did not believe this would be the result of that protest vote.
Protest votes are probably overstated, I think most of it comes down to people staying home. Everybody in America already knows what side they're on, and they either vote for that side or not at all. Virtually all political messaging is either trying to moralize your side or demoralize the other, to manipulate the relative ratios of who stays home on election day.
> I think most of it comes down to people staying home
Obama was able to get people motivated. Neither Biden nor Harris had anywhere near that motivating ability. I don't know that the Dems have anyone as motivating as Obama line up. The Dems seem to be hoping that enough people will be repulsed by the current admin to show up.
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> Obama was able to get people motivated. Neither Biden nor Harris had anywhere near that
How do you explain Biden getting so many more votes than Obama even while Trump improved with black and Hispanics over past Republican candidates?
Newsom is an extremely strong candidate. Vance has several critical vulnerabilities that can demoralize right wing voters if the election is handled properly, and the Republicans really don't have anybody else. Rubio maybe, but Rubio won't be able to get ahead of Vance.
> Newsom is an extremely strong candidate.
For what office? President? Do you live in California?
Trump had more than several critical vulns as well which did not dissuade voters. The electorate isn't as predictable as many try to make it sound
Trump was able to moralize his voters, despite his weaknesses, by using a kind of charisma that Vance utterly lacks.
I think Vance isn't planning on using charisma, but violence.
Prior to 2020, I usually voted for third parties so I do understand that kind of thinking. The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office; it seemed early on like congress and institutional norms would restrain him. To swing the popular vote in the 2024 election, almost all of the third party votes would have needed to go to Harris, so I don't think that's sufficient to explain it.
By the end of his first term, the danger was hard to miss, and the attempt to remain in power after losing the election should have cemented it for everyone.
I was unhappy with Biden and Harris. I voted for them in 2020 and 2024 anyway because I understood the alternative.
> The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office
I don't get it, was there anything surprising about him after his inauguration? He sure sounded dangerous on the campaign trail.
The norm in 2016 was that candidates didn't make a serious attempt to do the more outlandish things they talked about in their campaign. When they did, advisers would usually talk them into a saner version of it, or congress wouldn't allow it.
> The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office;
I just do not understand this sentence at all. The writing was clearly on the wall. All of the Project 2025 conversations told us exactly what was going to happen. People claiming it was not obvious at best were not paying attention at all. For anyone paying attention, it was horrifying see the election results coming in.
Project 2025 did not exist in 2016. We are in agreement about 2024.
Not the second time, the third time. Remember that Biden whooped Trump's ass once and could have whooped his ass a second time, but the donor class (career retards) got cold feet when they were forced to confront his senility, and instead of letting the election be one senile old man against another senile old man, they replaced Biden with the archetype of an HR bitch. I hope nobody thinks it a coincidence that the two times Trump won were the two times he was up against a woman. Americans don't want to vote for their mother-in-law, nor for the head of HR. And yes, that certainly is sexist, but it is what it is.
I just pray they run Newsom this time. Despite his "being from California" handicap, I think he should be able to easily beat Vance by simply being a handsome white man with a white family. Vance is critically flawed and will demoralize much of the far right IFF his opponent doesn't share those same weaknesses.
You have to remember that "the government" is not a monolith. Evidence goes before a judge who is (supposed to be) independent, and cases are tried in front of a jury of citizens. In the future that system may fall but for now it's working properly. Except for the Supreme Court... which is a giant wrench in the idea the system still works, but that doesn't mean a lower court judge won't jettison evidence obtained by gunpoint.
Evidence goes before a judge
What evidence went before a judge prior to the two latest executions in Minneapolis?
There's a pretty big difference between getting killed in an altercation with ICE, and executing someone just because they refuse to give up their password.
Not really. ICE breaks into your home — remember they don't need a warrant for this. Demands to see your phone. It's locked. Holds a gun to your head and demands you unlock it. You refuse. Pulls the trigger.
Does it really seem that far–fetched when compared to the other ICE murders?
>Does it really seem that far–fetched when compared to the other ICE murders?
No, not really, because in the two killings you can vaguely argue they felt threatened. Pointing a gun to someone's head and demanding the password isn't anywhere close to that. Don't get me wrong, the killings are an affront to civil liberties and should be condemned/prosecuted accordingly, but to think that ICE agents are going around and reenacting the opening scene from Inglorious Bastards shows that your worldview can't handle more nuance than "fascism? true/false".
> but to think that ICE agents are going around and reenacting the opening scene from Inglorious Bastards shows that your worldview can't handle more nuance than "fascism? true/false".
Precisely.
There's no question that ICE is daily trampling civil liberties (esp 4th amendment).
But in both killings there is a reasonable interpretation that they feared for their lives.
Now should they have is another question. With better training, a 6v1 < 5ft engagement can easily disarm anyone with anything less than a suicide vest.
But still, we aren't at the "run around and headshot dissenters" phase.
> there is a reasonable interpretation that they feared for their lives
... Did you watch the videos from multiple people filming?
> ... Did you watch the videos from multiple people filming?
Yeah, did you? Any more substantive discourse you'd like to add to the conversation?
To be clear about the word "reasonable" in my comment, it's similar to the usage of the very same word in the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt".
The agents involved in the shootings aren't claiming that:
- the driver telepathically communicated their ill intent
- they saw Pretti transform into a Satan spawn and knew they had to put him down
They claim (unsurprisingly, to protect themselves) that they feared for their life because either a car was driving at them or they thought Pretti had another firearm. These are reasonable fears, that a reasonable person has.
That doesn't mean the agents involved are without blame. In fact, especially in Pretti's case, they constructed a pretext to began engagement with him (given that he was simply exercising his 1st amendment right just prior).
But once in the situation, a reasonable person could have feared for their lives.
> once in the situation, a reasonable person could have feared for their lives.
Sure, all things being equal, a person on the Clapham omnibus, yada, yada.
However, specifically in this situation it is very frequently not "median people" in the mix, it is LEO-phillic wannabe (or ex) soldier types that are often exchanging encrypted chat messages about "owning the libs", "goddamn <insert ethic slur>'s" and exchange grooming notes on provoking "officer-induced jeopardy" .. how to escalate a situation into what passes for "justified homicide" or least a chance to put the boot in.
Those countries that investigate and prosecute shootings by LEO's often find such things at the root of wrongful deaths.
You're not really disagreeing with the parent.
>That doesn't mean the agents involved are without blame. In fact, especially in Pretti's case, they constructed a pretext to began engagement with him (given that he was simply exercising his 1st amendment right just prior).
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The old 'shoot em in the leg' defense.
The courts may (still) be independent, but it feels like they are pointless because the government just wholesale ignores them anyway. If the executive branch doesn't enforce, or selectively enforces court judgements, you may as well shutter the courts.
They haven't for a long time, just that most of the time they were doing things we thought was for good (EPA, civil rights act, controlled substance act, etc) and we thereby entered a post-constitutional world to let that stuff slide by despite the 10th amendment limiting the federal powers to enumerated powers.
Eventually we got used to letting the feds slide on all the good things to the point everything was just operating on slick ice, and people like Trump just pushed it to the next logical step which is to also use the post-constitutional world to his own personal advantage and for gross tyranny against the populace.
The civil rights acts had firm constitutional grounding in the 14th and 15th amendments.
14th and 15th amendments were binding on government. The civil rights act was binding on private businesses, even those engaging in intrastate trade.
The civil rights act of 1875, which also tried to bind on private businesses, was found unconstitutional in doing so, despite coming after the 15th amendment. But by the 60s and 70s we were already in a post-constitutional society as FDRs threatening to pack the courts, the 'necessities' implemented during WWII, and the progressive era more or less ended up with SCOTUS deferring to everything as interstate commerce (most notable, in Wickard v Filburn). The 14th and 15th amendment did not change between the time the same things were found unconstitutional, then magically constitutional ~80+ years later.
The truth is, the civil rights act was seen as so important (that time around) that they bent the constitution to let it work. And now much of the most relied on pieces of legislation relied on a tortured interpretation of the constitution, making things incredibly difficult to fix, and setting the stage for people like Trump.
If civil rights are unconstitutional, you don't have a country.
They'll just threaten to throw the book at you if you don't unlock your phone, and if you aren't rich, your lawyer will tell you to take the plea deal they offer because it beats sitting in prison until you die.
All they have to do is pretend to be a concerned neighbor who wants to help give mutual aid and hope that someone in the group chat takes the bait and adds them in. No further convincing is needed.
social engineering for the win.
If you aren't saving people's phone numbers in your own contacts, signal isn't storing them in group chats (and even if you are, it doesn't say which number, just that you have a contact with them).
Signal doesn't share numbers by default and hasn't for a few years now. And you can toggle a setting to remove your number from contact discovery/lookup entirely if you are so inclined.
> it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US government to look inside.
I'm sure the Israeli spyware companies can help with that.
Although then they'd have to start burning their zero days to just go after protestors, which I doubt they're willing to do. I imagine they like to save those for bigger targets.
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Cellebrite can break into every phone except GrapheneOS.
There are multiple companies that can get different amounts of information off of locked phones including iPhones, and they work with LE.
I’m also curious what they could get off of cloud backups. Thinking in terms of auth, keys, etc. For SMS it’s almost as good as phone access, but I am not sure for apps.
or convince one member of a group chat to show their group chat...
I'm confident the people executing non-complaint people in the street would be capable of compelling a citizen.
Or just let the guy to enter the country after unlocking her phone.
This is accurate, but the important point is that threatening people with wrenches isn’t scalable in the way mass surveillance is.
The problem with mass surveillance is the “mass” part: warrantless fishing expeditions.
hunh. we haven't even started talking about stingray, tracking radios and so forth.
it is difficult to wrench someone when you do not know who they are
Someone knows who they are and they can bash different skulls until one of them gives them what they're looking for.
Who is someone?
I mean they have a lot of tools to figure out who you are if they catch you at a rally or something like that. Cameras and facial identification, cell phone location tracking and more. What they also want is the list of people you're coordinating with that aren't there.
Which is just a redux of what I find myself saying constantly: privacy usually isn't even the problem. The problem is the people kicking in your door.
If you're willing to kick in doors to suppress legal rights, then having accurate information isn't necessary at all.
If your resistance plan is to chat about stuff privately, then by definition you're also not doing much resisting to you know, the door kicking.
It's even easier than that. They're simply asking on neighborhood Facebook (and other services too, I assume) groups to be added to mutual aid Signal groups and hoping that somebody will add them without bothering to vet them first.
I think disappearing messages only works if you activate it on your local device. And if the man compromises someone without everyone else knowing, they get all messages after that.
But yes... it does limit what can be read. My point is it's not perfect.
Is the message on storage zero'd out or just deleted?
compel that person to give unlocked phone
Celebrite or just JTAG over bluetooth or USB. It's always been a thing but legally they are not supposed to use it. Of course laws after the NSA debacle are always followed. Pinky promise.
Presumably this is data taken from interdicted phones of people in the groups, not, like, a traffic-analytic attack on Signal itself.
It appears to be primarily getting agents into the chats. To me the questionable conduct is their NPSM-7-adjacent redefining of legal political categories and activities as "terrorists/-ism" for the purpose of legal harassment or worse. Whether that is technically legal or not it should be outrageous to the public.
I wonder whether the protesters could opt for offshore alternatives that don't require exposing their phone number to a company that could be compelled to reveal it by US law. For example, there is Threema[1], a Swiss option priced at 5 euros one-time. It is interesting on Android as you can pay anonymously[2], therefore it doesn't depend on Google Play and its services (they offer Threema Push services of their own.) If your threat model includes traffic analysis, likely none of it would make much difference as far as US state-side sigint product line is concerned, but with Threema a determined party might as well get a chance! Arguably, the US protest organisers must be prepared for the situation to escalate, and adjust their security model accordingly: GrapheneOS, Mullvad subscription with DAITA countermeasures, Threema for Android, pay for everything with Monero?
It's worth noting that the way Signal's architecture is set up, Signal the organisation doesn't have access to users' phone numbers.
They technically have logs from when verification happens (as that goes through an SMS verification service) but that just documents that you have an account/when you registered. And it's unclear whether those records are available anymore since no warrants have been issued since they moved to the new username system.
And the actual profile and contact discovery infra is all designed to be actively hostile to snooping on identifiable information even with hardware access (requiring compromise of secure enclaves + multiple levels of obfuscation and cryptographic anti-extraction techniques on top).
Perhaps you're right that they couldn't be compelled by law to reveal it, then! However, I can still find people on Signal using their phone number, by design. If they can do that, surely there is sufficient information, and appropriate means, for US state-side signals intelligence to do so, too. I don't think Signal self-hosts their infrastructure, so it wouldn't be much of a challenge considering it's a priority target.
Now, whether FBI and friends would be determined to use PII obtained in this way to that end—is a point of contention, but why take the chance?
Better yet, don't expose your PII to third parties in the first place.
Yeah it should be technically feasible to do "eventually" but it's non trivial. I linked a bunch of their blogs on how they harden contact discovery, etc. And of course you can turn contact discovery off entirely in the settings.
Settings > Privacy > Phone Number > Who can find me by number > Nobody
> And of course you can turn contact discovery off entirely in the settings.
I know right and that would keep you hidden from Average Joe, but not US government. The mechanism to match your account to your phone number remains in place.
Note that Threema has had a recent change in ownership to a German investment firm. Supposedly nothing will change but I can’t help but be wary
Just being owned by an offshore company doesn't mean that they still can't be infiltrated. But as you pointed out, just because Company A creates an app does not mean that Company B can't come in later to take control.
The alarming extent of US-affiliated signals intelligence collection is well-documented, but in the case of Threema it's largely inconsequential; you can still purchase the license for it anonymously, optionally build from source, and actively resist traffic analysis when using it.
That is to say: it allows a determined party to largely remain anonymous even in the face of upstream provider's compromise.
I don't think it's much of a problem at all. Many of the protesters and observers are not hiding their identities, so finding their phone number isn't a problem. Even with content, coordinating legal activities isn't a problem either.
I would never agree with you. protestors behaving legally or practicing civil disobedience can still have their lives ruined by people in power.
The literal point of civil disobedience is accepting that you may end up in jail:
"Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law."
That's not the point of civil disobedience, it's an unfortunate side effect. You praise a martyr for their sacrifice, you deplore that the sacrifice was necessary.
It's not that the point of breaking a law is that you go to jail, it's that breaking the law without any intention of going to jail isn't a sacrifice. 'Martyrs' who don't give anything up, who act without punishment aren't celebrated, they're just right.
Yeah, that doesn't make it "not a problem."
It makes it a problem that's inherently present for any act of civil disobedience, unless you truly believe that you can hide from the US government. I'm pretty sure that all of the technical workarounds in the world, all of the tradecraft, won't save you from the weakest link in your social network.
That's life, if you can't take that heat stay out of the kitchen. It's also why elections are a much safer and more reliable way to enact change in your country than "direct action" is except under the most dire of circumstances.
Sure? Can't tell what the point of this comment is.
No one is arguing that people who practice civil disobedience can expect to be immune from government response.
This works when protesting an unjust law with known penalties. King knew he would be arrested and had an approximate idea on the range of time he could be incarcerated for. I don't know if it's the same bargain when you are subjecting yourself to an actor that does not believe it is bound by the law.
What? No, he didn't. The police went after peaceful civil rights protesters with clubs and dogs. They knew they could be badly hurt or killed and did it anyway.
Oh, apologies, I'm not saying that King didn't risk considerable injury or death. I'm saying that I don't think he is talking about that in this particular passage. The passage gp quoted is about how accepting lawful penalties from an unjust law venerates and respects the rule of law.
I think it's different with illegal "penalties" like being mauled by a dog or an extrajudicial killing. While those leaders of the civil rights movement faced those risks, I don't think King is asking people to martyr themselves in that passage, but to respect the law.
In contrast to accepting punishments from unjust laws, I think there is no lawless unjust punishment you should accept.
If you let the government stomp on your constitutional rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's respect for injustice.
Accepting jail over 1A protected protests only proves you're weak (not in the morally deficient way, just from a physical possibilities way) enough to be taken. No one thinks more highly of you or your 'respect for the law' for being caught and imprisoned in such case, though we might not think lesser of you, since we all understand it is often a suicide mission to resist it.
>If you let the government stomp on your constitutional rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's respect for injustice.
My point is about civil disobedience, not disobedience generally. The point of civil disobedience is to bring attention to unjust laws by forcing people to deal with the fact they they are imprisoning people for doing something that doesn't actually deserve prison.
Expecting to not end up in prison for engaging in civil disobedience misses the point. It's like when people go on a "hunger strike" by not eating solid foods. The point is self-sacrifice to build something better for others.
If that's not what you're into -- and it's not something I'm into -- then I would suggest other forms of disobedience. Freedoms are rarely granted by asking for them.
Using your 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment rights is considered civil disobedience at this point; keep up.
If your point is to ignore the history and political philosophy of civil disobedience because "times are different now," then just grab your gun and start your civil war already... because that's where you've concluded we're at.
I'm not even really sure why I'm getting so much pushback here. I've thought this administration should have been impeached and removed within a week of the inauguration in 2017. I just am not sure where all this "why won't you admit that things are so bad, and shouldn't be this way" is helpful, when Trump was democratically elected. When you have a tyranny from a majority, the parallels to MLK are very clear, and you can't expect that change with come without sacrifice.
Civil disobedience is only nice and easy when you're sect is already in power, which -- when we're talking about people who generally support liberal democracy -- it has been since probably the McCarthy Era.
Materially impeding law enforcement operations, interfering with arrests, harassing or assault officers, and so forth is not 1A protected and is illegal. There’s lots of this going on and some of it is orchestrated in these chats. They may nevertheless be civil disobedience, maybe even for a just cause, but I have no problem with people still being arrested for this. You obviously cannot have a civil society where that is legally tolerated.
It isn’t just people walking around holding signs or filming ICE. Can we please distinguish these cases?
Importantly this definition references an individual’s conscience. Seditious conspiracy is another matter. Here is the statute:
> If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
A group chat coordinating use of force may be tough.
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> protestors behaving legally or practicing civil disobedience can still have their lives ruined by people in power.
They surely can. But the point was more than the people in power don't really need Signal metadata to do that. On the lists of security concerns modern protestors need to be worrying about, Signal really just isn't very high.
This is the price we pay to defend our rights. I would also expect any reasonable grand jury to reject such charges given how flagrantly the government has attempted to bias the public against protesters.
How do you connect a strangers face to a phone number? Or does it require the ELITE app?
Palantir steps in indeed
conspiracy charges are a thing, and they'll only need a few examples of manifestly illegal interference.
it will be quite easy for a prosecutor to charge lots of these people.
it's been done for less, and even if the case is thrown out it can drag on for years and involve jail time before any conviction.
If they could arrest people for what they've been doing, they would have already arrested people. And they have arrested a few here and there for "assault" (things like daring to react when being shoved by an annoyed officer), but the thing that's really pissing DHS off is that the protesters and observers are not breaking the law.
Remember that most of the participants in J6 walked away and were later rounded up and arrested across the country once the FBI had collected voluminous digital and surveillance evidence to support prosecution.
The J6 insurrectionists committed real crimes, and it's very good that they were rounded up, but afaiu most of the evidence had to do with them provably assaulting officers, damaging property, and breaking into a government building. Not that they messaged other people when they were legally demonstrating before the Capital invasion.
The real protection for the legal protesters and observers in MN is numbers. They can't arrest and control and entire populace.
People were also charged for coordinating and supporting J6 without being there, e.g. Enrique Tarrio of the "Proud Boys" was charged with seditious conspiracy based on activity in messaging apps. If people in these Signal chats were aware that people were using force to inhibit federal law enforcement, which some of the leaked training materials suggest is most likely true and easy to prove, and there are messages showing their support or coordination of those actions, I assume they could face the same charges.
They had a lot more than metadata on Enrique Tarrio.
Right, usually law enforcement gets chat logs from a participant (search warrant for a phone, informants, undercover FBI agents, etc) and uses the metadata to connect messages to a real person's identity.
Fortunately for us (or really unfortunately for us) most of the competent FBI agents have been fired or quit, with the new bar simply being loyalty to the president.
The FBI is weak now compared to what it was even two years ago.
Most are probably just keeping their heads down, trying to wait out this administration. When you're in that kind of cushy career track, you'd have to be very dumb or very selfless to give it up.
That was a different, Biden's, FBI
Yeah, and I wouldn't bet money on this happening for that reason. But it is possible.
one person walking away from a police encounter doesn't mean police think that person did not break the law.
prosecutors may take their time and file charges at their leisure.
That may be true in the abstract (although it doesn't matter if the cops think you're breaking the law. What matters is whether or not a judge does).
However, neither Border patrol nor ICE have been exhibiting thoughtfulness or patience, so I doubt they're playing any such long game.
Conspiracy requires an agreement to commit an illegal act, and entering into that agreement must be intentional.
Some of the signal messages I've seen screenshotted (granted screenshots can be altered) make it seem like the participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track vehicles that they think are ICE. That would probably be an illegal use of that data if true.
> make it seem like the participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track vehicles
The whole reason cops love ALPR data is anyone's allowed to collect it, so they don't need a warrant.
The government falling victim to ALPR for once might actually be the push we need to get some reform. That said, they'll probably try to ban it for everybody but themselves. Never before have they had such comprehensive surveillance and I don't expect them to give it up easily.
It’s probably illegal for a state law enforcement official (presumably) to share it with randos on the internet though.
I remember having to explain to you that the CFAA doesn't apply to German citizens in Germany committing acts against a German website, so I'll take that legal advice with a few Dead Seas worth of salt.
Government intimidation of the practice of constitutional rights... what ever could go wrong.
I was replying specifically to this:
> This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem
I was not saying it's not a problem that the feds are doing this, because that's not what I was replying to.
You are going to need to clarify more. I have no idea what you are for.
Why does a person have to be "for" something?
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The statement was made to point out that this is an example where a phone number is enough metadata to to problematic for privacy. It stands on its own. It doesn't need more context or purpose.
"sleaze"?
That seems like a weak argument.
I mean, carrying a weapon is a 2nd amendment right, but if I bring it to a protest and then start intimidating people with it, the police going after me is not "Government intimidation of the practice of constitutional rights".
Protesting is a constitution right, but if you break the law while protesting, you're fair game for prosecution.
Was starting to think about setting up a neighborhood Signal group, but now thinking that maybe something like Briar might be safer... only problem is that Briar only works on Android which is going to exclude a lot of iPhone users.
I spent a dozen years in SF, where my friend circles routinely used Signal. It's my primary messaging app, including to family and childhood friends.
I live in NY now. Just today, I got a message from a close friend who also did SF->NY "I'm deleting Signal to get more space on my phone, because nobody here uses it. Find me on WhatsApp or SMS."
To a naïve audience, Signal can have a stigma "I don't do anything illegal, so why should I bother maintaining yet-another messenger whose core competency is private messaging?" Signal is reasonably mainstream, and there are still a lot of people who won't use it.
I suspect you'll have an uphill battle using something even more obscure.
> Signal can have a stigma "I don't do anything illegal, so why should I bother ..."
Aside: I see similar attitudes when I mention I use VPN all of the time
What about BitChat?
Why wouldn't you just use random abandoned forums or web article message threads? Iirc this is what teenagers used to do when schools banned various social media but not devices. Just put the URL in a discrete qr code that only a person in the neighborhood could see.
but this is not a technical attack that returns the metadata.
I have seen anti-Signal FUD all over the place since it was discovered that protesters have been coordinating on Signal.
Here’s the facts:
- Protesters have been coordinating using Signal
- Breaches of private Signal groups by journalists and counter protesters were due to poor opsec and vetting
- If the feds have an eye into those groups, it’s likely that they gained access in the same way as well as through informants (which are common)
- Signal is still known to be secure
- In terms of potential compromise, it’s much more likely for feds to use spyware like Pegasus to compromise the endpoint than for them to be able to break Signal. If NSA has a Signal vulnerability they will probably use it very sparingly and on high profile foreign targets.
- The fact that even casual third parties can break into these groups because of opsec issues shows that encryption is not a panacea. People will always make mistakes, so the fact that secure platforms exist is not a threat in itself, and legal backdoors are not needed.
The downside of opsec is that it breeds paranoia and fear about legal, civic participation. In a way, bullshit investigations like this are an intimidation tactic. What are they going to find - a bunch of Minnesotans that were mad about state-backed killings?
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The only reason you think this is because all of your opinions are predetermined by MAGA elites.
Also the current US government think it’s secure enough for their war planning!
They actually used a hackish third party client (interesting since Signal forbids those) which stores message logs centrally, assuming it’s for required USG record keeping. Turns out that it’s possible to invite unwanted guests into your chat whether you’re a protestor or a government official. (It also appears that government contractors still write shitty software.)
Thanks. This really should be the top comment.
Feds and ICE are using Palantir ELITE.
That’s only for targeting. From what I understand ELITE does not include device compromise or eavesdropping. If feds want to compromise a device that has Signal, they would use something like Pegasus that uses exploits to deliver a spyware package, likely through SMS, Whatsapp, or spear phishing URL. (I don’t actually know which software is currently in use but it would be similar to Pegasus.)
As mentioned by someone else, they just need to take the phone of a demonstrator to access their signal groups.
True, physical interception is probably the easiest method, at least for short term access. Once the captured user is identified and removed from the group they will lose access though.
i suppose what he means is that the phones of protestors which have signal chat will be investigated.
Assuming they dont have disappearing messages activated, and assuming any protestors willingly unlock their phones.
> willingly unlock their phones
Or they are running any mainstream iPhone or Android phone, they've unlocked the phone at least once since their last reboot, and the police have access to graykey. Not sure what the current state of things is, since we rely on leaked documents, but my take-away from the 2024 leaks was GrapheneOS Before First Unlock (BFU) is the only defense.
Where has there been any allegations iPhone before first unlock has been bypassed?
GrapheneOS isn't quite as secure in the real world. Pixels continue to have baseband and OOBConfig exploits that allow pushing zero interaction updates, or system memory access.
[1] assuming standard security settings of course.
Isn't latest iPhones also have similar security profile on BFU. The latest support table I saw from one of the vendors was also confirming this.
>is the only defense.
Or you know, the 2nd amendment.
Id be willing to bet that ICE would have a much smaller impact if they would be met with bullets instead of cameras. In the end, what ICE is doing doesn't really matter to Trump, as long as MAGA believes that things are being done, even if nothing is being done, he doesn't care.
Never fear, the 2nd amendments days are numbered too. Trump just said 'You can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns' (the 'in' in this context being 'outside')
I really hope he implements this, because we are gonna see mental gymnastics on the Olympic level from the right wing commentators.
They already continue to support him after proposing (twice!) taking people's guns without due process.
Fed
Ah yes, there is the uncomfortable feeling deep in your gut that you suppress, but a part of you knows it can happen.
I hope you realize that civil unrest is coming. Maybe not in a month. Maybe not even in a year. But at some point, after Trump fucks with elections and installs himself as a 3d term president, and the economy takes a nose dive as companies start pulling out of US, peoples savings are destroyed, and states start being more separationist, you are gonna see way worse things.
Nothing about the 2nd amendment legalizes shooting law enforcement officers.
This has always been the absurdity of the moronic claims of the 2nd amendment being to overthrow government tyranny: You may own the gun legally, but at no point will your actions be legal. If you've decided the government needs to be overthrown, you are already throwing "law" out the window, even if you have a valid argument that the government you are overthrowing has abandoned the constitution.
Why the fuck do you need legal guns to commit treason? Last I checked, most government overthrows don't even involve people armed with private rifles!
If you are overthrowing the government, you will need to take over local police stations. At the moment, you no longer need private arms, and what you are doing isn't legal anyway.
Meanwhile, every single fucking time it has come up, the gun nuts go radio silent when the government kills the right person who happens to own a gun. Every. Single. Time.
It took minutes for the "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" people who raised a million dollars for Kyle Rittenhouse to defend himself for driving to a protest in a different state while armed to the teeth to of course get to shoot someone to turn around and say "Actually bringing a gun to a protest makes you a terrorist and you need to be shot". Minutes. They have also put up GoFundMes for the guy who executed that man.
If you are too scared to stand up to your government without a fucking rifle, you have never been an actual threat to your government, and they know that.
Sure there is the usual hypocrisy but IMO what's more interesting is that, based on some posts that pop up on my FB feed, there has been a real backlash among gun nuts and people like Rittenhouse himself.
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That's a strange take. It also feels like exactly what they are hoping to have happen. Encouraging gun violence is not something condoned, so not sure why you are posting that nonsense. Are you an agitator?
Strange take? Are you kidding me?
The second amendment is literally in the constitution for the EXACT reason where if a governing entity decides to violate the security and freedoms of people, the people have the right to own weapons and organize a militia.
Plus nobody really needs to die. Having enough people point guns at them is going to make them think twice about starting shit. Contrary to popular belief, ICE agents aren't exactly martyrs for the cause. There are already groups of people armed outside protecting others, for this exact reason.
You are the actual fed lmao.
I wish we would stop using that word 'agitator', while I understand the subjective idea that someone is just trying to stir up trouble, it kind of undermines the idea that we should be able to express opinions no matter how distasteful.
and apparently it now a perfectly valid reason for the state to execute someone without being charged or a trial.
anyone promoting for people to start showing up and shooting at law enforcement, even if it is ICE, is what if not an agitator?
where is the line? I was fine with the word until it started being used to justify killing innocents
Then be upset with them for misappropriating the word. I'm using it just fine, thank you very much!
I consider the term to be a label of a bad-faith actor vs. someone who holds genuine conviction that the "agitating action" is a good thing.
A Chinese bot farmer who says we should be shooting each other? Agitator.
A neighbor who says "If I see LEO murder someone, I'm taking them on"? Not an agitator.
> A neighbor who says "If I see LEO murder someone, I'm taking them on"? Not an agitator.
That's not what was said here though
There are already people on X who have infiltrated chats and posted screen captures. Getting the full content of the chats isn't going to be difficult. They have way to many people in them.
Or has biometric login turned on and didn't lock their phone behind a passcode before being arrested.
Unlocking isn't necessary, We've already seen that Apple and Google will turn data over on government requests.
Unfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully vetted, in which case they could be feds collecting "evidence". Some chats may have publicly circulating invite links.
But any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a first-amendment basis is doing the business of an authoritarian dictator. This is fully protected speech and assembly.
> any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a first-amendment basis
If you say something illegal in a chat with a cop in it, or say it in public, I don’t think there are Constitutional issues with the police using that as evidence. (If you didn’t say anything illegal, you have a valid defence.)
Not sure what difference that makes, it's not like the current regime limits their actions to respect constitutional bounds.
Sure. Can you give me an example of something that's illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal observers?
One of the things that has been circulating in videos of the Signal chats online is someone confirming/not confirming that certain license plates are related to ICE. Perhaps if someone is misusing their access to an administrative or law enforcement database to ‘run plates’ and report on who owns the vehicle, this could be unlawful.
I don’t know if anyone IS using such a database unlawfully - they might be checking the plate number against an Excel sheet they created based on other reports from people opposed to ICE - but if its a databse they shouldn’t be using in this way, if might be against the law.
> Perhaps if someone is misusing their access to an administrative or law enforcement database to ‘run plates’ and report on who owns the vehicle, this could be unlawful.
But that's not an example of something that would be illegal to say in a chat. It would be an example of something that's illegal to do regardless of the chat.
I don't think the idea is that the speech in the chat is inherently illegal; it's that it could be used as evidence of illegal activity. Using that example - if someone in the chat asks about plate XYZ at 10AM, and if a phone linked to "Bob" posts to the group chat at 10:04 AM that license plate XYZ is used by ICE, and the internal logs show that Bob queried the ICE database about plate XYZ at 10:02 AM, and no one else queried that license plate in the past month, that is pretty good evidence that Bob violated the CFAA.
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> Can you give me an example of something that's illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal observers?
Actual examples? No. I don’t believe it happened.
Hypothetical examples? Co-ordinating gunning down ICE agents. If the chat stays on topic to “coordinat[ing] legal observers,” there shouldn’t be liability. The risk with open chats is they can go off topic if unmoderated.
"ICE are at (address)" apparently
> Unfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully vetted,
Curious how many group chats have unknowingly allowed a well known journalist into their groups.
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> Patel said he got the idea for the investigation from Higby.
This is confirmation that this wasn't being investigated until just now. This is surprising, I would have thought that "how are these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look into.
> I would have thought that "how are these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look into.
You assume competence. Have you heard (or heard of) Kash Patel?
Why is it so obvious to you to investigate something that is perfectly legal?
> something that is perfectly legal
The goal is to prevent ICE / BP from doing their jobs. Which I rather suspect is not actually legal.
Thinking they're incompetent doesn't change that. Thinking the specific laws they're (nominally) enforcing are evil doesn't change that. Thinking that national borders are fundamentally illegitimate doesn't change that.
Perhaps the FBI had been ignoring this out of incompetence. Perhaps they'd been ignoring it as a form of protest. Either is interesting.
Indeed, as sibling commenter notes, it's not to prevent ICE from doing their jobs. Observers do not take physical actions to block ICE/CBP. Observers are there to
1) get the name & some other info from the person being abducted so that their family can be contacted
2) record the encounter so that ICE/CBP has some check on their behavior, or legal action can be taken in the future to prosecute them for violence and destruction of property
3) recover the belongings of the person abducted and ensure family/friends can get these things, as often wallet, cell phone, shoes, coat, and vehicle (even still running) are left behind
4) get a tow truck for any vehicle left behind, preferably from one of the tow services that is towing for free or low cost
4) connect family/friends with legal resources, if needed, or simply let them know that their lawyer needs to get to the Whipple Building ASAP
None of those things are illegal. In some of the small rural towns in Minnesota, there aren't observers there, and the phones/vehicles/wallets of people kidnapped from Walmart are just... left in the parking lot, in the snow. It adds insult to injury to have your phone & wallet gone, your car window smashed in, and a big fee from the municipal towing lot if you're a US citizen who is then released from detainment 12 hours later. And if you're not a US citizen but you have legal status, you want your family to get an attorney working ASAP to ensure you're not flown to Texas -- because if you're flown to Texas, even in error, you need to get back on your own (again without your wallet/phone/etc if those things didn't happen to stick with you).
Not to mention they keep releasing people with no phone & no jacket, even no shoes, into the zero or negative degree weather we've been having.
> Observers do not take physical actions to block ICE/CBP.
As clearly seen in multiple videos, including at least one video of almost every major incident we're supposed to get outraged about, yes, they clearly do.
> Not to mention they keep releasing people with no phone & no jacket, even no shoes, into the zero or negative degree weather we've been having.
How come the cold weather doesn't justify ICE wearing "masks" which often appear to just be face/neck warmers?
> The goal is to prevent ICE / BP from doing their jobs.
No. The goal is to protest ICE / BP doing their jobs in criminal ways.
The current bias is so large for the administration that most people haven't even clocked that what they are doing is legal
> “As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it,”
So when a right wing 'reporter' highlights people are doing things within their legal right, there's an investigation straight away.
But they can release the Epstien files when the victims themselves are asking them to.
> if that leads to a break in the federal statute or a violation of some law, then we are going to arrest people
That's not how the justice system works, you can't just go on fishing expeditions to find a crime.
Don't want to spoil the fun here. But easy:
Don't write anything that you don't want LEO to read.
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Schrödinger's HN story: Is it a tech story (in which case it's uninteresting) or is it a political story (in which case it's against the rules)? It's both.
Yeah Cam Higby & friends have "infiltrated" the Signal groups. It's not that hard frankly, and most of the chats emphasize that 1) they're unvetted, 2) don't do anything illegal, anywhere, including taking a right on red if the sign is there saying not to 3) don't write anything you don't want read back to you in a court of law. Higby and friends do have "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" energy in those chats.
Here's what I'm interested in: anyone know what Penlink's tools' capabilities actually are? Tangles and WebLoc. Are they as useful as advertised?
Why is it so hard for someone like Trump to admit that a mistake was made by one of his agents, put him in jail and leave Minnesota alone at least for a while?
It was predictable that things would get worse if he didn't back off and tell the truth.
How many rights can Trump trample in one year? This is a big deal. I realize most of the problems started with the patriot act (most members of congress are culpable for that). We should all have zero tolerance for the erosion of our rights, zero tolerance for fake emergencies!
Osama bin Laden won.
The FBI should investigate the murders done by ICE and until done with that, remain silent.
And importantly the DoJ attorneys who would be responsible for investigating g the murders resigned because they were prevented from performing the standard procedure investigation that happens after every single shooting. They were instead directed to investigate the family of the person who was shot:
We are through the looking glass, folks. This will be dropped and ignored like so many other outrages unless we demand answers from Congress, and hold SCOTUS responsible for partisan abdication of their constitutional duties.
> unless we demand answers from Congress, and hold SCOTUS responsible for partisan abdication of their constitutional duties.
You can demand answers from Congress, but until a significant portion of the GOP base demands answers, they are just going to ignore your demands. As of now 39% of Americans support the administration. Also, you can't hold SCOTUS responsible, only Congress can.
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Currently they are attempting to strip our second amendment rights. They murdered a man in the street, from hands up to shit in the back in under 20 seconds, merely for lawful possession and in direct violation of the 2nd amendment. The President is bumbling around today mumbling "you can't bring a gun to a protest" when yes the 2nd amendment directly allows that.
A lot of people that care a lot about the 2nd amendment saw the photo of Pretti's gun on the ICE rental car seat, and they saw a well-used, well-cared-for weapon that was clean and seen a lot time at the range. They saw that it can happen to somebody just like them.
> you can't bring a gun to a protest" when yes the 2nd amendment directly allows that.
They conveniently forgot their excuses for Rittenhouse. Guess they all changed their mind and think he should be arrested.
The core belief of the Trump administration is that there are two groups: an in-group which the law protects but does not bind, and an out-group which the law binds but does not protect. --Someone far more insightful than me
As often happens these days, I’m confused at the hysteria here.
Police messed up and someone got killed. I feel like outrage is warranted if nothing is done about it, but after seeing the videos I’m fairly confident this won’t get swept under the rug. Will we retract our outrage when a conviction is delivered? Is there a reason we expect nothing to come of this?
Because the people doing the investigating are on the side of the people who committed the crimes. And the people who voted for them seem predisposed to vote for them again, even if this gets swept under the rug.
News cycles go fast. Outrage is quickly forgotten. Now more than ever, as there are new outrages coming on the heels of the last.
As often happens these days, I’m confused at the hysteria here.
No you're not. You're choosing words like 'hysteria' to delegitimize others' opinions while striking a posture of disinterested neutrality.
I'm an outsider, I can well understand the ever growing outrage.
In a nutshell, to date, US ICE & DHS interactions have resulted in 10 people shot **, 3 people killed, and established a pattern of high level officials immediately blatently lying and contradicting video evidence.
That pattern includes obvious attempts to avoid investigation, to excuse people involved, to not investigate the bigger picture of how interactions are staged such that civilian deaths are inevitable.
It's good to see the citizens of the US dig in and demand that federal forces and federal heads of agencies be held accountable for clearly screwed up deployments and behaviours.
** My apologies, I just saw a Wash Post headliine that indicates it is now 16 shootings that are being actively swept under a rug.
A lot of people would disagree with your use of the word “police.”
They wear masks, don’t get warrants before entering houses, regularly arrest American citizens, and are operating far from anything a reasonable person would call an immigration or customs checkpoint.
Also, they’ve been ordered in public (by Trump) and private (by superiors) to violate the law, and have been promised “absolute immunity” for their crimes (by Trump).
One other thing: Trump and his administration have made it clear (in writing) that ICE’s mission in Minnesota is to terrorize the public until Governor Walz makes a bunch of policy changes that the courts have declined to force. So, there’s no reasonable argument to be made that they’re acting as law enforcement.
> Will we retract our outrage when a conviction is delivered? Is there a reason we expect nothing to come of this?
I doubt the Trump DOJ will want to prosecute this. Now, if Democrats win in 2028, maybe the Newsom (or whoever) DOJ will-but Trump might just give everyone involved a pardon on the way out the door. And I doubt a state prosecution would survive the current SCOTUS majority.
So yes, there are decent reasons to suspect “nothing to come of this” in the purely legal domain. Obviously it is making an impact in the political domain.
> Police messed up and someone got killed.
ICE, a federal agency and not a state or municipal police force, had a man face down and unarmed. There were what, half a dozen of them? He was completely subdued. They then shot him in the back.
This was not a “mistake.” This was murder.
There is no investigation. They haven't even released the officers' names.
Is your ignorance intentional? The FBI raided the ICE agents home to remove incriminating paraphernalia and blocked normal investigative processes. Heads of various agencies staffed by Trump loyalists called the victim a domestic terrorist while a video showed him being shit kicked and not meaningfully resisting before being executed by an agent who I would be doing a service to by calling undisciplined.
The entire fact that ICE is in Minnesota instead of a border state with heavier illegal immigration on patrols performing illegal 4th-amendment violating door to door raids is already a complete abomination in the face of American’s rights and their constitution.
And you disapprove of outrage over an innocent man being extrajudicially executed in the face of all of this?
Let me know how the boot tasted so at least I can learn something from this
This is what I don't understand about American authoritarians. Historically speaking, if you try to take away the liberty of Americans, they respond with lethal violence.
Britain tried to tax Americans without government representation, and they started sending the tax man home naked and covered in tar, feathers, and third-degree burns. These stories are then taught to schoolchildren as examples of how Americans demand freedom above all else.
If the powers that be keep doing whatever they want without consequence, eventually there will be consequences, and those consequences very well could be the act of being physically removed from their ivory towers and vivisected in the streets.
according to urban dictionary, wolfenstein as a verb means
To kill or utterly destroy a large group of enemies with an extreme overabundance of weapons and items, including throwing knives to the head, poison, stabs to the neck or back, kicks to the chest, shoves off of high ledges, multiple headshots, artillery, panzer rockets, flames, dynamite, mines, construction pliers, airstrikes, or even slamming a door into someone's chest. Wolfensteining a group of enemies requires that every kill be performed using a different method
you are calling for extreme violence?
According to Urban Dictionary, cat as a noun means:
> an epic creature that will shoot fire at you if you get near it. you can usually find one outside or near/in a house. its main abilities are to chomp and scratch but they can also pounce, shoot lasers out of their eyes, be cute, jump as high as they want, and fly. do not fight one unless you are equipped with extreme power armor and heavy assault cannons. […]
I think that is what he is doing, I think it's an accurate expression of his thinking.
I was informing the community what the word means after putting in the effort to look it up.
If you are not curious, if you can't handle differences of opinion, you don't belong here.
I don’t object to you defining something.
> I think that is what he is doing, I think it's an accurate expression of his thinking.
It isn’t. It is like saying “you can do that but you will eventually get beat up.” That is not saying “people should beat you up.” There is a world of difference in those 2 statements. Your accusation hinges on the worst possible - debatably possible at best tbh - interpretation of their statement. It is bait, it is dishonest, and you’re being intentional about it.
This is not a difference of opinion, this is not curiosity, you are just being difficult.
That's straight up corrupt third world country stuff.
"Sh*thole countries" was projection
Everything is a projection with these people. Including the pedophilia.
It is going to get a lot worse. Trump's eventual goal is to send the military to all Democrat-controlled cities. Back in September Trump gathered military leaders in a room and told them America is under "invasion from within". He said: "This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war too. It's a war from within."
You spend too much time on the internet.
I see you all over these comments. People were denying it would get as bad as it has already gotten.
I'm here indeed. How bad is it, objectively?
We went from the "War On Drugs" to the "War On Ourselves".
How is it corrupt? The DA chose to resign, they weren't forced out.
I as someone with power over you will repeatedly force you to do an illegal and or immoral act. I have doubt you have the balls to resign rather than follow along, but if you do resign I hope you don't say you were forced out. Be honest.
They were prevented from following just policy, and were being forced to perform actions that go against professional ethics, politically driven prosecutions unconnected from fact or law.
People resigned to send the message to the public: the integrity of the office had been compromised, and the lawyers (lawyers!!) couldn't stay due to their ethics. This is a difficult thing to understand for people that lack ethics.
If those shooters don't get presidential pardons, they're going to get prosecuted sooner or later. No statute of limitations for murder, right?
They're wearing masks. Have they been identified?
Presidential pardons have no impact and their liability for state-law murder charges (though federal seizure of crime scenes and destruction of evidence might, in practice.)
Yes, but In re Neagle (1890) is SCOTUS precedent granting federal agents immunity from state criminal prosecution for acts committed while carrying out their official duties (and the act at question in that case was homicide). Now, its precise boundaries are contested - in Idaho v. Horiuchi (2001), the 9th Circuit held that In re Neagle didn’t apply if the federal agent used unreasonable force - but that case was rendered moot when the state charges were dropped, and hence the issue never made it to SCOTUS. Considering the current SCOTUS majority’s prior form on related topics (see Trump v. United States), I think odds are high they’ll read In re Neagle narrowly, and invalidate any state criminal prosecution attempts.
In re Neagle (while, unfortunately, it does not state as clear of a rule as Horiuchi on the standard that should be applied) conducts an expansive facts-based analysis on the question of whether, in fact, the acts performed were done in in the performance of his lawful federal duties (if anything, the implicit standard seems less generous to the federal officer than Horiuchi’s explicit rule, which would allow Supremacy Clause immunity if the agent had an actual and objectively reasonable belief that he acted within his lawful duties, even if, in fact, he did not.)
But, yeah, any state prosecutions (likely especially the first) is going to (1) get removed to federal court, and (2) go through a wringer of federal litigation, likely reaching the Supreme Court, over Supremacy Clause immunity before much substantive happens on anything else.
OTOH, the federal duty at issue in in re Neagle was literally protecting the life of a Supreme Court justice riding circuit, as much as the present Court may have a pro-Trump bias, I wouldn't count on it being as strong of a bias as it had in Neagle.
I just realised another angle: 28 U.S.C. § 1442 enables state prosecutions of federal agents to be removed to federal court. Now, if Trump pardons the agent, does the federal pardon preclude that trial in federal court? To my knowledge, there is no direct case law on this question; there is an arguable case that the answer is “no”, but ultimately the answer is whatever SCOTUS wants it to be.
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I'll eat your hat if any of these goons ever see in the inside of a holding cell
But pardons only apply to federal crimes… murder is a state offense.
Correct, state charges are mostly pardon proof and there is no statute of limitations on murder.
So ... you're saying that this militia as every incentive to overthrow democratie so that they never get prosecuted, right ?
See where this is going ?
They don't need to overthrow democracy, they just need to use jurisdiction removal to have the state charges placed in federal court, and then appeal it up to SCOTUS who will overturn the decision.
The US couldn't win a war in the middle east with trillions of dollars, thousands of soldiers dead, and tens of thousands substantially wounded. Hasn't won a war since WW2. Is everything going swimmingly? Certainly not. There are 340M Americans, ~20k-30k ICE folks, and ~1M soldiers on US soil. These odds don't keep me up at night. 77% of US 18-24 cohort don't qualify for military service without some form of waiver (due to obesity, drug use, or mental health issues).
I admit, US propaganda is very good at projecting an image of strength. I strongly doubt it is prepared for a civil ground war, based on all available evidence. It cannot even keep other nation states out of critical systems. See fragile systems for what they are.
There are 340 million Americans, but 80 million of them voted for this administration, and another 80 million were not interested either way. Only about 20% of the population voted to oppose it.
If you're imagining a large scale revolt, figure that the revolutionaries will be outnumbered by counter-revolutionaries, even without the military. (Which would also include police forces amounting to millions more.)
I have no confidence in the gravy seals of this country, broadly speaking. What’s the average health and age of someone who voted for this? Not great, based on the evidence, especially considering the quality of ICE folks (bottom of the barrel).
Well, they are entirely Presidential pardon proof, but each state usually has its own pardon provisions. Unlikely to benefit ICE agents as a broad class in any of the places where conflicts over their role are currently prominent, though.
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They should charge it as a criminal conspiracy and use the state felony murder statute to go after leadership.
That depends, the civil service has a lot of leverage because most of them cannot easily be fired. And POTUS needs the civil service to execute his policy goals so his fellow party members and possibly himself can get re-elected.
Therefore there is considerable leverage for allied servants to form an alliance that more or less offers their allegiance in exchange for non-prosecution. I would expect especially DHS to basically become a non-functional (or even seditious) department if they prosecute those guys and they could purposefully make the president look bad by making his security apparatus look incompetent.
> Therefore there is considerable leverage for allied servants to form an alliance that more or less offers their allegiance in exchange for non-prosecution.
Won't help if the prosecuting sovereignty isn't the one they work for (state vs federal charges.)
Also won't work if the agency is disbanded and they are dismissed en masse before the prosecution happens.
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> the civil service has a lot of leverage because most of them cannot easily be fired
Unless, as Doge showed us, you ignore the law, fire them anyway, and the SCOTUS says, "Yeah, whatever."
Maybe not in the most recent case with the border patrol. Aside from their bad gear and bad communication the agent that cleared the Sig said "Muffled word Gun" and the guys holding the known agitator down clearly misunderstood that as "Gun!" so they repeated it and the agent in cover position fired. I'm sure it did not help that all these guys could hear is blaring loud whistles which is why I would personally hold the protestors partially responsible. I know I will catch flak for those observations but I stand by them as I am neither left nor right and these observations are just obvious. As an insufferable principal armchair commander I would also add that these incidents are primarily occurring in sanctuary cities where antifa community organizers are escalating non stop in hopes that someone dies and they can use it as political fodder later on and in hopes they can radicalize people. Just my opinion but I think it is going to backfire. The normies can see what is going on.
> cleared the Sig said "Muffled word Gun"
The person in front said "I've got the gun, I've got the gun", and I can tell that quite clearly in the videos.
> here antifa community organizers are escalating non stop in hopes that someone dies [...] in hopes they can radicalize people
I think this rhetorical frame highlights how many people don't believe in protest. Expressing disdain for trampling of civil liberties is not 'escalation' any more than the curtailment of fourth amendment rights that inspire the protests.
I am not attacking you (I believe we should all be able to express how we feel with respect to the government). I just want to highlight a reason why you may feel that this level of unrest is meant to "radicalize people".
The person in front said "I've got the gun, I've got the gun", and I can tell that quite clearly in the videos.
That means there is an even better version that what I saw and heard which means normies will figure out fairly quick this was not malicious intent. Perhaps malicious incompetency but certainly not an intentional execution.
I just want to highlight a reason why you may feel that this level of unrest is meant to "radicalize people".
I would accept that if these were just protesters, stood at the side of the road holding up signs but a number of them are far from it. They have formed military squads, dox agents and attack them at home and in their personal vehicles, coordinate their attacks between multiple groups of "vetted" agitators. They are tracking their personal vehicles and their family members. They are blocking traffic and forcing people out of their cars. At best this is an insurgency being coordinated from out-of-state agitators and at the behest of the state governor. They are egging people on to break numerous laws, obstruct federal agents, throw bricks at agents or anyone they think is an agent, use bull-horns at full volume in the ears of anyone supporting the agents. I could go on for hours regarding all the illegal shenanigans. So yeah these are people trying to radicalize others and trying to get people hurt or killed. This is primarily occurring in sanctuary cities where the government is actively encouraging their citizens to attack federal agents. That is not even close to anything that resembles protesting and is not anywhere near a protected right.
I also blame President Trump for not invoking the insurrection act and curtailing this very early on.
Thanks for your response, I think we disagree on a few things but I appreciate your arguments.
My main question is how you might frame the protests (comprising legal and potentially illegal behaviors) in the context of how the US was founded, or in the French revolutions. Were we in the 1750s, would your assessment about how to go about protesting be the same?
Here, I'm not making arguments about what is or is not similar, just trying to understand how you view historical political upheaval from the perspective of the people who lived in those times.
My main question is how you might frame the protests (comprising legal and potentially illegal behaviors) in the context of how the US was founded, or in the French revolutions. Were we in the 1750s, would your assessment about how to go about protesting be the same?
The founding of the nation was far more violent and laws were sparse but I am sure you know how complex of a question you are asking. There are multi-volume books and movies created around that mess. I would never want a return to those times and behaviors that we are purportedly evolved beyond.
What I do not understand is why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants. I am told it is for voting purposes to get more delegates but it can't really be worth it. At least in my opinion it would not be worth it. All of that said I am not in favor of kicking people out that have been here for decades and that had properly integrated into our society. That I could see people protesting if they were in fact just protesting.
> What I do not understand is why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants. I am told it is for voting purposes to get more delegates but it can't really be worth it. At least in my opinion it would not be worth
My issue with the current tactics is a loss of our Bill of Rights privileges (note this doesn't depend on citizenship), which really can only go poorly from here.
> What I do not understand is why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants.
There's an easy argument about maintaining Constitutional rights for every person—once we stop doing that, we're essentially finished as a democracy.
The majority of people being removed are not criminals of any sort whatsoever. It's tricky to get data about this as DHS is releasing very political statements[1] but many have been in the US for decades and have no criminal records in Minnesota. Also, Minnesota is not a liberal state—being a Democrat means different things in different parts of the country, and things are quite 'centrist' there; I say this to discourage porting sensibilities from other states.
1. DHS Highlights Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested in Minnesota Yesterday Including Murderers, Drug Traffickers, and an Illegal Alien with TWENTY-FOUR Convictions - (this is the title of the relevant webpage)
edit - To distill my perspective, I am worried that we will lose our rights, not because I am alarmist, but because this has happened in several democracies this century, notably Turkey (but also cf Hungary, Poland, the Philipnes). Even amongst undemocratic nations, strongmen are upending institutions (China, but also more recently in West Africa).
The only way the US can escape is by continually standing up for what rights we still have.
> why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants
Most are not violent.[1] Many of them are “here for decades and that had properly integrated into our society” just like you said, or are attempting to integrate and be here legally, so people are defending them. If the government can trample one group over the worst crimes of a few of its members, it can trample any group for any reason, so we must stand together to protect our freedom.
ICE is not targeting violent illegal immigrants. They are targeting legal residents, immigrants with pending asylum cases that allow them to stay, US citizens that happen to look like immigrants maybe, people that are legally recording their activities in public from a safe distance, all kinds of people really.
they are protesting masked armed thugs running around their neighborhood smashing windows and dragging people out of cars because they happen to feel like it. running up to people and pepper spraying them in eyes for saying things they dont like. and yes, shooting them.
I think everyone can understand someone saying 'wtf, no' in those circumstances. except you.
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congress isn't going to do anything. All it would take is about 20 republican sentors to bring this shit to a halt. They are not doing anything, they all have blood on their hands.
At this point I think the only thing that will work is organizing a month where the nation stops spending money and going to work.
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80 million Americans thought it.
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law” ― Oscar R. Benavides
The police (FBI and ICE included) are never your friends. They work to protect the rich and powerful and not us.
They work to protect the government. Now, for peasants there isn't much of a distinction, but the rich and powerful would do well to remember it.
Cynical responses like this are meant to make the speaker sound smart, but actually what you're doing is making further tyranny more likely, because you're deliberately overlooking that-- whatever the existing problems with the FBI-- there is a significant difference between their behavior now and their behavior before.
Not even bothering to run the established investigation playbook when law enforcement kills a civilian is a major departure, and one worth noticing. But if all you do is go "same old same old", then you can safely lean back in your chair and do nothing as the problem worsens, while calling yourself so much smarter and more insightful than the people around you.
I would disagree to a certain extent. "Law enforcement is not your friend" is a good mindset as a citizen. You should never hand them information without a lawyer and you should always push for oversight.
I agree that the "same at it ever was and always will be" attitude isn't great. It's defeatist and I choose not to live my life that way, even if it would be much easier mentally.
I think part of the reason I see this attitude so often is that, especially since 9/11, a large portion of the US population has decided that the police and military are infallible and should be trusted completely, so any large-scale attempt at reform runs into these unwavering supporters (and, in the case of the police, their unions).
I don't agree law enforcement is not the problem. Its the people in the system that are making these problems worse. You start blaming systems and then its a catch all that does nothing.
I won't disagree that the people inside the system are making it worse but the system is currently setup to incentivize bad behavior.
- Overly broad qualified immunity
- The power of the police unions
- Lawsuit settlements coming out of public funds
- Collusion between prosecutors' and the police
These are all issues that need to be resolved to restore the sanity in policing.
At the federal level, the FBI needs to be reigned in...somehow. They all to often work outside the bounds of their defined role and powers. This isn't a new problem and one could argue it has been an issue since the beginning.
Furthermore, going back as far as I remember, if you take part in a protest the police personally disagree with they will use violence against you regardless of your occupation.
Nothing cynical, that’s just the truth. They’re called law enforcement for a reason, not emergency hugs.
Whether they behave like civilized people or like thugs should be besides the point regardless of your political leaning in the matter of the system. Naturally from a basic human perspective civilized law enforcement is much more preferable than the alternative, but they aren’t your friends!
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By before, what do you mean? COINTELPRO?
This is exactly my point. Yes, COINTELPRO was really bad. But it was intelligence and disruption, they weren't executing people on the street and then bragging about how they'd get away with it. Do you not see the difference?
They drugged and executed Fred Hampton and no one suffered any consequences for that as far as I know.
The only significant difference is that law enforcement is treating white people the way they've always treated everyone else. Which is a difference in degree, but not character.
They've always treated white nationalists and other weirdos like this. I mean, the whole "any infraction is a grounds for execution" ROE is very reminiscent of Ruby Ridge, for example.
But the kind of white people we have here have never really had anything in common with those people so now that the Feds are coming after people of the sort of political persuasion they identify with for the first time since, the 1970s it "feels" like they're just now going after white people.
ICE just hired 12000 Ruby Ridge types as their untrained SA brownshirts. It is inevitable that they have no understanding of basic civics and rage against lawful protestors they see as the enemy.
Considerable amount of cops are white nationalists themselves.
Back in the 1980s we had jokes about the KKK being a barbecue club for law enforcement. The punchline of the joke invariably hinges on the ambiguity as to whether they're there on the job as informants or "organically".
The irony is that Ruby Ridge and Waco were big rallying points for the “patriot” right when it was precisely this mentality that led to those events.
Now a lot of those same patriot right types are cheering this on if not enlisting.
I guess nothing matters and there's no point to expecting any sort of justice from the system. And at least now I can laugh at those other people being hurt. (</s>)
Software engineers are definitely among the class of people protected by the police
Depends on the race of the engineer. If you're gay or live in a blue city/state then you also lose your protection
911 informs the cops of your sexual preferences when they dispatch them?
Sorta, if you live in a blue city—so really just a city at this point-then it wraps around a small amount and your local police are, at least when it comes to this crap, largely on your side. ICE is making huge messes and leaving it to the local PD to clean it up which is not exactly endearing. Nobody likes when a bunch of people come in and start pissing in your Cheerios. Especially when those Cheerios are "rebuilding trust with your local community."
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It’s conditional on whether you are affirming the opinions of your employer or oppositional
I'll be sure to bring my mechanical keyboard and secondary vertical monitor out in public so they'll know I'm one of the good ones.
Engineers are just workers
There is no protected class from malevolent government. Everyone from oligarchs down to the have nots can be targets. Let's not keep relearning that lesson.
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They will, one day. No statute of limitations on murder.
Biology is definitely a limit.
The lack of a legal limit means they are never safe from justice catching up, even decades later. This lawless administration won't last. Some perpetrators may die of natural causes before that point, but 2026 and 2028 elections aren't far away.
And which opposition to the ruling class do you see appearing in the next 2 or 4 years that would purse anyone but the lowliest of perpetrators?
When the crime is murdering people in cold blood, I will take nailing the “lowliest of perpetrators” (e.g. cold blooded murderers) to the fucking wall.
Yes, I hope future administrators go up and down the chain of command looking at everyone who was involved in the cover-up, and charges them with conspiracy to commit murder, but a future Democratic administration will at least identify and prosecute the murderers themselves. While Republican administrations will conceal the identity of the killers and continue to have them out on the streets
Don't get me wrong, I'd gladly take any small victory. But thinking of it in terms of 2026 or 2028 just means you've kicked the can down to 2030 or 2032.
I mean, these will likely be state cases no matter what.
The question is, can the State of Minnesota put together enough evidence to convict these agents for murder and conspiracy to commit murder without the involvement of the federal government?
If so, we could see cases brought as early as this year.
If not, then the next question is can Democrats get them enough information by controlling one branch of the federal government. In that case, we could imagine a prosecution brought in 2027.
Otherwise, if we need Democrats to control the executive branch to get enough information it might be 2029.
I don’t think it will take long, because the State of Minnesota will have put the case together and be waiting to go. So the question will be how quickly can they get any necessary evidence, incorporate that into their case, and then bring charges.
>The question is, can the State of Minnesota put together enough evidence to convict these agents for murder and conspiracy to commit murder without the involvement of the federal government?
They'd have to fight the feds for jurisdiction and will unfortunately likely lose that fight.
> They'd have to fight the feds for jurisdiction and will unfortunately likely lose that fight.
That’s simply not how the system works. There’s no one assigned entity with “jurisdiction” over a crime.
The state and federal governments are dual sovereigns and each are empowered to enforce their own laws. It doesn’t even violate double jeopardy for the Feds and a state to prosecute the same actions.
The only thing that matters is if the state can obtain enough evidence that they feel they could secure a conviction before a jury of the shooter’s peers.
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That's simply not how the system works.
The federal sovereign can usurp the state sovereign's courts jurisdiction and use jurisdiction removal[] to try the state charge in federal court. This is exactly what happened when Lon Horiuchi was charged by a state for killing (sniping) an innocent unarmed mother with a baby in her hands, and part of how he got off free.
Given the feds are always keen to do this when possible, it's not for nothing that they do it.
In case anyone thinks you're kidding, Kash Patel's embarssing sychophancy includes publishing a election denial children's "book" portraying Trump as a king and himself as a hero.
51 senators voted to confirm this unqualified moron to lead the top law enforcement agency.
It's literally not a joke, probably the most egregious example of a completely unqualified doormat that will do whatever dear leader wants. It's also by design, no roadblocks for the fanta menace.
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> the "resistance" rings in MN are behaving like the insurgents the US has fought for decades in the Middle East
This is a horrifying and very unpariortic thing to say about people who are trying to prevent their daycares from being tear bombed, prevent masked thugs from beating detained law-abiding citizens before releasing them without charges, from masked thugs killing law-abiding people for exercising basic rights.
King George would have used that language. We sent him the Declaration of Independence, and the list of wrongs in that document is mostly relevant again today.
If you are framing this as insurgency, I place my bet on the strong people fighting bullets with mere whistles and cameras, as they are already coming out on top. If they ever resort to a fraction of the violence that the masked thugs are already using, they will not lose.
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Their daycares, or their "daycares"? Not clear which one you mean.
I was not aware of that fake daycare propaganda until someone else exposed its meaning later in the thread.
As a parent, you should know that believing this obviously false propaganda requires both 1) a weird and overly specific interest in daycares, and 2) not enough normal healthy exposure to kids to understand what daycares don't let weird freaks come inspect the children. Namely, repeating this obvious lie gives off pedo vibes, and I would never let you near my children after hearing you gobble up that propaganda uncritically and then even going so far as to spread it. Ick
Most child care centers are locked and have obscured doors or windows for children’s safety. Children are also kept in classrooms and would not likely be visible from a reception area. One of the day cares in the video told several news outlets that it did not grant Shirley entrance because he showed up with a handful of masked men, which raised suspicions that the men were agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least one of the centers was closed at the time Shirley arrived because it opens later in the day to serve the children of second-shift workers.
Is there a history of child care fraud in the state?
Yes, but it’s not as widespread as Shirley claims.
Not a MN resident, but both the daycare my child attended before starting school and every daycare in my area have a combination of tinted/obscured windows and strict access control, even for parents (eg: a parent isn't allowed to make a "surprise inspection" without a court order).
If anything, I'd be suspicious of (and not send my child to) any daycare that _didn't_ have those security features.
Please don't spread propaganda lies here pretending it to be a majority of cases to such an extreme. You saw some clips of people investigating doorway entrances and lobby areas and were shocked the lobbies aren't full of children hovering at the exit's threshold because you were told to expect them there. In fact what you saw was someone unable to find any of the evidence that has existed.
Ah yes, Tim isn't running again because there is no truth to it. My god. Some of you are so obsessed with the "narrative" that you'll look at the sun and say it's night.
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oh good, people on Hacker News Dot Com are taking Nick Shirley at face value.
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They're using IEDs and suicide bombings???
I don't what you are talking about but it's nonsense and offensive, a bald faced lie so outrageous that people are supposed to be shocked into silence?
The tactics being used are:
* whistles
* recording with phones
* free speech
* communication with neighbors
* sharing with neighbors, ala potlucks
* training each other on legal means of resistance
* caring for people kicked out of detention centers in the dead of winter without their coats or phones
* bringing meals to families that are afraid to leave the house, since the political persecution is largely a function of skin color, as numerous police chiefs have attested when recounting what ICE/CBP does to their officers when off duty.
Calling this "insurgent tactics" instead of neighbors being neighbors is most definitely a perverse and disgusting values assessment. When the hell have insurgents used the whistle and the phone camera as their "tactics"?!
Saying that this lawful activity, all 100% lawful, somehow "impedes federal enforcement of laws" is actually a statement that the supposed enforcement is being conducted in a completely lawless, unconstitutional, and dangerous manner.
Keep on talking like you are, because people right now are sniffing out who is their neighbor and who will betray them when ICE moves on to the next city. Your neighbors probably already know, but being able to share specific sentences like "insurgent tactics" and how cameras are somehow "impeding" masked men abducting people, when days later we don't even know the identity of officers that shot and killed a man on film, who was in no way impeding law enforcement. And the only people who talk about "impeding law enforcement" also lie profusely when there is direct evidence on film contradicting their lies.
There is terrorism going on, there is lawlessness, there is a great deal of elevated crime in Minnesota, but it all the doing of masked ICE/CBP agents that face zero accountability for breaking our laws and violating our most sacred rights.
>I don't what you are talking about but it's nonsense and offensive
This just reads as "I don't know whether you're on Other Team.. but, I'll assume you are, here goes:"
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Trump is morally obligated to deport felon illegals to protect americans. 70 million plus americans voted for it. Trump can't give up because a few thousand people are playing "im not touching you" with ICE.
No, felon illegals are supposed to go to prison and serve their sentence before deportation. You know, because they committed felonies.
Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor and overstaying your visa is a civil violation and not even a crime. Yet somehow those are the only ones he's targeting. Those, and actual lawful immigrants that say things that he doesn't like.
wow.dhs.gov
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Yes because the US was famously the good guy in its forays into the middle east.
I love this example because it demonstrates like 5 different levels of ignorance about American politics and foreign relations, plus a good helping of propaganda.
You're projecting a values claim on the American wars in the middle east on me that I didn't make. It's pretty clear that the ME wars were all around bad and evil.
It doesn't change the organization and tactics used to identify targets are the same methods and strategies used by insurgent groups to select targets and attack. AQI was very sophisticated for the technology they had. Their warriors were brave, cunning, and true believers with efficacious systems for what was available to them.
Twenty years of that, plus the rest of the middle east has now made it particularity common knowledge how to run insurgency cells worldwide. This combined with American expertise brought back and with people legally aiding these groups in setting up their C2 structures with what is effective and what works is no surprise.
This investigation should be no surprise to anyone. They use these techniques because they work. They are so effective at target acquisition, monitoring, and selective engagement that if they flipped from their current tactics to more violent ones it would be a large casualty event.
You have an occupation force killing bystanders in your streets. Resistance is exactly what is needed.
"bystanders"
What's needed is MNPD sharing their data around the criminal illegal aliens with ICE so that they can execute the deportation orders that have already been issued by judges.
The structure of your message implies you are not American. DHS posts the people they deport here:
It's really hard to go down that list and say "yeah i'd rather have these people here than have ICE deporting people".
MPD _is_ sharing and coordinating with ICE _when they're supposed to be_. MPD has already transferred ~70 people to ICE for deportation this year alone, after they completed prison sentences (which ICE claimed as their own arrests).
I'm guessing they would be 70 actual undocumented immigrants with actual criminal records then?
Not "brown looking" native americans or "foreign looking" US citizens that have been incorrectly identified and dragged without warrents from their homes and families barely dressed into the snow?
I'm not sure of the immigration status, just an article that called out ~70 transfers from MPD DOC to ICE following incarceration. I'd imagine it's a mix of documented and undocumented immigrants, as being convicted of a crime is a valid reason for the state to revoke a visa.
Good to see a subset of the system working as intended.
It's well past time whatever is left of DOGE got to working culling the over reach of the rest of the current ICE / DHS system.
That would not be a problem if they deported these people, instead of what they are doing.
The people you don't like are always guilty, right? Two people are accidentally killed, somewhat due to their own actions, but do you this can mean nothing else than "oppression".
> agreed to allow
pardon my ignorance, but why would that be up to your President?
Not a lawyer, but there's a lot of back and forth around jurisdiction between local and federal enforcement. If the President directs the DoJ to not fight to own the investigation over local, then it is up to the Executive Branch.
Both can be true, but only one is.
Equating civil resistance, even in heated forms like disrupting raids or blocking roads, with decades‑long insurgencies that involved organized armed groups, territorial control, foreign combatants, and protracted guerrilla campaigns is like comparing a neighborhood disagreement over lawn care to Napoleon invading Russia.
Like i've said over and over, the tactics used are the distilled what works from those insurgencies honed over decades. They are incredibly effective. The network that was built (several max signal chats, organized territory, labor specialization) has essentially created an effective targeting mechanism.
This isn't a bunch of people organically protesting, this is an organized system designed to "target" ICE agents. The only difference is the payload delivery between physical disruption vs weapon based attacks.
So what's the supposed goal of this "targeting" of ICE agents? Because that's a key to the insurgency vs protest thing.
We have chats, organized territory and labor specialization in a company I work for, too. It doesn't say anything by itself. It's just describing a means of human cooperation. Goal is to write software. You can have organized protest movement too. Unless the goal is to overthrow governing authority, or whatnot, it's not insurgency.
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They might not have the capacity to do more considering they still need to redact the rest of the epstein files that show their president is a child trafficking pedophile
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They are running communications rings geographically distributed across the city via Signal. They organize into specialized roles for identifying suspected agents (spotters), tailing them, and moving to contact with ICE. They use the ARMY SALUTE[0][1] method to handle their reports.
Anyone who ran convoys in the Middle East, patrolled, or did intel around it will know this playbook. The resistance is impressive because it's taken lessons learned from observing the US Military overseas dealing with insurgencies.
So i wonder why he people of the city would act the same way as a group being invaded by a hostile force? Just like the Middle east its the people being invaded, they are the problem, not the invaders.
It's more like Minneapolis has been "chosen" as the battle point by people opposed to Trump in every step. It's the same person leading deportations as under Obama, they deport less than Obama did, yet they have been demonized almost immediately after the Trump administration took over. Why?
During the Obama administration, state and local LEO worked with ICE to deport. Now they are directed not to. Without that protection and cooperation from local officers, it becomes significantly harder and more dangerous to execute these operations. So they put masks on because the local agitators are doxxing them, threatening their families, and making life unsafe for the agents.
So now we have this lack of cooperation from local government that creates unsafe and dangerous operating conditions for ICE. What are they supposed to do? Not enforce the law because the local government says no? We already fought a war about Federal power versus state power. Heck, Obama (whom i voted for 2x) sued Arizona (Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387) over supremacy of the Federal Government with respect to immigration.
There would be no problems if Minneapolis and Minnesota leadership reacted the way other cities like Memphis did. Instead they've explicitly, or tacitly, endorsed this escalating resistance movement. I can't imagine ever putting my hands on a LEO and expecting it to go well, yet they do it freely. Officers are only human, and day-in day-out of this, combined with very real actionable threats against your life, and family life are only going to create more tensions and more mistakes.
This is no invasion hostile force, this is a chosen focal point to challenge the will and ability of this administration to enforce the democratically made laws.
You left out a pretty important detail. Your "insurgents" in America aren't shooting people or planting IEDs. Communicating and protesting, on the other hand, are sacrosanct rights in the US.
You're missing the forest for the trees here. The network and techniques used here are the same, but even more refined and tech enabled, of those insurgency groups. The power is the network of people in their specialized roles that can quickly target the enemy (ICE) and deliver a payload (obstruction).
The FBI has a long history of attempting to infiltrate and destabilize these groups. In the early 2010s there was a push to infiltrate right leaning groups. They especially called out in their published documents disgruntled veterans returning from the wars and unhappy with leadership noting a worry they would use the skills picked up at war at home.
It's absolutely no surprise that the FBI would investigate this behavior.
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Alex Pretti's death should not have happened, and also
- he was carrying
- despite that, he involved himself in physical altercations with federal officers
- his group of disruption activists was quite successful; if you watch any video, it is very clearly difficult for the federal agents to communicate with one another
- one federal agent probably made the mistake of shooting one time, perhaps erroneously thinking Pretti had his gun out
- another federal agent probably made the mistake of shooting several times, perhaps thinking that the one shot was Pretti
basically, everything that could go wrong, went wrong, Pretti is not blameless, his group is not blameless, the ICE agents are not blameless, and it probably wasn't murder
Stop acting like we're talking about two kids who did an oopsie
Small town cops in third world countries are more professional than any of these ICE clowns, these mistakes happened because they keep hiring the lowest if the low, both in term of intelect and morality
Parent does have a point though.
Sounds like something for an investigation to figure out - wonder why they are fighting that so hard. Also sure sounds like a lot of victim blaming considering he died without ever doing anything warranting his death.
Are we still doing the "he was carrying" thing. Like for real?
Yet, he was. Are there any points in the list that aren't correct. ("Like for real?")
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That’s why I said “respectfully”, to keep it professional while commenting on their logic issue.
Next time I’ll add /s
Oh wow this article contains “ICE” in the title and isn’t flagged yet!
Interesting, this may result in showing how secure signal really is.
They're going to give this more scrutiny than they did to Hegseth leaking sensitive government information.
> “You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way”
Remember when words, at least usually, meant things?
This sounds like IMAX level projection
For real, if you're legitimately worried about your officers being legally entrapped, you've got some really untrustworthy officers.
I remember a time when people were better at lying, at least.
- Don't join giant group chats unless you're Whiskey Pete inviting journalists into a "clean" opsec group.
- Know others very personally or not at all.
- Don't take a phone to any event without it being in a proven good RF blocking bag.. I wished they made a bag that allowed taking pictures and video with audio.
- New people can potentially be liabilities such as crazy, stupid, undercover cops or adversaries, and/or destructive without a care.
- Avoid people who think violence is "the way" because there's rarely a positive or politically-acceptable offramp for it.
- Destruction of property can be effective non-violent resistance in limited circumstances, e.g., The Boston Tea Party, but that's becoming a criminal in the eyes of the current regime and 95% of rebellions fail.
> Destruction of property can be effective non-violent resistance in limited circumstances, e.g., The Boston Tea Party, but that's becoming a criminal in the eyes of the current regime and 95% of rebellions fail.
I'm pretty sure that almost everyone would generally consider destruction of someone else's property to be a crime.
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Next step: Those citizens will disappear and only turn up again in a mass grave 50 years later.
Next step: there will be no such things. But there will be more accidents such as this if you disobey police officers, e.g, drive towards them, carry a gun, etc.
Couple of minor nits:
1. Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal group.
2. Signal was not the app Hegseth, et al. used. They used TM SGNL, which is a fork of Signal. But that's a minor nit.
3. Encryption is not the same thing as authentication. And authentication is somewhat meaningless if you let everyone into your encrypted group chat.
> Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal group.
Cam Higby has close to 400 thousand followers and routinely gets multiple millions of views on his tweets, including almost 23 million views on his pinned "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" tweet. And this tweet is the start of a thread that provides quite a lot of (watermarked) evidence that he did, in fact, infiltrate such a group.
Anyone organizing your neighborhood and events keep inner circle chats to only people you have personally vetted and use a new group chat for every event/topic and delete the groups for past events.
Be mindful of what you share in a big group chat where you don’t know everyone
I’d be curious to know what they plan to charge people with.
Jaywalking, misappropriating funds during a renovation? Whatever the police state wants...
domestic terrorism, of course
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Coming soon, treason.
The article subhead implies obstruction of justice.
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I heard a totally unsubstantiated rumor that the participants were sending (ICE agent) plate numbers to people with NCIC access to run the plates. If that's the case it would be a pretty easy felony charge for all involved.
I have no reason to believe that's true, just what word on the street was they might be charged with.
If you have no reason to believe it's true, and understand the rumor to be unsubstantiated, why bother to spread it?
Because the question was what they might be charged with, not what they did.
Did you expect the government to charge people in good faith? It doesn't matter it if it's true or not, even putting them in the slammer for a long time while awaiting trial and forcing them to hire expensive attorneys is a win.
No, I don't expect the Trump administration to operate in good faith.
The post you replied to didn't ask what they might be charged with. It asked what they "plan" to charge.
And you replied with internet rumor nonsense. It's actually fine to say "I don't know" or simply not reply at all when someone asks a question to which you do not have an answer.
Several undercover reporters have reported this. They are obviously lying. If the administration confirms the same, they are obviously lying. Who shall we believe then? The NYTimes?
These "undercover" reporters have screenshots, surely they could show one of actual crimes instead of something that you keep willfully misinterpreting as such. We've already given you the mundane explanation, but it seemingly relies too much on people being able to work together as social creatures and not enough on a technological system.
What this reads as is a bunch of credulous X users trying to one-up each other and looking for reasons that Trump and his cronies are not once again lying to your face.
It is neither necessary nor particularly useful for them to be running plates for reasons you've already identified.
> surely they could show one of actual crimes
That's exactly what they have done - shared the information pointing to the organized attempt to interfere with the ongoing federal operation. This is a crime.
You keep saying this, but there actually is a legal standard for this, and following people around, yelling at them, none of that is interference with public acts.
> following people around, yelling at them, none of that is interference with public acts.
Physically obstructing them is interference. There are countless videos where protesters can clearly be seen to do this, even as they are then defended as supposedly "merely exercising free speech rights".
18 U.S.C. § 372 — Conspiracy to impede or injure officer
If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.
Federal felony
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> by force, intimidation, or threat
You seem to be glossing over the key piece of that statute. Peaceful protest is protected by the first amendment (free speech, right to assembly).
Intimidation, or threat at the very least seems applicable here if you have any idea of what's going on in Minnesota and what these Signal chats are being used for.
You heard about the one who got his finger bit off, yes?
If you threaten to kill somebody then follow them around for days at a time, is that intimidation?
Blocking law enforcement's vehicles and their person (I saw several protestors put hands on officers), when they are conducting arrests, certainly seems to fit the bill.
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Presumably Seditious Conspiracy, like many people involved in J6. Conspiracy to use force to prevent or delay enforcement of laws.
Or, at the very least, what they want to try to convince a grand jury to indict people on.
That's another angle that needs to be discussed more often with respect to Trump's DoJ: if you're impaneled on a grand jury for charges coming out of these investigations, you don't have to give them a bill.
Terrorism seems to be their default claim if you're against the Trump admin.
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They don’t need to if they just shoot them on the street.
I hope they're just looking for foreign influence I'm not sure what you could charge peaceful protestors with that would survive in court.
Not voting for them.
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Tracking the murderers who executed citizens in the street and then fled the scene of the crime and any sort of trial or investigation? That ICE and Immigration and Border Patrol? I wonder why. And since when is tracking public officials operating in public in the capacity of their government jobs illegal?
These federal goons need to be tracked and observed to record their crimes. That much is indisputable.
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Are you holding up some random unverified substack, featuring an obvious AI-generated photo, as a reliable source of information?
> You should probably read the original source before taking the opinion of your favorite pundit.
This is not an "original source" of the article in question.
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Great add
And you need to watch the videos but I imagine the cognitive dissonance is too uncomfortable.
When Trump saw the video of Renee Good's execution, he faltered. He hadn't seen that before.
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No, the ones on broadcast television news where they go scene by scene breaking down any claims of Alex being at fault being bogus lies that you are now repeating.
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I’ve never seen a set of voluntary fall guys like Noem, Patel and Miller. (And Hegseth for when a military operation fails.)
Every one is a potential fall guy except the King. First sign you're a liability and under the bus you go. And unless you're on Truth Social you're usually the last to know.
Miller is not the fall guy. The other clowns, yes, but not him. He's the most hard-core fascist in the bunch.
I don't know if I'd classify Noem as a patsy or fall gal, either.
When you mention an anecdote about shooting a hunting dog in your autobiography, that shows something beyond just being a "true believer" or stooge. That is willingly pointing out that you are willing to act out your lack of empathy through violence towards an animal.
I'm not a clinician (and haven't met Noem) but that just seems to me to be something indicative of a personality disorder.
Noem strikes me as a loyalist and a team player through and through, so probably a fall gal.
Miller is different. He has his own agenda, a lot of which has becomes trumps agenda. But trumps agenda changing does not change what Miller’s agenda is.
Trump has loyalty only to himself and in his first term was constantly throwing people under the bus after he decided they were a liability to the Main Character.
I could imagine we'll see the same thing again, before or after the midterms, and Miller and Bessent are two I expect to see have a dethroning at some point simply on account of Trump never taking responsibility for anything.
That and I've seen both try to speak "on behalf" of Trump, something the authoritarian personality doesn't appreciate.
However some of that logic is based on 1st round Trump not being as senile and insane as 2nd round Trump. It's possible his weakening cognitive faculties have made him even more open to manipulation.
Honestly Miller strikes me different. It’s not coincidence he’s survived so long.
He’s not an idiot. He knows how much damage he can absorb and how to position himself to not take more than that. He never positions himself as the implementation person who will take the hits. He’s the idea guy, and the manipulator/cheerleader. He doesn’t seem to expect trump to take care of him for his loyalty, so he doesn’t position himself to require it.
I think ultimately he won’t be thrown under the bus because his relationship with Trump is mutually beneficial, and they both see it as transactional. For both of them, the other is a means to an end. Soul mates in hell I guess.
From the outside it seems like he is so far gone that his inner circle is actually making all the decisions now.
She's complaining (via 'sources') that she's 'being hung to try' for parroting Stephen Miller's approved line, so I have a hunch she'll bite their ankles on the way out.
She's an opportunist. For someone like her to be nationally relevant they have to latch onto MAGA and embrace the crazy. See MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz.
To me, those people you list are absolutely opportunists, but there's just something different about Noem. Like they're hedonists who are engaging in a grift and know that they have to sling arrows that will own the libs in order to keep the gravy train rolling. MTG seems to have, at least for a while a few months ago, found her limit on what she'll put up with. Gaetz had at least enough shame/self-awareness to realize that his continued career was untenable at the time he was being considered for AG. Boebert's the girl who told your science teacher to go fuck himself when he caught her smoking behind the high school gym with her age-inappropriate boyfriend.
Maybe I'm just really hung up on the dog thing, but that is the crux of it. There's basically no one who hears a story of shooting a dog for misbehaving and thinks, "yeah, that'll show the libs". That's not a story out of a politician's biography as much as it is a story out of a book profiling a serial killer's childhood.
71% of American households have pets [0] and there's a good chance that those who don't have had at least one in the past. There was absolutely no benefit to including that in the book, and I'd be stunned if the publisher didn't at least try to talk her out of putting it in there, given her political ambitions. If they didn't try to get it cut, they didn't do their jobs; if she ignored them, then she really does display a tendency to take pride in behavior that is recognized across the political spectrum in American society as cruel and antisocial.
Not sure what the point of the service is. Given that it's more expensive than other MVNOs, and isn't even more private. You can still buy prepaid SIMs in store with cash, so it's harder to get more private than that. Not to mention this company asks for your zip+4 code (which identifies down to a specific street), and information for E-911. It's basically like Trump Mobile but for people who care about "privacy".
Can prepaid eSIMs be used anonymously?
Yes, but it's harder than just buying an esim from silent.link (or whatever) and installing it. The biggest issue is that phones have IMEIs that you can't change, so even with an esim you bought "anonymously", that won't do you any good if you install it to your iPhone that's linked to you in some way, eg. bought in Apple store with your credit card, inserted another SIM/esim that has your billing information, or simply the phone has pinged cell towers near your home/work for an extended amount of time.
For max privacy, remember to buy the phone anonymously as well. Be cognizant of links to non-anonymous IPs, emails, and identities.
I was unaware that you could buy a SIM with cash and no private data collected. I thought they had KYC laws like prepaid cash cards.
>I thought they had KYC laws like prepaid cash cards.
You don't. You could even order sim cards off ebay/amazon if you wanted to, which definitely doesn't have any KYC.
Clearly there is no point in it for you. The stores would ID you. As for the nine digit zip, I don't think they validate it. Your anti-privacy agenda is crystal clear.
>The stores would ID you
Source?
>As for the nine digit zip, I don't think they validate it.
Why collect it then? Imagine having a service promising "lets people use phones without revealing identity" but for whatever reason asks for a bunch of info, then brushes it aside with "yeah but you can fill in fake information so it's fine".
>Your anti-privacy agenda is crystal clear.
Your inability to take any criticism without resorting to personal attacks is crystal clear.
The answer to that question is so obvious that anyone raising it must necessarily be doing it in extremely bad faith. It's because the government mandates 911 service, and that the 911 service must be given the user's primary "location" when required. Your "criticism" is hereby redirected at yourself.
Why? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
To intimidate. They're probably quite aware they'll lose in court. But in the mean time they might discourage some folks from turning out on the street.
Are you under the impression that the current administration cares about what the law says?
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"
They're "investigating", presumably with data gleaned from arrests and CIs; you have a right to speech, and a right not to be prosecuted for speech, but a much, much narrower right not to be "investigated", collapsing to ~epsilon when the investigation involves data the FBI already has.
Yeah whenever people say “the first amendment is not a freedom from consequences” it is only a freedom from certain consequences (and that freedom only goes as far as the government is willing to protect it). It is a freedom from being convicted. They can still arrest you, you can still spend time in jail, prosecutors can even file charges. A court is supposed to throw those charges out. And in extreme cases you can be convicted and sent to prison for years before SCOTUS rules.
Nobody has been charged.
I think GP is speaking generally, not with regard to this situation specifically; obviously people have been charged for constitutionally-protected speech before.
No. According to the latest reports, while searching for ICE vehicles, the protesters are unlawfully scanning license plates, which strongly suggests they are receiving insider help.
There is nothing unlawful about scanning license plates. You are allowed to photograph them in the same way you are allowed to stand around writing them into a notebook if that activity is your idea of fun. Where do people get these ideas?!
I think the idea was that they were getting people associated with Minnesota DPS to do lookups on the plates.
Why would that even be necessary? They are almost certainly just contributing confirmed ICE plate numbers to an Excel file and then checking against it. Low tech and simple. This “criminal insider” angle is just building a bogeyman.
I don't think it's a real thing, I'm just saying that's what the claim is.
Can you rule out the much less technically advanced explanation that this information was crowdsourced? And people are simply observing the license plates that are plainly displayed?
Frankly I don’t think it should have to come to license plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need secret police.
No, I cannot. One of the undercover journalists was in their group for days.
> Frankly I don’t think it should have to come to license plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need secret police.
None of that matters _today_, because _today_ the law is different.
What the law is, is a question for lawyers. What the law should be is a question for the people.
For example, a lot of people thought it was wrong that federal agents could cover their faces. Sacramento agreed. Now there is a law preventing it.
That law enforcement is permitted to hide their faces, drive unmarked vehicles, not display name tags, badges, or uniforms is concerning. Anyone can buy a gun, a vest, and a velcro “police” patch. There is very little that marks these agents as official law enforcement. I’m somewhat surprised that none of these agents have been shot entering a home under the mistaken perception by the homeowner that it’s a criminal home invasion.
Or alternatively, that criminals haven’t simply claimed to be ICE as an excuse to break into someone’s house.
Where was the outrage when Obama deported 3.1 million people? Why was there no media coverage? Trump has deported 300k and the MSM is turning upside down. Doesn’t make any sense to me.
No one is upset about the number of deportations. No one is complaining about the number of deportations. If you don't listen to what the complaints are about to start with, you can't argue that they are hypocritical.
Ok. What are people upset about, and why are they only upset in one city?
> What are people upset about,
A wide array of policy issues related to the targeting and manner of execution of Trump’s mass deportation program, not the number of deportations.
Also, a number of specific instances of violence by the federal government during what is (at least notionally) the execution of immigration enforcement.
> why are they only upset in one city?
People are very clearly not “only upset in one city”
And prior to that, when Obama deported 3.1 million people, the deportations were nice and dandy, right?
> And prior to that, when Obama deported 3.1 million people, the deportations were nice and dandy, right?
There was significant criticism of them, but both the policy and the manner of execution were different, a fact which Trump presaged in BOTH of his successful campaigns, explicitly stating plans for a different manner of execution (in the 2024 campaign explicitly referencing the notorious 1950s “Operation Wetback” as a model), and which Trump officials have crowed about throughout the execution of the campaign. Pretending the differences that provoke different responses don’t exists when their architects have been as proud of them as critics have been angry at them is just some intense bad faith denial of facts.
There were contemporary criticism of Obama's deportation policy on both the right and the left. I have no idea why you think that is some sort of gotcha that somehow makes the equivalency between Obama and Trump's immigration enforcement valid.
No. The outrage now versus back then is day and night. There were pretty much no protests during Obama’s term, even though the scale of deportations was much larger. That contrast is highly suspicious.
Dragonwriter has already laid out some of the differences for you to research further beyond the single data point of number of deportations. You've asked the same question multiple times but seem to not want to actually engage with the answers so I'll leave it there.
People keep telling you that it has nothing to do with the number of deportations, and you keep insisting that it does. Why do you believe the number of deportations is the most important factor?
Copying my other response here:
The core issue is the media. I worked at a large news company in New York during the Obama’s term. There was a training for our reporters: anything negative about Obama was strictly prohibited. Ad revenue.
I don't believe this.
When talking to someone at-risk of deportation earlier in the year, they asked me, "Why should I do anything differently? Obama and Biden did the same exact shit."
And there's a lot of truth to that which a lot of people need to reconcile with.
The fact that we don't have DACA solidified into a path towards citizenship by now is just sad.
And I agree with you, but that's not what I'm questioning. Given the 10x larger scale of deportations during the Obama's term, why were there no protests?
During Obama's term the practice of warrentless entry into actual citizens homes wasn't widespread.
During Obama's term the leaders of DHS / ICE were not blatently lying about events captured on film and evading legitmate investigations into deaths at the hands of officers.
During Obamas term people with no criminal record were not being offshored to hell-hole prison camps with serious abuses of human rights.
Can you link to the tweet in which Obama defended the agents right to threaten a child with rape?
From your linked article:
If the abuses were this bad under Obama when the Border Patrol described itself as constrained, imagine how it must be now under Trump, who vowed to unleash the agents to do their jobs.
There's your difference. Thank you for playing.
The core issue is the media. I worked at a large news company in New York during the Obama’s term. There was a training for our reporters: anything negative about Obama was strictly prohibited. Ad revenue.
As many others have pointed out, the deeper issue is the size of the boot, the disregard for citizens rights, the extremes of the offshore gulags, the fevor with which the upper levels embrace the brutality.
I am unable to assist further with your stated struggle for comprehension.
You are still missing the point. You were intentionally underinformed during the Obama's term.
"Unlawfully scanning license plates"? What does that even mean?
Like searching a vehicle database? That's available to all sorts of people, like auto body repair shops.
Taking a photo of a license plate? Nothing illegal about that.
You're confusing 'seeing a license plate' with 'querying restricted databases'.
Taking a photo is legal. Running plates through law-enforcement/ALPR systems is not, and auto body shops don't have that access.
Real-time identification != observation - it implies unauthorized data access.
If that was what you meant, you should have said that. Do you have any actual evidence this is happening, or are you just confusing possibility with probability?
I don't buy the claim that it's happening, but they were pretty clearly talking about the lookups, not the photos. They started off by mentioning "insiders".
> If that was what you meant, you should have said that.
I think the choice of the verb "scanning" indicated it clearly enough.
Perhaps for you. This word is equally applicable to visual observation.
Journalists doing ride alongs have already identified the system and it doesn't really on "restricted databases", they rely on observation and multiple attestation. In any case, there are indeed commercial services for looking up license plate data, and they rely on watching the notices that are published when you register your vehicle. It's the same reason why you receive all sorts of scammy warranty "notices" when you buy a car.
In fact the first clue that they look for is having Illinois Permanent plates because that is a strong indicator that they are using rental vehicles. That doesn't take a database, it's just a strong signal that can be confirmed by other evidence.
Do federal agents rent their vehicles?
The crowd sourced lists don't identify the owners of the vehicles, because that does not matter. They identify vehicles that ICE is using, and "likely a rental" is one good signal.
There is no evidence of this at all.
There is enough smoke to at least perform an investigation. As I said, this administration has deported 10x less people than the previous administrations.
You seem quite narrowly focused on the number of deportations rather than the methods being implemented. The primary criticisms of the current ICE surge in Minnesota focus on the general aggressiveness and lack of professionalism of these agents, not the deportations numbers.
> The primary criticisms of the current ICE surge in Minnesota focus on the general aggressiveness and lack of professionalism of these agents
This doesn't seem to have been remotely as much of an issue in states where local law enforcement cooperates with ICE and where protesters generally don't physically get in the way and don't resist arrest on the relatively rare occasions of arrest. This seems, to me, unlikely to be a coincidence.
> through law-enforcement/ALPR systems
Were they doing that? I haven't read the article, that's why I'm asking.
Also, what is the outrage about? This administration has deported the least number of people compared to all previous administrations. Obama deported 3.1 million people, ten times more than Trump today. Same ICE, same border patrol.
It literally say it is a crowdsourced list... a completely legal activity. If you can't figure out what the outrage is about after Alex Pretti and Renée Good then you're being intentionally obtuse.
1. The outrage had been there prior to their death.
2. Their death is the outcome of the outrage.
Their deaths are an outcome of the heavy handed immigration enforcement that has caused the outrage. The raw number of deportations is not the only metric. The enforcement tactics of the Obama admin are not the same as Trump's, this is obvious and incontrovertible.
You don't have to agree with the criticisms but to not even be able to understand why people are upset stretches believability.
Duh... You're still collapsing cause and context. The protests preceded the deaths; the deaths occurred during confrontations created by the protests. That makes them an outcome of escalation, not the original trigger.
And 'different tactics' doesn’t explain the reaction gap, as i said, under Obama there were 3.1M+ deportations and at least 56 documented deaths in ICE custody (https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/re...) with nowhere near this level of outrage. What changed is media framing and amplification, not the existence of harsh enforcement.
It doesn't have to be the original trigger, you asked "what is the outrage about?" and those deaths are part of it.
> And 'different tactics' doesn’t explain the reaction gap, as i said, under Obama there were 3.1M+ deportations and at least 56 documented deaths in ICE custody
You continuously ask this same question, get an answer, and ignore it. ICE enforcement was not the same under Obama and Trump even if Obama had high deportation numbers. The deaths in that report were from medical issues or neglect. Horrible, absolutely, but not shootings, not American citizens, and not protesters.
Maybe instead of assuming everyone is a stooge that can only do what the media tells them, consider they may actually have some legitimate grievances?
I don't know what they think they're doing there. If the most interesting thing they found was the public website leading to a fundraising platform for mutual aid a) there is literally nothing illegal there, and b) you can find that website linked to publicly by conservatively 25% of the twin cities population. It's literally the most prominent fundraising website anyone has been posting.
Wrong. The "protesters" were conducting counterintelligence to locate where ICE was operating. The plan was to disrupt the operation. Like it or not, this is against the law. Period.
I know you want to frame it a different way, but the articles you are posting don't describe anything that's illegal.
I'm not framing anything. There are screenshots of the chats where people literally say "ICE vehicle has been identified, everybody, go there!". This is called interfering.
The "interfering" this are describing is your framing. You want it to be interference in a legally actionable way, but it simply isn't.
18 U.S.C. § 1505 - Obstruction of Federal Officers (this includes ICE itself - obstructing or interfering with an ICE arrest is a crime)
18 U.S.C. § 118 - Obstructing, resisting, or interfering with federal protective functions
18 USC 111 does not apply here. Forcible action is an element. The action doesn’t have to be itself the use of force; it’s sufficient that a threat being some action that causes an officer to reasonably fear bodily harm. But obviously the actions we’re talking about on this subthread fall well short of that definition. If they didn't the law would be unconstitutional.
Those other two laws seem like an even weirder fit for the fact pattern in this subthread.
But that's not the end of the analysis. The legal line isn't 'force or nothing'; it's intent + conduct. Speech and observation are protected, but coordinated action intended to impede enforcement is not.
If "ICE vehicle has been identified, everybody go there" is followed by mobbing vehicles, blocking movement, inducing agents to disengage, or warning targets to evade arrest, that crosses from protected speech into actionable conduct.
Is that your theory, or is there case law that backs it up? From what I saw the bounds on 18 USC 111 are quite narrow indeed: I found a case where the defendant _fired at federal agents with his shotgun_, and the appeals court threw it out because the jury was incorrectly instructed that they could use the fact that he shot at them when considering he misled them afterwards. But actually, the jury was not allowed to do that. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/199...
Quote: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is "directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and (2) it is "likely to incite or produce such action."
Brandenburg v. Ohio was decided in favor of the appellant. As I suspected, there are no cases of a US court interpreting your theory of the law on 18 USC 111.
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When has the constitution mattered to this administration?
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No, they haven’t. This kind of advocacy crosses from lazy nihilism to negligence.
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> > > Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
> > The fascists won. That’s why?
> No, they haven’t.
Yes, they did, that’s why they are able to use the executive branch of the federal government to enforce their wishes at the moment, with virtually no constraint yet from the legislative branch, and no significant consequences yet for ignoring contrary orders from the judicial branch.
They may lose at some point in the future, but something that might happen in the future is irrelevant to the question of why what is happening now is happening, and it is happening because they won. Unambiguously.
They are not able to enforce their will unchecked. The legislature is more than willing to turn on Trump when he crosses the line, hence the whole idea of "TACO."
The fascists haven't won because if they did, they would be killing a lot more dissidents in the street. They killed two and the public outcry is so angry that Kristi Noem might be impeached. Democrats are willing to shut down the government to starve ICE if they have to. Even GOP legislators are criticizing Trump, which is a dangerous activity for any Republican looking to keep their seat.
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Impeached and replaced with someone just as bad. This just happened with Tom Homan getting Bongino's spot. No one is being prosecuted for the murders, and in fact at least one investigator has quit their career position in the FBI for being asked to bury it.
I'm not seeing a whole lot of meaningful checks.
> Impeached and replaced with someone just as bad. This just happened with Tom Homan getting Bongino's spot
Bovino (Border Patrol “at large” Commander who may or may not have lost that title and been returned to his sector command), not Bongino (the podcaster-turned-FBI Deputy Director who resigned to go back to podcasting), and Homan didn't get Bovino’s job, only his spotlight (he was already the head of border policy for the White House.)
They inarguably won the last election and control 2 branches of government.
> They inarguably won the last election and control 2 branches of government
Elected branches. Subject to further contests in months. That’s now how fascists endgame.
It’s stupid and wrong to claim fascists have won in America. The only people peddling this lie are fascists who can read polls.
I'm not arguing they've won forever, but having the executive branch and a majority (albiet not a an opposition-proof supermajority) in the legislative branch is significant. I would say MAGA is well represented at the state level also.
I hope the midterms go smoothly and the GOP loses heavily at the polls and legislative power changes hands in January, but I'm not 100% confident of that any more.
I should’ve clarified. They won the 2024 election. And the democrats are controlled opposition who take money from fascists. For all intents and purposes they have won. That may not be a permanent state of affairs.
I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
> I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
I don't think it makes sense to reject an explanation of current events grounded in a battle that is clearly over having been won and the victor using the ground they’ve gained to produce the events being discussed merelt because the broader war isn’t over and that victor may potentially lose some subsequent battle.
Yes, won that battle but not the war.
I think the dissent is about the latter. It's not over yet, so people should not give up.
The root comment clearly has ambiguity that people take both ways.
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Given that Newsom was on a podcast just last week caving to even the slightest pushback, I wouldn't count on him to be bombastic to anyone. He's 100% optics-driven-cowardice.
Well see. Anything can happen. Maybe Im wrong and people this time around do want sanity. Or Trump drone strikes him if he sees him getting too much steam.
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Why even bother replying
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i think it sets the framing that beating them back is from a losing position rather than equal.
if you want the fascists to un-win, you need to treat the world as it is: the fascists are ascendent.
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Because too many people dismissed the claims that electing Trump would lead to a fascist administration as alarmist. Turns out he meant every word he said during his campaign.
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Yes - very, very dumb people did vote for him.
Conspiracy to commit a crime is typically not included in protected speech. Whether you think that's happening here will depend mostly on what side you take, I suspect.
The fact that one speaks while committing a crime does not entitle one to a 1A defense against prosecution for that crime, even if committing the crime requires that speech. The prosecution is not about the content of the speech, but about the criminal activity it enables. A bank robber cannot claim "Your Honour, I was simply expressing my view that I am entitled to the bank's money". Similarly for conspiracy.
18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
Freedom of expression does not include freedom from prosecution for real crimes.
“ If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both”
You keep commenting to cite this statute when you clearly have not actually read what it says. Peaceful protest is explicitly protected by the first amendment.
Interesting that there would be people on a "side" that think there was a conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime?
Interference with a law enforcement investigation?
18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech. If all info could be interpreted as impediments to federal officers then phones, the internet, the human voice, etc would be illegal
> This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech.
Yes, but physical impediments are physical impediments. The protesters have been repeatedly seen to impede, or attempt to impede, ICE physically.
It's a crime.
What do you have against crime?
Nonviolent political action is often criminalized.
In the fascist's mind, anything that isn't supporting Dear Leader's vision of "greatness" is a crime.
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We already know that "doxxing" on its own is not a crime, and moreover that [non-undercover] federal agents are not entitled to keep their identities secret.
We also know that legal observation and making noise does not constitute interference.
So those may be their stated reasons, but they will not hold up in court.
Federal felony, not free speech.
18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
There's been lots of legal writing pointing out these statutes basically refer to impeding an officer by threat or physical force, which that statute you cite states. It doesn't refer to anything about providing food to someone who is fearing for their lives and won't leave the home, or communicating about the publicly observed whereabouts of law enforcement.
Are these federal officers? They’re men in masks with camo and body armor kidnapping people off the streets and refusing to show identification beyond a patch that says “ICE”.
That is who is alleged to be impeded.
Sure, but you should read what "impede" and "interfere" mean both in the regs and court precedent. Following ICE agents around is neither impeding or interfering by current federal court definitions. But yeah... that can change quickly.
“Free speech” is a concept not a law. The first amendment protects certain types of speech. Whether something is free speech or not does not depend on the US government’s opinion or the Chinese government or your mother in law.
Publishing locations alone is not conspiracy to commit a crime. If ICE is impeded as a result of this information, that’s not enough. Conspiracy requires the government to prove that multiple people intended to impede them.
Which is probably the easiest thing ever to prove, since people are openly trying to impede them
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Coordinating roadblocks, "dearrests", warning the subjects of law enforcement operations, and intentionally causing the maximum amount of noise in neighborhoods neighborhood are not things you will be able to get a federal judge to characterize as "constitutionally protected speech".
The “arrests” are being done in a deeply unconstitutional way. Acting to uphold the constitution is beyond speech, it’s a duty of all americans.
Actually... making noise in a neighborhood is constitutionally protected speech (as I have learned when my neighbors crank the sub-par disco up to 11.)
Also, it turns out the law is interpreted by judges who often (but not always) have careers as attorneys. It is not, thankfully, interpreted by people dropping into the internet comments section.
That the law is written in a way that an individual rate-payer may believe they understand its application is irrelevant to the way it actually is. "The Law" is not necessarily the written corpus of enumerated regulations, but also the judicary's day-to-day interpretation of the written text, tempered by exhortations from (hopefully) decent legal minds arguing before the court. That's the theory, anyway.
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an old lady and a fucking nurse shot by goons in masks and tactical gear... and they are labelling who as terrorists??? ffs america
Just a reminder that we're dealing with propagandists here.
As many have already stated, Signal is overwhelmingly secure. More secure than any other alternative with similar viability here.
If the feds were actually concerned about that, publicly "investigating" Signal chats is a great way to drive activists to less secure alternatives, while also benefiting from scattering activist comms.
I'm convinced all this talk around Signal, including Hegseths fuckup, is to discourage "normies" (for lack of a better term) from using it. Even in this very HN thread, where you'd expect technical nuance, there are people spreading FUD around the phone number requirement as if that'd be your downfall... a timestamp and a phone number? How would that get someone convicted in court?
They don't have to get a conviction if they know your address and have a gun.
So more nonsense. How about tracking down the murderer first.
Perspective from Central Europe (Austria): I can tell you that essentially nobody here has any doubt that bad faith is at play.
Our mainstream news outlets are openly calling the "official" versions from the Trump administration what they are – lies. The video evidence is clear to anyone watching: this was murder. No amount of spin changes what the footage shows.
As citizens of a country that knows firsthand how fascism begins, we recognize the patterns: the brazen lying in the face of obvious evidence, the dehumanization, the paramilitarized enforcement without accountability. We've seen this playbook before.
What Americans might not fully grasp is how catastrophically the US has damaged its standing abroad. The sentiment here has shifted from "trusted ally" to "unreliable partner we need to become independent from as quickly as possible." The only thing most Europeans still find relevant about the US at this point is Wall Street.
The fact that the FBI is investigating citizens documenting government violence rather than the government agents committing violence tells you everything about where this is heading.
Yeah! Signal has nothing to do with technology. The government trying to snoop on a private E2EE service is not worth discussion.
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Many people on hacker news have a reason to care about the united states government's position on signal and their evolving efforts relating to civil rights.
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An American VA Hospital ICU Nurse was disarmed and executed. Which crime is it OK to be chemically and physically assaulted before being disarmed and shot dead?
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I have seen the videos. He was already on the ground, fixated by several ICE agents, when he was shot 10(!) times. That was after he had been peppersprayed and beaten to the head. At no point did he actually draw or reach for his gun. There was absolutely no reason to shoot him.
> With any luck investigation will reveal more details.
Kristi Noem said: "This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement." She even went so far as calling this an act of "domestic terrorism". At this point, do you seriously believe there will be a neutral investigation?
Being on the ground doesn't remove any potential that he could be dangerous.
I don't know why he was being beaten on the ground, that seemed a little excessive. Not sure how many times he was shot, but generally if law enforcement ever makes the determination to shoot they do it to shoot to kill.
They knew he had 1 gun, so he could have 2 guns. The officers don't see the angle most of the camera angles see. They see the perspective they see, from themselves. That is the perspective that will matter by law. What situation were they in and what did they see when they made their decision?
You have the luxury of seeing a perspective the officer did not see, and the officer has the luxury of seeing a perspective you did not see.
People who are in favor of throwing the officer's life away without knowing all of the details are doing basically doing exactly what they're accusing the officer of in suggesting that he threw away this person's life without knowing all the information.
I don't know what Kristi Noem is on about, but she's a political appointee and not an investigator.
The Sig P320 that an agent took off of him went off while it was in a federal cop's hand. This is the same Sig P320 that the US Army rejected and was mass recalled for going off on its own.
Unfortunately, when the shot went off he was still fighting with them, actively resisting and not complying. Fighting with federal cops like that is a good way to get killed. He played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.
Please do not spread misinformation! There is no indication that Alex' weapon went off.
> As far as I understand it, he laid hands on the officer, then struggled against arrest.
That's not how I understand it.
> Supposedly one of the videos shows him reaching for some black object. I don't know.
So I checked it out, but it's not really relevant. These activists appear to have followed the federal law enforcement. That highly suggests they knew exactly who they were. The officers didn't show up unannounced to the front door of someone who happened to be an activist. No reasonable court is likely to determine that they were unaware who they were dealing with.
> it's not really relevant
It's relevant because you said you didn't know. The review provides information that helps you to know.
> These activists appear to have followed the federal law enforcement.
Nothing illegal about that at all.
> That highly suggests they knew exactly who they were. ... No reasonable court is likely to determine that they were unaware who they were dealing with.
That's not relevant.
What's your point? No reasonable court would find that the activists did anything wrong, while they certainly would find two federal employees ("officers") are culpable in the murder of one of those activists.
> The officers didn't show up unannounced to the front door of someone who happened to be an activist.
So?
You probably linked the wrong video, because the video you linked is not relevant.
> Nothing illegal about that at all.
The first thing I said is that it's not illegal.
> No reasonable court would find that the activists did anything wrong, while they certainly would find two federal employees ("officers") are culpable in the murder of one of those activists.
The videos don't show all the events leading up to the moment he was shot, but multiple federal laws were broken just in the videos we do have. Murder has a specific definition and nothing here suggests murder.
The very start of the incident is an officer chasing a woman, she slips and falls, the officer chasing her catches up and then Pretti pushes the officer away.
That's almost certainly not the start. It's very common to not show what you did to agitate the officers and to only record after they come after you. If there are longer videos I haven't seen them, but its a very common tactic to cut out critical context to maximize emotional reaction on social media.
This is just lunatic speech. The one place he didn't have a gun was in his hands. You're out here acting like if he'd had a gun strapped to his ankle it would have been proof beyond any doubt he was intending to shoot and kill ICE officers.
He was pepper sprayed and on the ground surrounded by 6 agents when he was killed. At the time when an agent said that he had a gun (this was after his gun was removed), he was physically pinned with his arms restrained. He wasn't 'reaching for an object'. He was carrying his phone in his hand before he was restrained and shot a dozen times.
They don't necessarily know that's the only gun he had and the officers aren't Neo, seeing every camera angle at once. What you see from your outside perspective is not what they see. They have to act based on the information they have, which is why it's important you listen to law enforcement for your own safety. All the whistles make that harder, which might be part of the point.
Again: he was on the ground, with his eyes sprayed with mace, and he was, at least until seconds before he was shot, physically restrained. It doesn't matter if he could potentially have had another gun. They aren't Neo but there were six of them surrounding him, and the one who shot him only took eyes off to mace another protestor.
There are multiple videos from multiple angles and a multitude of witnesses.
The only investigation being done is by the DHS, who is blocking all other state level investigations. The same DHS who lied about easy disproven things that were recorded and destroy evidences.
What are you waiting or expecting from a investigation to make up your mind?
In the case of George Floyd, that was local police. In this scenario, these are federal law enforcement officers so it probably is correct for this case to be handled federally as far as I know.
I don't know what you're referring to about DHS lying about disproven things and destroying evidence. If you can give me links I'll look into it.
> What are you waiting or expecting from a investigation to make up your mind?
I've seen enough video to know that it's not impossible the officer reacted within the spirit of the law. To get a sense for that requires testimony from the officer that fired the shot. Please watch court cases some time and you'll get a sense for how the application of these kinds of laws work. I'm not a lawyer, but if you ever have to defend yourself against someone you'll be thankful the laws work the way that they do.
We have a justice system for a reason. It doesn't always work, but it lays out a process for evaluating evidence. Why do we do it that way? We do it that way, because it is not that uncommon that perceptions, witnesses, videos and many other things can be deceptive. They can make you believe things which are not true. So you try to establish all of the relevant facts as they apply to the law. Not based on how you feel, but based on the law.
It actually hurts some of the witnesses that are obviously activists, because it means they aren't unbiased objective observers, but are predisposed to a perspective and have a possible agenda in mind which risks reducing the quality of their testimony. A law enforcement officer that thinks he might be found guilty also risks their testimony being weak. The video quality is also often bad and there are people obstructing important details at times. All of those things have to be considered.
Of course when you are emotionally invested, you might want them to just rush to what you obviously see. Again, you will be very thankful that the justice system generally doesn't rush to those conclusions so readily if you ever have to defend yourself in court when you know you're innocent.
Good lord. There's no helping you if you cannot see with your eyes, my friend. I'd have to be blind to not see this poor man trying to defend a woman, then tackled, beaten, disarmed, shot dead in the back and head with 10 bullets.
I've seen enough of these kinds of situations to know it's easy to trick people into seeing what you guide them to see. It's like lying with statistical charts, but more insidious.
Why is it so important to you that other people see what you see before any investigation is complete? Look at how courts handle video evidence to gain some perspective on why your thinking which seems to rely so heavily on video evidence alone is simply flawed.
> to rely so heavily on video evidence alone is simply flawed.
Don't trust your eyes. That is the final and most essential command.
He was killed for carrying a gun. How do I know that? Thats what they've been saying over and over again. Absolutely gross.
> because it's just pitting people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up against.
i think people know exactly what theyre up against: a lawless executive, many members of which have never had to work in places where they are held accountable to the constitution before.
its more important for the government to follow the constitution than for citizens to follow the law. if the government isnt following the law, there is no law
If you're talking about the Trump administration, they're surrounded by lawyers and constantly battling things up to supreme court decisions, which is not what lawless looks like. ICE is also enforcing existing laws that simply haven't been enforced in recent years. Whatever you think about those laws, they are the laws. Many people agree those laws need to be reformed, but elect people who are willing to change the laws. Unfortunately congress has trouble passing laws around some of these more controversial issues, so it'll probably stay this way for many more decades.
It's not just the what, it's the how.
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And you have it completely upside down. The federal government serves the people, the people do not serve the feds. If, while attempting to enforce federal law through ICE, the feds break the Bill of Rights, they are doing more harm than good. We can live with a few illegals. We cannot leave the house if we expect to be murdered in cold blood on the street by the federal government. The instigating event of the American Revolution was the Boston Massacre, where protesters were shot and killed by British soldiers. Sound familiar?
The people voted for mass deportation of the tens of millions of illegals that were let into the country and lawlessly given "sanctuary." The federal government is attempting to enforce the laws on the books, laws that were voted into statute by the democratically elected representatives of the people. No one is going to be murdered in cold blood on the street simply for leaving the house, but they could be if they brandish a weapon while seeking out officers and attempting to prevent them from enforcing the law.
It feels very strange to read someone describe these events as ‘LARPing as martyrs’ when there have been multiple tragic deaths.
Boot leather can't taste this good.
Civil disobedience exists and does not deserve a death sentence.
At least, while decrying civil disobedience, you differ from the administration in one important aspect: You think there should be accountability for police shootings. That's different than the ICE leader, the DHS leader, the FBI director and the Vice President.
From a sort of naive perspective it doesn't matter whether it's police or not. If you kill someone illegally, you should be held accountable for it. In many cases, whether it's illegal depends on how reasonable it was to do so. This is where it being law enforcement starts to matter even more.
Law enforcement face a lot of violent resistance, so it can be very reasonable for them to see an uncooperative person as a serious threat to their life. If they kill someone, because they believe them to be a lethal threat even if that was not the reality, their perspective absolutely matters to the outcome.
Civil disobedience is basically understood to be breaking the law in a civil manner. What I'm seeing in a lot of videos is not civil disobedience. One expected attribute of civil disobedience is non-evasion, but resisting arrest is essentially attempted evasion.
Again, I don't think anyone should have died, but to my eye I can tell the people who are unreasonable and lacking in critical thinking, because they have already prejudged and sentenced people as if they've already sat through the entire court case and had their own hands on the gavel as it went down.
Social media, videos, news, activists and more are incentivized to rile people up. Let it be investigated.
Yeah, the victim is investigated. Kill anyone evading arrest. Bring in the tanks.
That's not how the law works. In a case like this, all the events that led up to the moment he was killed are relevant as per the supreme court. They'll have to investigate both the officer and the activist and see how the law applies to it.
Yeah, sure, they'll "investigate" it. For some definition of investigate.
I'm not sure if you've been paying attention at all lately, but saying "let's investigate" with the current administration is farcical at best.
I don't know what you're referring to, but toss me some links and I'll look into it.
They demonstrated a level of incompetence that's almost unprecedented in the entire US, so it seems likely DHS will be able to do a better job if that's who's doing the investigation.
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This wasn't civil disobedience. It was stalking law enforcement and then aggressively interfering. Not a capital crime, but still a recipe fir suicide by cop.
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This is what collaboration looks like
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> Don't let your compassion be weaponized.
It's telling on yourself that you think compassion for other people, the core idea that other peoples needs might be more important that your own, is objectively a weapon. You're not wrong that there's a lot of disinformation about, but from a purely historical view, the one position that has never been right is fence-sitting.
What you are basically saying is that justice is unjust and vigilantes are the solution, because the legal system operates under the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty.
You don't want to live in a world where you are guilty until proven innocent, because you might like it when you're the one wagging the finger, but you'll be crying for the old ways once it's turned on you.
You're not arguing in good faith, which is clear from your other replies, but I'm not saying vigilantes are the solution, just that compassion is not a weapon.
But also, just within your moral framework, I think it's really important to understand that the systems of justice have been compromised and we are, right now, seeing people treated as guilty until proven innocent. It's just not happening to you. It *is* happening to people like me.
Let me say that again: I'm not saying that vigilante justice is better, only that the legal system has become vigilante justice. People who share my moral values are being gunned down right now. And people like you are spreading excuses about how its shades of grey.
Well, if he's innocent until proven guilty and you agree with that, why do you need someone to prejudge their guilt and tell them they are on the wrong side of history by not prejudging? That really does come across as promoting vigilantism.
You've clarified that you don't support vigilantism...so, what benefit do you get from someone deciding guilt beforehand?
Why is it your position that people should not wait until investigations are done and it has been combed through in court? What purpose does that serve if not for vigilantism?
It sounds like you are aiming primarily for a political benefit or a sort of emotional moral validation through cultural acceptance of your view. This is why we have courts, because people can become very emotional and invested in an outcome. It can become a critical part of your identity and world view that someone be guilty. Those are generally presented as cautionary tales in history books, not the example to live by.
No, of course not. I don’t think it’s a crime to be punished.
I’m just saying I think you’re helping an authoritarian regime, and I think that’s bad.
I’m saying it because I think you should feel shame, not to suggest you should be punished beyond those basic social consequences.
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> Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat.
Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
> People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on.
No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill. The only Trump Derangement Syndrome is the people thinking he's fit to be in any kind of leadership position.
The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution. And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base. People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
> Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
There are still things they agree on and pass legislation for, but on many other issues they both obstruct each other. The actual details of that aren't as relevant as the fact that they have trouble passing legislation and can't be relied on for many important issues at present.
> No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill.
If he was an authoritarian dictator king tyrant master emperor, I would care, but he's not, so I don't care. The evidence does not support that position. There's a lot of rhetoric, propaganda, sound bites, teases and more, but those do not produce reality. They produce perspective.
> The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution.
This is false. The supreme court decision did not fundamentally say that he was immune to prosecution. That is what was spread about it to foment anger, but I read the actual language of the decision and it's just a lie.
> And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base.
Unless you're talking about something I haven't heard about yet, they were not legal US citizens and they were not sent to Venezuelan prisons. There was someone who had some kind of temporary legal status and so there were complexities around it, but they weren't a US citizen.
> People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
I don't know anyone like me. It's common for people to be unable to navigate the gray area. It's either black or white. You are either "with us or against us". That's just purely juvenile. Does Trump have some moral failings? Sure. Is he some kind of arrogant character? Sure. I think on one side, some people will get so stirred up into such a moral panic that they'll believe any false thing about him. On the other, some people get so caught up in his reality distortion field that they'll believe anything he says. If you fully give up and end up settling into one of those grooves, you lose all sense.
"Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat. As a result, presidents have increasingly been leading by executive order rather than legislation. That is not Trump's fault, that is just the state of the country."
"People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on."
So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king?
Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
"Talk about taking over Canada or Greenland is just rhetoric to get better deals and improve ally strength, because this is what Donald Trump has been doing since the 1980s. Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
Just trying to understand.
"Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
If it's just part of our national strategy, why'd the rational change so frequently and why does no one seem to have heard that before Trump decided to start focusing on it and amassing weapons off their coast?
"This doesn't mean you have to like a current president personally or morally, or even agree with everything they are doing, but at least you can gain more perspective around what is real and what is not."
Primo ending though.
> So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
No US president is a king, because the US doesn't have kings. The country isn't structured that way. Most countries legitimately do not understand this, because almost no countries are structured the way the US is.
> Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king? Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
A king is a very specific thing and you don't need to be a king to have a power which has been delegated to you.
> You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
When people watch news or listen to world leaders talk, it comes with a sense of authority. Many people are predisposed to automatically think that is the end of it, that they've found the truth. Like clockwork, Trump says some big bold thing that gets people talking and he does this to produce the kinds of results he's after that other people have trouble getting. It gets him a lot of criticism and hate, but he's been doing this since the 80s or even earlier.
He creates a "monument", because he says that nobody cares about deals that aren't monumental. The small uninteresting deals don't get much attention. People don't invest in it. As a result, he thinks small deals are actually harder to do than big deals. So he makes everything a big deal. He's a big deal. Ukraine is a big deal. Gaza is a big deal. Canada is a big deal. Greenland is a big deal.
Now, in order to be credible, he has to be known as a person who does get some big things done. So what you do is you see what can you actually do, and you do the biggest thing you can get done. Now you have credibility. You use that credibility as leverage to make larger claims and people will take your larger claims seriously, even if people who are anchored in reality may have the sense to know that larger claim is a bluff. He bluffs so much. If you remember that old youtube video of trading up from a paperclip to trade all the way until you get a car, it's like that.
So much talk about threatening to leave NATO, or destroying NATO by invading Greenland or any of that nonsense only makes NATO stronger. It makes them say, "hey, we need to be more independent. maybe we can't fully rely on the US if they're talking like this. let's invest more." When they invest more in their military, now the whole alliance is a little stronger. This is important, because World War 3 may be coming and we either need our allies to join us in some way in South East Asia, or we'll need them to be able to hold their own in Europe.
It amazes me the stuff he gets away with, but he's not any kind of threat to democracy.
> Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
We were already in Venezuela in the 1900s. It is estimated to have upwards of 300 billion to over a trillion barrels of oil. That dwarfs basically every other country. Oil is important for global stability and we still haven't discovered any energy solutions that fully erase dependence on oil. So long as it is needed, it has to come from somewhere. If Russia and China control it, that risks oil being traded primarily in some currency other than USD, even propping up some reserve currency. Venezuela also had Russian and Chinese military hardware, with Russia recently agreeing to send them missiles. That allows for comparisons with the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were also a stopping point for the shadow fleets which were breaking international law and helping fund Russia's war in Ukraine. Iranian terrorist groups were also operating in Venezuela. It was also at risk of becoming the next North Korea, but with both nukes and oil. It would've been a nightmare for freedom, democracy and global security.
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Sounds good, until you realize that they've now murdered two peaceful protesters, who they post facto smear as terrorists to justify their murder.
Driving your car at someone, whether or not you are trying to hit them or putting them at risk by trying to dodge them, isn't peaceful. I'm shocked that this needs to be explained to people. Tribalism is one helluva drug.
That's not what happened. Watch the video. What you'll see is an undertrained bully with no accountability who was looking for an excuse to use violence. That's why the victim was shot from the side, and why the administration refuses to allow a serious investigation.
putting them at risk by trying to dodge them? What?
"fucking bitch" right?
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How is a history of constitutional violations not on topic?
He just misspoke slightly. What he meant to say:
"What we will defend: using chaos, riots, and volatility as cover to escalate violence against peaceful protesters."
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I suspect they're going to find it challenging to turn protected speech into something prosecutable like obstruction - assuming activists exercise even a modicum of care in their wording. Seems like just another intimidation tactic but in doing that, they've also given a heads-up to their targets.
For all the complaints about the previous DOJ, one thing nobody ever argued was that they weren't intending to get convictions. They only brought cases they thought they could win.
To see DOJ use its power the way we've seen (and I know the original story here is only with FBI at this point), it makes me think there should be some equivalent of anti-SLAPP laws but aimed at federal prosecutions. Some way to fast track baseless charges that will obviously never result in anything and that are just meant to either (a) punish someone into paying a ton of lawyer fees, (b) to intimidate others, or (c) grab some short-term headlines.
Considering ICE is executing people in the streets and were already breaking laws before this something little like free speech won’t help
'executing people in the streets' is such disingenuous phrasing. How about improperly trained ICE agents responding horrifically to stressful and dangerous altercations caused by citizens impeding lawful investigations?
Your causality is reversed.
The dude was literally just standing there on a public sidewalk with his hands up. He never initiated the altercation or otherwise impeded any lawful investigation.
The agent chose to initiate the altercation during which the victim was pepper sprayed, pinned to the ground by six people, disarmed, and then shot ten times.
> The dude was literally just standing there on a public sidewalk with his hands up
He was in the street the entire time and attempted to interpose himself between an officer and a woman that the officer was presumably intending to place under arrest.
Either you are MAGA or fed.
First was literally woman dropping her kid to school. ICE stopped her car, told her to both get out of the car and drive away. ICE pig deliberately stepped in front of her car, she turned the wheel away from all ICE pigs and started to move away and he shot her dead.
Second was ICE pigs pushing two women for at least 10 meters. They pushed these women until they hit a man who was literally just filming. He helped the women stay up. ICE pigs pepper sprayed all three and while he was on his knees with hand in the air, other supporting himself against the ground he was shot in the back of the head.
In both cases ICE created and escalated the situation against peaceful and completely innocent citizens. Neither situation was stressful nor an altercation and neither of these innocent people were impeding any investigation. And calling ICE agents actions “lawful” is laughable, let’s start from them illegally wearing masks, not wearing their badges which is also illegal, and not identifying themselves which surprise surprise is also against the law
> First was literally woman dropping her kid to school.
This was an early rumour that turned out false.
> ICE stopped her car
Video confirms that the SUV was parked perpendicular to the street for several minutes before any ICE agents approached her.
> told her to both get out of the car and drive away
She was initially told by Ross to drive away. She refused, and he then began to circle the vehicle and film everything, during which process he was accosted and antagonized by Good's partner. Then, many seconds later, a different officer ordered her out of the car, presumably to arrest her for refusing the previous order (and generally for obstruction).
> ICE pig deliberately stepped in front of her car
This is refuted by noticing that Good was making a two-point turn; as she reversed, the angle of the SUV substantially changed, putting Ross in front of the car. He simply could not have covered that much ground by "stepping in front".
But even if he had "deliberately stepped in front", he had every right to do so, and Good had no right to flee the scene. It comes across that you are alleging some 5d-chess plan to deliberately endanger his own life in order to create an excuse for lethal force, based on a simple desire to execute a citizen.
This narrative can only possibly make sense if one completely disregards Occam's razor and also fundamentally disregards the legitimacy of immigration law. Of course ICE agents don't actually want to kill US citizens. As demonstrated by the fact that the only such deaths have been in this one specific sanctuary city in a sanctuary state — where protestors routinely physically obstruct the agents, state officials encourage the protest, local police won't even protect ICE from crimes committed against them, and a literal "anti-ICE autonomous zone" has been set up.
> let’s start from them illegally wearing masks
The illegality of this has not been established, and nobody complaining about it here has provided a concrete reason as to why it should be prohibited.
I haven't seen any evidence of that happening; but if the law you're referring to is https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/723 , note that an exception is specifically provided in the relevant law:
> (b) EXCEPTION.—The requirement under subsection (a) shall not apply to individuals referred to in such subsection who — (1) do not wear a uniform or other distinguishing clothing or equipment in the regular performance of their official duties; or (2) are engaged in undercover operations in the regular performance of their official duties.
> and not identifying themselves
Again, I have no idea what you're referring to. They're out there in very recognizable uniforms.
Three letter agencies do three letter agency things
Yep
People need to investigate the FBI. They would be shocked at their crimes. The recent Epstein news comes to mind but that is only the smallest tip of it.
Always use encryption for anything. Encrypted messengers are great, but I would never trust Signal. It requires phone numbers to register among other issues, has intelligence funding from places such as the OTF, and their dev asset Rosenfeld is a whole other issue.
and what is NBC "news"'s motive/agenda for framing this info the way they are?
"LEFT-CENTER BIAS
These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation
NBC News is what some call a mainstream media source. They typically publish/report factual news that uses moderately loaded words in headlines such as this: 'Trump threatens border security shutdown, GOP cool to idea.'
Story selection tends to favor the left through both wording and bias by omission, where they underreport some news stories that are favorable to the right. NBC always sources its information to credible sources that are either low biased or high for factual reporting.
A 2014 Pew Research Survey found that 42% of NBC News’ audience is consistently or primarily liberal, 39% Mixed, and 19% consistently or mostly conservative. A more liberal audience prefers NBC. Further, a Reuters institute survey found that 46% of respondents trust their news coverage and 35% do not, ranking them #5 in trust of the major USA news providers."
What are you getting at? The idea of any of the major news outlets in the US being left-leaning is risible nowadays.
Or do you dispute that CNN is a "major news outlet in the US"?
And surely you'd agree that MSNBC is to CNN's left?
Hmm? These are mostly news reports of one person calling another person a fascist. Notably, one of the people doing the calling is Donald Trump!
>Last week, after being found guilty of falsifying business records, former President Donald Trump said Americans today live in a “fascist state,” building on his unfounded conspiracy theory that somehow President Joe Biden is behind his prosecution in Manhattan.
There seems to be wild speculation about freedom of speech rights or hacking Signal.
The FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff.
Do you mean just technically trivial? I agree with that.
If you mean more broadly trivial, I see that quite differently. An administration that has repeatedly abused its power in order to intimidate and punish political opponents is opening an investigation into grassroots political opponents. That feels worth being concerned about.
The FBI infiltrating political groups of all stripes is to be assumed by default at this point. A particularly high profile example would be the plot to kidnap a state governor a few years ago.
As to actually acting on what they learn, within this context yeah that would be troubling.
>particularly high profile example would be the plot to kidnap a state governor a few years ago.
iirc that was something more than infiltration. The FBI found an extremist loser who lived in a basement, egged him on, helped him network & gave him resources. Without them, he probably would have been thinking really hard about it, not much more.
They've been doing it from day 1.
It's how they found about Martin Luther King's affairs and what led them to write him a letter telling him to kill himself.
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I don’t like political power being used to go after an intimidate opponents at all, but we can’t pretend that it wasn’t a constant during the previous admin.
If I recall correctly, they actually set the precedent here by adding civil war era conspiracy charges to put an additional 10 years on women who protested in front of an abortion clinic.
AI summary…
> Six of the protesters (including Heather Idoni) were convicted in January 2024 of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in prison—and felony conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241, which carries a maximum of 10 years. The conspiracy charge stemmed from evidence that the group planned and coordinated the blockade in advance to interfere with clinic operations.
Here's one the members of that group: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/tennessee-woman-sentenc...
> As a Health Center staff member ('Victim-1') attempted to open the door for the volunteer, WILLIAMS purposefully leaned against the door, crushing Victim-1’s hand. Victim-1 yelled, "She’s crushing my hand," but WILLIAMS remained against the door, trapping Victim-1’s hand and injuring it.
> On the livestream on June 19, 2020, WILLIAMS stood within inches of the Health Center’s chief administrative officer and threatened to “terrorize this place” and warned that “we’re gonna terrorize you so good, your business is gonna be over mama.” Similarly, WILLIAMS stood within inches of a Health Center security officer and threatened “war.” WILLIAMS also stated that she would act by “any means necessary.”
The reason they could prosecute to this degree? https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/18/anti-abortion-surgi-clinic...
A member of the conspiracy admitted to the planning; they have text messages and detail of deciding who will risk arrest, after going over the fact they'd be trespassing and violating the FACE act.
Do you think the administrative and medical staff present in 2020 would agree with you? That the group that blockaded, threatened and assaulted in one instance access to health services are in fact the victims here of government overreach?
'protested' by forcibly precenting individual civilians access to medical care? Sure, this seems the same.
It is deliberately obtuse to pretend that a group 60 year old women were "forcibly" preventing anyone from doing anything. They stood in a hallway and sang hymns.
Is it a violation of the FACE act? Absolutely.
Conspiracy? If that's a conspiracy then virtually any protest that involves any planning whatsoever could also be twisted into a conspiracy.
Ahhh, gender equality! Since we're going there, neither the age nor the gender of protestors is really relevant to anything. Stop cherrypicking just because whining could support your argument.
Seems like there are hundreds of people in those groups.
Can't be hard to get into for some skilled undercover cops. TV shows have shown me they do these things all the time!
They had already been outed by internet sleuths possibly, but not necessarily, informed by leaks from the police. The FBI is making a press release about an investigation only to save face because the criminal conspiracy is already common knowledge among those interested. In the universe of a competent FBI, which I think is ours, they already know who is in the network. They have well-publicized, patently unlawful dragnet signals intelligence collection capabilities. The targets are people who organize openly on Zoom and Discord, and broadcast volumes of their ideology on bumper stickers, Mastodon, and Blue-Twitter. So why does (if the press is to be believed) an authoritarian, fascist, ultra-right-wing regime allow them to operate? I feel like ICE is Floyd/BLM repeated as farce.
> In the universe of a competent FBI, which I think is ours, they already know who is in the network.
Certainly they know the handles of those people, and what they've said and what documents they've exchanged.
Connecting Signal accounts to real-world identity... well, that's definitely the FBI's wheelhouse, but some might make it easier or harder than others.
But there are a few cases where even the Internet sleuths are pretty confident about identity.
> So why does (if the press is to be believed) an authoritarian, fascist, ultra-right-wing regime allow them to operate?
Rationality requires treating behaviour inconsistent with a quality as evidence against that quality.
It would help if they stopped holding demonstrations in front of facilities with huge amounts of facial recognition technology.
Protesting is not something you should do "casually."
Protesting is absolutely something you can and should be able to do casually and without having to protect your face/identity. It was enshrined in the First Amendment as a fundamental check on the federal government in order to recognize the natural right of a self-governing people to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.
What is not something that should be gone casually – or really at all – is an attempt to engage in insurrection with black bloc or globalized intifada insurgency tactics to prevent the enforcement of law.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
…
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
…
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
- Some insurrectionists
>What is not something that should be gone casually – or really at all – is an attempt to engage in insurrection with black bloc or globalized intifada insurgency tactics to prevent the enforcement of law.
I disagree. If the feds, or any law enforcement, wants to enforce law that is so unpopular that people feel compelled to make it hard in this way then, IDK, sucks for them. Go beg for more budget.
And I feel this way about a whole ton of categories of law, not just The Current Thing (TM).
A huge reason that law and government in this country is so f-ed up is that people, states, municipalities and big corporations in particular, just roll over and take it because that keeps the $$ flowing. A solid majority of the stuff the feds force upon the nation in the form of "do X, get a big enough tax break you can't compete without it" or "enforce Y if you want your government to qualify for fed $$" would not be support and could not be enforced if it had to be done so overtly, with enforcers paid to enforce it, rather than backhandedly by quasi deputizing other entities in exchange for $$.
The law being alluded to here is not "so unpopular".
Immigration enforcement is overwhelmingly favored by Americans, including immigrants.
The implementation has been awful, for lots of reasons everyone already knows. However, the situation has also been significantly escalated by often-violent obstructionists.
Obstructing enforcement of the law when it's something Americans voted for is not patriotism. It's undermining democracy.
Our law is explicit: immigration is the domain of the Federal government exclusively. State and local governments should "take it" as you say, because that's the law, and we should respect the law. If you don't like it, protest. But most are fine with enforcement in a reasonable way.
Trump and his cronies shoulder a lot of blame for how things have gone in Minneapolis. But so do democrats for stoking the flames.
Vote independent.
> Protesting is absolutely something you can and should be able to do casually
Then you are going to be identified and your conversations monitored. This is precisely the outcome the article is complaining about. I find that expectation absurd.
> of a self-governing people
This describes the majority not the individual.
> and petition the government
There is no expectation or statement that your anonymity will be protected. The entire idea of a "petition" immediately defies this.
> to prevent the enforcement of law.
How does "tracking ICE" _prevent_ the enforcement of the law? Your views on the first amendment suddenly became quite narrow.
> How does "tracking ICE" _prevent_ the enforcement of the law? Your views on the first amendment suddenly became quite narrow.
Because the whole point of tracking ICE is to help people dodge them. It's absurd that people cry foul when the government goes after people actively opposing the rule of law.
> It's absurd that people cry foul when the government goes after people actively opposing the rule of law.
I expect the vast majority of government abuses in recent history the world over have to at least some degree followed the law according to those carrying out the acts. Thus it is almost to be expected that as a situation escalates those crying foul might occasionally find themselves opposing the rule of law as described by those in power.
To state it plainly, not all "rule of law" is subjectively equal.
> Because the whole point of tracking ICE is to help people dodge them.
Seems completely reasonable given ICE is murdering, arresting, and deporting citizens and legal residents.
The government wronging 1 person to rightfully enforce the law on 10 is unacceptable.
Law enforcement only works when the people have trust in those doing the enforcement.
ICE have lost the trust of a significant portion of the people in Minnesota because they are using unreasonable force, eroding constitutionally protected rights and behaving with impunity.
They are, in reality, just conducting a politically motivated campaign of harassment. If they truly wanted to deport as many people as possible they'd start with border states like Florida and Texas, places with 20x more undocumented immigrants.
Rule of law? Innocent people are being shot.
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> They were at the very least intentionally being a nuisance and in most cases breaking actual laws in the process
Pretti was breaking zero laws. You’d have to do some prosecutorial voodoo to conjure up a misdemeanor.
There is lawbreaking in that videos. But the felony-level stuff is all from folks in uniform. (Which, thankfully, they’ve started wearing.)
> calling them "innocent" is quite dishonest
You're not actually arguing that American citizens shouldn't be able to film the cops are you? That would be pretty un-American.
Being a nuisance is not illegal. In the eyes of the law, someone being a nuisance is, indeed, innocent - and to say so is not dishonest.
So now being a nuisance is justification for summary extrajudicial executions?! If people on HN believe this then we’re toast.
Which law makes it illegal to track ICE? If there isn't a law against it, but you think the government should arrest people for it anyway, then you don't support rule of law.
The obvious retort is "obstruction". Of course it doesn't hold up to scrutiny because courts have consistently held that obstruction has to be a physical act. Simply being nearby, filming or calling them names doesn't count.
Nonsense.
ICE are engaging in violence, warrantless forced entry to homes, at least two shootings that border in murder, they even tried to force entry into an Ecuadorian embassy.
They are detaining citizens at random, relocating them physically and in some cases releasing them; if they don't die in detention due to lack of access to medical care.
If you cannot see how these activities should be observed, documented, protested whilst still standing for professed Amercian values...
Protesting is a fundamental human right and obligation. It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting, volunteering, and taking out the garbage: something you do from time to time when the moment demands it.
See also: https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect
> a fundamental human right
No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here.
> and obligation
No. It's not.
> It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting
I would say voting is _not_ something you should do casually.
> something you do from time to time when the moment demands it.
Then you should expect some consequences in your life. If you actually want to avoid those then put your casual demeanor down and get serious. Otherwise there's a decent chance you will make things worse and do nothing to solve your original problem.
> See also: https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect
We all know what a chilling effect is. You have no right to communicate on signal. This does not apply.
> No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here.
You could make the same moot point about all societal laws. Fundamental rights are determined by the constitution, the UN declaration of human rights, as well as any other local charters.
Rights are granted by God, the Constitution merely acknowledges them. If you don’t believe in God, or think human hierarchies determine rights, then they aren’t really rights anymore. They are privileges.
Barring physical limitations, what you can and can't do is ultimately determined by what the society you are by and large a part of deems to be acceptable behaviour.
Government rules and social norms can change over time, it ultimately doesn't matter what you feel is "right" or what some law says is "right", it's really about what you can get away with.
A large part of what you can get away with is determined about whether or not you will ultimately be penalized for your actions (possibly through violence), and laws can keep people aligned on what is or isn't going to be accepted and when people deemed to be acting in a socially unacceptable way are likely to be penalized in some form.
While "rights" may be somewhat philosophical, they can have very real physical "weight" behind them in the form of other people "enforcing" them.
And finally, in case you are mistakenly under the impression that I think it's okay for anyone to do anything they want so long as they can get away with it, I don't, but that discussion drifts into the territory of morality and ethics which, while related, are nevertheless different and very large topics of discussion in themselves.
If you believe rights are what God and the Constitution grant, then they're meaningless. Some piece of paper has no real–world relevance. Cops shooting people in the face has real–world relevance.
God doesn't have a typewriter, as far as I know. When he gets one I hope he clears up which 99.9% of human religions are heretical and which 0.01% are divine law, that would be really helpful.
In the meantime, rights are not granted by anyone. They are a contract between the governed and those that govern. Breaking that contract is the sort of thing that doesn't end up working out well for the governing class.
Governments are natural; nature abhors a vacuum.
Governments which at least pay lip service to the premise of respecting people's rights are another matter entirely.
> Protesting is a fundamental human right
That doesn't include vandalism, it doesn't include blocking roads, looting, or assaulting people. What's obvious to me is that a certain class of protestors are intentionally provoking a response from the government by breaking the law. Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, and that is used as an excuse for more protests. The protests get increasingly violent in an escalating cycle.
That process isn't exercising a "fundamental human right", it's a form of violence. If you don't agree with the Government the correct answer is to vote, have a dialog, and if you choose to protest do it in a way that's respectful to your neighbors and the people around you.
Yeah, this is what I don't get. People have the right to peacefully protest (and they should). However, once you actively get in the way of official federal policing business, you are no longer a peaceful protester. Interjecting yourself into already stressful situation will only make things worse for you.
> a certain class of protestors
Yes, a proportionally large and significant number of local Minnesota community members of long and good standing.
> are intentionally provoking a response from the government
are reacting to excessive over reach by outsiders, directed by the Federal government to act in a punative manner.
> Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed,
This has already happened. Multiple times. As was obvious from the outset given the unprofessional behaviour and attitudes of the not-police sent in wearing masks.
> [the people aren't] exercising a "fundamental human right"
they are exercising their Constitutional rights. Including their right to free speech, to bear arms, to protest the Federal government, etc.
> the correct answer is to vote, talk to your neighbors and friends, and peaceably protest,
Which they have done and they continue to do.
See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defe...
for more about the local community of neighbour loving US citizens acting in defence of their community.
> Protesting is not something you should do "casually”
Neither is violently undermining our Constitutional order.
These folks should be on notice that they will be prosecuted. If we played by Trump’s book, we’d charge them with treason and then let them appeal against the death penalty for the rest of their lives.
> played by Trump’s book
I'm betting that's exactly what will happen - the FBI will single out some core organisers and let them serve as an example.
Realistically, we now know that the Hunter Biden Pardon (preemptive) is available and the Capitol Riots Pardon (mass pardon) is available. Given that, it’s only optimal for an outgoing cynical Republican President to preemptively pardon his allies on the street.
That only works for federal charges. Just don’t tell that to the president. Or do, he won’t remember anyway.
> we now know that the Hunter Biden Pardon (preemptive) is available and the Capitol Riots Pardon (mass pardon) is available
No we don’t. Nobody has tested these in court. Trump has no incentive to.
If Trump actually wanted to violently undermine the constitutional order there would be a lot of dead judges by now.
Unnecessary when he owns the Supreme Court and his thugs routinely ignore court orders.
Here is a more pedantic description then for you - "undermine the constitutional order by employing elevated (to various degree) amount of violence."
> If Trump actually wanted to violently undermine the constitutional order there would be a lot of dead judges by now
Hitler’s brown shirts didn’t start by killing judges. They started with voter (and lawmaker) intimidation.
> Neither is violently undermining our Constitutional order.
Ah, the "ends justify the means" then? Is this something you want applied _against_ you? Seems reckless.
> These folks should be on notice that they will be prosecuted.
They will not.
> If we played by Trump’s book
Moral relativism will turn you into the thing you profess to hate.
> we’d charge them with treason and then let them appeal against the death penalty for the rest of their lives.
Words have actual meaning. We're clearly past that and just choosing words that match emotional states. If you don't want to fix anything and just want to demonstrate your frustrations then this will work. If you want something to change you stand no chance with this attitude.
I'm not choosing sides. I'm simply saying if you want to avoid FBI attention then take your heart off your sleeve and smarten up.
> Is this something you want applied _against_ you?
It’s literally happening. And sure. If I try to murder the Vice President or murder Americans as part of a political stunt, hold me to account. Those were the rules I thought we were all playing by.
> If you want something to change you stand no chance with this attitude
Strongly disagree. There are new political tools on the table. Unilaterally disarming is strategically stupid.
> if you want to avoid FBI attention then take your heart off your sleeve and smarten up
I’m going to bet I’ve gotten more language written into state and federal law than you have. That isn’t a flex. It’s just me saying that I know how to wield power, it and doesn’t come from trying to avoid crooked federal agents. If they’re crooked, they’ll come for you when you speak up. In my experience, they’re more bark than bite.
"FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff."
Isn't the simply inserting an agent into the secret circle the most time honored way to crack security.
Or just got control of 1 person’s phone/account.
Yea, I just assume any easily joinable movement like this is a honeypot of sorts.
Most of these groups are centered around a neighborhood, or a school, or a church. For anything school related, people are very suspicious of outsiders trying to join. Churches and neighborhood groups might be more open, I suspect, but still gotta get somebody who lives there or goes to the church to vouch for you.
But the worst case for an outsider joining is not very bad; they get to see what's going on, but the entire point of the endeavor is to bring everything to light and make everything more visible. And if an outsider joins and starts providing bad information or is a bad actor, typical moderation efforts are pretty easy.
Most people are not professional conspiracists and know how to handle secret meetings, communication etc.
But the more the whole thing shifts towards that, the closer civil war is.
In other words, if you think any easily joinable movement is a honeypot you already seem to think along the lines of resistance movement in a dictatorship. (If it is .. I will not judge, I am not in the US)
That seems like quite a stretch from reality. I just know the glowies enjoy lurking websites where people openly post how to use Tor.
>The FBI simply
i don't think an investigation by FBI has ever been "simply" to the subjects of such an investigation. And to show bang-for-the-buck the "simply reading chat" officers would have to bring at least some fish, i.e. federal charges, from such a reading expedition.
In general it sounds very familiar - any opposition is a crime of impeding and obstruction. Just like in Russia where any opposition is a crime of discreditation at best or even worse - a crime of extremism/terrorism/treason.
> any opposition is a crime of impeding and obstruction
No; conspiracy to impede and obstruct is a crime.
If you are about to do something I don't want you to do, but which is lawful for you to do, 1A covers me saying "hey, don't do that". It does not cover me physically positioning myself in a way that prevents you from doing it. And if you happen to be an LEO and the thing you're about to do is a law enforcement action, it would be unlawful for me to adopt such positioning. It is unlawful even if I only significantly impede you.
And ICE are federal LEO.
Conspiracy to impede and obstruct criminal behaviour is not a crime, it's legitimate self-defence.
The fact that federal agents are breaking the law doesn't change that. At all.
In spite of what you've been told federal LEO are bound by the law.
Executing random bystanders on a whim, operating without visible ID, failing to allow congressional oversight of facilities, failing to give those captured access to a lawyer - among many, many others - all put this operation far outside of any reasonable claim to proportionality or legality.
> Conspiracy to impede and obstruct criminal behaviour is not a crime, it's legitimate self-defence.
The behaviour being impeded and obstructed is not criminal. It is, in fact, law enforcement.
> In spite of what you've been told federal LEO are bound by the law.
I have not been told otherwise, nor does my argument assume or require otherwise.
> Executing random bystanders on a whim
This objectively does not even remotely describe either killing, and I have seen no evidence for the other things. Nor can I fathom what "congressional oversight" you have in mind, nor why it would be legally necessary.
You're truly lost down some path if you think those people weren't state sponsored execution. If this happened in other countries with a "regime" it would be easier to recognize, but apparently if you dress it up a certain way and use a particular verbage that changes anything?
If you believe that, then the right process is for the legal system to deal with it. If you feel aggrieved by the legal system you should vote to change it. Nowhere in the social contract is it even remotely acceptable to act as a vigilante and respond with violence.
One of the victims was blocking half the low traffic road and intending for people to pass freely on the other half. The other was filming from a distance.
The recent male vigilante was directing cars traffic the area and attacked a law enforcement official the female vigilante was also resisting arrest and ran her car into a cop.
Don’t be disingenuous. The people in these groups are coordinating for a specific reason: to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs. That’s textbook Obstruction of Justice. It is illegal to prevent an officer from doing their job.
These groups are also documented to have harassed people who are _not_ federal officers under the mistaken impression that they are. That’s just assault. Probably stalking too. Anyone who participates in these groups will be committing crimes, and should be prosecuted for it.
If you don’t like the job that an officer is doing then the right thing to do is to talk to your Congress–critter about changing the law. Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law that was passed in 1995 with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. No attempt has been made to modify that law in the last 30 years. If Democrats didn’t like it, they had several majorities during that time when they could have forced through changes. They didn’t even bother.
>The people in these groups are coordinating for a specific reason: to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs.
To observe them, and prevent them from committing crimes. Which if it isn't legal, is moral as all get out.
"Jobs" Nurmberg lol. Not an argument.
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>Being Disingenuous
Crying disingenuous when I disagree with you isn't an argument.
>but it won't change anything about what the FBI should and shouldn't do.
What does that have to do with the price of wheat.
>And neither does crying "Nazi" whenever someone does something you don't like.
Why do you suddenly cry "Crying Nazi". Do you have sins to confess?
well, DHS does openly use white supremacy memes in their recruitment posts
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/white-national...
These groups exist to observe and document the actions of federal agents and share that information with their communities. That is constitutionally protected activity.
Sure, and the FBI shouldn't go after the mafia either - they are only providing protection and other services to the community after all.
Their stated purpose and their actual function can be different, and speech that would otherwise be free can be illegal if involved in incitement, bribery, collusion, etc.
If I’m having a conversation with my friend, it’s free speech. If we’re plotting the overthrow of the government, it’s insurrection.
> to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs. That’s textbook Obstruction of Justice. It is illegal to prevent an officer from doing their job.
Filming officiers performing their jobs is not obstruction, even if it does make them uncomfortable. If it makes their jobs harder that's only because they know what they're doing is unpopular and don't want to be known to have done it.
> If you don’t like the job that an officer is doing then the right thing to do is to talk to your Congress–critter about changing the law. Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law that was passed in 1995 with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. No attempt has been made to modify that law in the last 30 years. If Democrats didn’t like it, they had several majorities during that time when they could have forced through changes. They didn’t even bother.
Yeah, there's a massive disconnect between politicians and their voters. This is pretty strong evidence of that disconnect. Even now Democrats refuse to support abolishing ICE, despite majority support among their constituency. Who are voters who want immigration reform supposed to cast their ballots for? There hasn't been such a candidate since ICE was created in the wake of 9/11. Conservatives got to let out their pent up frustration with an unresponsive government by electing Trump. Liberals have no such champion, only community organizing.
> Filming officiers performing their jobs is not obstruction
This is irrelevant, because many people have been observed physically obstructing officers, whether or not they were filming at the time.
> If it makes their jobs harder
Have you heard the constant blowing of whistles in these videos? Did you know that protesters have organized the mass 3d-printing and distribution of these whistles (https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2025/12/not-just-a-toy-how-wh... ; https://www.startribune.com/whistle-symbol-ice-protest-minne... ; https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/01/21/chicagoa...)? Can you imagine how this level of noise interferes with a job that involves verbal communication with both coworkers and civilians?
> Even now Democrats refuse to support abolishing ICE
I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest" without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
And you're aware that the Signal groups in question are alleged to include Democratic state officials and a campaign advisor?
For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced? Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
> Have you heard the constant blowing of whistles in these videos? Did you know that protesters have organized the mass 3d-printing and distribution of these whistles (https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2025/12/not-just-a-toy-how-wh... ; https://www.startribune.com/whistle-symbol-ice-protest-minne... ; https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/01/21/chicagoa...)? Can you imagine how this level of noise interferes with a job that involves verbal communication with both coworkers and civilians?
Not to mention that the point is also to alert illegals of the LEO presence so that they can get away.
> This is irrelevant, because many people have been observed physically obstructing officers, whether or not they were filming at the time.
Not the last guy they executed. He was recording, then backed away when an officer approached him. Then he got dogpiled, his holstered gun was taken, and then he was shot repeatedly.
> Have you heard the constant blowing of whistles in these videos? Did you know that protesters have organized the mass 3d-printing and distribution of these whistles?
I'm quite aware of the intentionally annoying whistles. You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference." I didn't realize that feds had a protected right to a calm and quiet work environment.
> I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest" without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
Yeah, Walz is a weak Democrat who can't even condemn the organization killing and abducting his State's citizens. Exactly the kind of politician voters are tired of. All he can say over and over is to "not take the bait" by resisting occupation more forcefully.
> And you're aware that the Signal groups in question are alleged to include Democratic state officials and a campaign advisor?
I've not heard that alleged, but it wouldn't be surprising for some to be monitoring the situation. If you mean to imply that Democrat officials are organizing the resistance then that's laughable. If you're a Conservative then there are only a handful of Dems you should be afraid of, and the rest of the Dems will help you make sure they're not too influential.
> For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced?
A more focused INS under the DoJ would be a good reset. A paramilitary with twitchy trigger fingers is no way to enforce any law, much less something as nonviolent and bureaucratic as immigration. If someone is being violent, send the Police, hold a trial. If you need to sort out immigration status you can send a pencil pusher to get papers in order.
> Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
No barriers? No. Extremely low ones though, absolutely. You do realize that almost all undocumented people living in the US are on overstayed visas, right? We let them in after checking they weren't dangerous, then they started working and living here. Now they make up a sizable chunk of the population. Clearly our immigration system is broken if it leaves this many residents undocumented. And your proposed solution is strict enforcement?
Imagine, if you will, applying this standard to, say, speeding. Repeated instances of speeding result in increasing fines, and eventually revocation of your license. That's what the law says! Should we not enforce this law?? Well. If we used cars' and phones' GPS and cameras to reconstruct a few days of driving behavior, then handed out punishment as dictated by law, 90% of drivers would instantly lose their license. Half of the population would be unable to go to work, buy food, of get their kids to school. It would be a disaster of historic scale. The problem then, is the law. To put it more succinctly: I am not a proponent of enforcing bad laws, and neither is just about anyone else here in reality.
> I'm quite aware of the intentionally annoying whistles. You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference." I didn't realize that feds had a protected right to a calm and quiet work environment.
This kind of behavior would not be tolerated any more if it targeted other work environments. Harassment (and that's the most generous interpretation) is not free speech.
> This kind of behavior would not be tolerated any more if it targeted other work environments
Yeah? It's exactly the fact that their work environment is public streets and other people's homes, schools, and churches that prompt this behavior.
> then backed away when an officer approached him.
The video shows him physically interposing himself between the officer and a woman, and appearing to resist physically.
> You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference."
It is not broad, as explained by the one sentence you omitted from that paragraph.
> Walz is a weak Democrat who can't even condemn the organization
He has very clearly done this on multiple occasions. As I said, he has even been making public speeches claiming that ICE aren't even LEO, which is false.
> abducting his State's citizens
This has not occurred. Arrest is not abduction.
> If you mean to imply that Democrat officials are organizing the resistance then that's laughable.
I do mean to say that Cam Higby asserts exactly that, and appears to believe he has considerable evidence to substantiate the claim.
> You do realize that almost all undocumented people living in the US are on overstayed visas, right? We let them in after checking they weren't dangerous, then they started working and living here.
I don't understand why you think they should be permitted to stay under those conditions.
> Clearly our immigration system is broken if it leaves this many residents undocumented. And your proposed solution is strict enforcement?
Yes; if you have a time-limited visa, you should be expected to leave the country when it expires, and you should expect for there to be strict enforcement of that rule. Otherwise the time stamped on the visa is meaningless.
> Imagine, if you will, applying this standard to, say, speeding.
I see no reason why this is comparable.
First you are lying. Second, noise is not an obstruction. It is ok and legal to produce whistles.
What is not legal is point guns at journalists, beat people who record you on the phones and shoot people in the back because they had phone in hand and you are frustrated. What is not legal is to throw pepper spray at people who are no threat. One gotta love the "they mass produce whistles" as a grave accusation while ICE men literally openly threaten to kill people who are no threat. Or kill them and then are proud of their murdering colleagues.
> I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest"
Yes, he had good speeches.
> without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
Lol, heavily armed cowards jump at observer, 8 on one, there is no resistance and then they call it resisting arrest.
> For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced? Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
ICE is basically a violent gang with impossible to reform culture. You dont hire gangmembers to do law enforcement. It needs to be abolished and people in it need to be banned from working in law enforcement.
This is an inaccurate description of what they are doing. For example Renee Good was actively blockading a street, by placing her car perpendicularly across it. Some may be engaged in observation, but that is not broadly the case, and organizationally, their apparent goal is to obstruct.
If she was trying to blokade the street she was doing a pretty bad job. A car goes past hers in the video where the murderer shoots her three times and calls her a "fucking bitch" while her corpse weights down the gas and her SUV goes careening down the road.
That's just normal law enforcement behavior though. I'm sure if she hadn't been short with him he would've otherwise been well-behaved and enforced our immigration laws without incident.
> despite majority support among their constituency
A very vocal minority is not a majority.
You are factually wrong.
Jan 23rd General strike, Minnesota: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Downtown... https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1ql7eva/mn_01232...
This is not a 'vocal minority'.
Oh, that's one blue state; right? What do the rest of Americans think?
> The Economist/YouGov poll, 55 percent of respondents said they had “very little” confidence in ICE, while 16 percent said they have “some” confidence in the agency. Sixteen percent said they have “quite a lot” of confidence in ICE and 14 percent said they have “a great deal.”
Source poll: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...
It's a majority of Democrat voters.
> Democrats overwhelmingly support eliminating ICE (76% vs. 15%), as do nearly half of Independents (47% vs. 35%). Most Republicans (73%) continue to oppose abolishing ICE. Only 19% of Republicans support eliminating the agency
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53939-more-americ...
>Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law
What i saw on video is ICE executing 2 American citizens. The existing law already prohibits that, so what changes you're talking about?
I am talking about 8 USC chapter 12 subsection II (<https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/chapter-12>). This is the law that defines how immigration works in the US, and how illegal aliens are removed. ICE is the Federal agency assigned to the task of locating and removing illegal aliens. Even if you don’t like that illegal aliens are being removed, it is illegal to try to prevent a federal agent from doing just that. Instead you should be trying to change the law so that the job doesn’t exist.
Can you quote the part of 8 USC chapter 12 subsection II where it says you get to murder everyone you disagree with?
which part of the immigration code lets ice agents kill citizens?
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You can't invoke self-defence against someone filming with an iPhone.
Don't be ridiculous. This whole line of argumentation is embarrassing.
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Does murdering someone who is driving away from you prevent immediate harm to you? Uncontrolled moving vehicles with bricks on the accelerator are very dangerous.
Self–defence is extremely limited in scope. Basically, if someone is about to stab you, you can do anything necessary to prevent that stabbing. Self–defence doesn't include that after someone fails to stab you and runs away, you can shoot them while they are running away. It doesn't include revenge. If you shoot someone who fails to stab you and runs away, it is murder like any other shooting. Self–defence doesn't include shooting someone who invades your house and isn't currently trying to hurt you, that is castle doctrine.
Why change? I've just randomly clicked through, and it is a good law, for example :
(1) Right of counsel The alien shall have a right to be present at such hearing and to be represented by counsel. Any alien financially unable to obtain counsel shall be entitled to have counsel assigned to represent the alien. Such counsel shall be appointed by the judge pursuant to the plan for furnishing representation for any person financially unable to obtain adequate representation for the district in which the hearing is conducted, as provided for in section 3006A of title 18.
When you're saying that ICE is executing that law, are you saying that the guys sent to that Guatemala prison were afforded that right of counsel and were given a lawyer? Or anybody else in those mass deportations.
I also couldn't find in that law where it makes it legal to randomly catch dark skinned people on the street, including citizens.
There are two conceptions of law currently in the US. The first is what we see on TV, with lawyers and judges and law enforcement attempting, most often successfully, to apply a set of rules to everyone equally.
The second conception of law is what the federal government is doing now: oppression of opponents of the powerful, and protection of the powerful from any harm they cause to others.
We are currently in a battle to see which side wins. In many ways the struggle of the US, as it has become more free, is a struggle for the first conception to win over the second. When we had the Civil War, the first conception of law won. I hope it wins again.
I think the two can be called "rule of law" or "rule of men". I would have thought more people would support "rule of law".
It was always people who ruled, it's just more apparent when the people who rule are bullies itching for a fight, who care even less about the appearance of consistency.
For moral accountability, it should always in the end be "I say", not "the law says". No one should "just be obeying orders", they should make choices they can stand behind on their own judgment, regardless of whether some group of possibly long dead legislators stood behind it or not.
The extraditions are of people who have already had a hearing and are subject to a final order of removal.
That is just simply not true as was illustrated by many stories in the news. And in particular why would the ICE then use that checklist - young, Latino, tatoos ... -> gang member to extradite (to Guatemala).
And what final order of removal were for example the US citizens picked by ICE subject to?
US citizens were extradited? Who? To where?
Invariably someone will shoot back with "citizen children of illegal immigrants."
Sure, that happens a lot despite Court orders to the contrary.
ICE has also deported full adult citizens, eg: Pedro Guzman, Mark Lyttle, etc.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Guzman
* https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/press-releases/court-rec...
Currently there's a running problem simply having access to the names and files of those that disappear into the ICE Gulag.
How many other developed countries in the world allow tourists to unconditionally birth citizens?
allow to birth? Only God does that. US does entice tourists by granting citizenship to anybody born on US territory. If you don't like it - change the Constitution. If you aren't changing it, then you want it for some reason.
Edit: to the commenter below - what "moral" has to do with the Constitution provision? I mean beside the general understanding that Constitution is a law and following law is in general a moral thing, and that US Constitution was generally an attempt to write a good moral thing.
I first have to ask: do you personally think it makes sense that couples can enter the US illegally, remain in the US illegally until a child is born, and have that child automatically become a citizen? Do you think it is moral? Why?
But just to clarify, GP was asking you whether that particular path to citizenship exists in other developed countries.
> ICE has also deported full adult citizens, eg: Pedro Guzman, Mark Lyttle, etc.
Per your sources, these happened in 2007-2008, so that hardly seems relevant to the current discussion. Trump is not responsible for law enforcement overreaches that occurred under GWB.
> Currently there's a running problem simply having access to the names and files of those that disappear into the ICE Gulag.
What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
> Why change? I've just randomly clicked through, and it is a good law…
Since you’re being deliberately obtuse, I will spell it out further.
See “8 U.S. Code § 1226 - Apprehension and detention of aliens”, which says this:
This is a long sentence, but I think you will agree that it is fundamentally very straight forward. It says that “the Attorney General shall take into custody any alien who [meets any one of this list of criteria].” Obviously the country is too big for the Attorney General to do the whole job themselves, so they have delegated it to ICE. Before ICE existed the job was done by the INS. As long as this law exists someone must be doing this job at all times. It’s required. It would be unconstitutional for the Executive Branch to ignore the law and not assign the job to anyone.Therefore anyone who thinks that illegal aliens should not be deported should not be harassing ICE. They should be looking to _change the law_. Harassing ICE won’t change the fact that what they are doing is simply required of the Executive Branch by Congress.
> When you're saying that ICE is executing that law, are you saying that the guys sent to that Guatemala prison were afforded that right of counsel and were given a lawyer? Or anybody else in those mass deportations.
Absolutely. You’ll have to follow up on individual cases, but anyone who has had a Final Order of Removal entered against by by a judge is supposed to be immediately deported as soon as they are picked up by law enforcement. By the time that order is issued they have already gone through the court process and had all the due process that the Constitution requires. The fact that they evaded deportation, or were deported and later reentered the country illegally, does not get them a new trial. The existing order still applies and they are still inadmissible and deportable.
> I also couldn't find in that law where it makes it legal to randomly catch dark skinned people on the street, including citizens.
Notice that the law does not limit _where_ law enforcement can enforce the law. They can pick people up off the street, or at work, or at school, or at home, or anywhere. Skin color likewise is irrelevant. Keep in mind that the majority of illegal immigrants have “dark skin” simply because most illegal immigrants come across our southern border from countries where the average skin tone is darker. That’s not evidence of racism.
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> The people in these groups are coordinating for a specific reason: to follow federal agents around, harass them, and prevent them from doing their jobs. That’s textbook Obstruction of Justice. It is illegal to prevent an officer from doing their job.
If that's the case, then why has no one been prosecuted on those grounds?
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She was fully within her legal rights, as has been pointed out many times by US civil rights lawyers including those that have successfully defended MAGA people deplatformed during the past administration.
Your "assumption" is simply incorrect.
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She didn't refuse to move. She was filmed turning away, slowly and carefully.
Stop trying to lie about this. The video is clear, and far too many people have seen it by now.
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More specifically, right-wing agitators joined the chats and posted screenshots online.
In what way are they "agitators"?
You know, they're dangerous radicals who believe that in general, borders exist, and that immigration law should be enforced. Look at them, "agitating."
Can you explain where immigration law justifies murdering innocent bystanders?
The Pretti shooting has been ruled a homicide, by the way.
> The Pretti shooting has been ruled a homicide, by the way.
I don't see anything in e.g. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/27/alex-p... to substantiate that; and as far as I can tell there have not yet been any other investigations, and thus no other opportunity for such a ruling.
A homicide isn't a "ruling" in court, it just describes the manner of death. We all saw several ICE agents shoot this man. It's a homicide.
"ruled a homicide" is a "ruling"
No it hasn’t. Cite a link if you have one.
Ah yes, enforcing border laws means you: kill American citizens, intimidate at political events, tear gas protestors, and brutalize citizens anonymously with a mask.
No one falls for this bullshit except right wingers with a very fucked up media diet. ICE is a secret police force that is being used for more than just immigration enforcement, obviously. Their budget is now bigger than some countries entire defense budgets.
EDIT: oh and don't forget that ICE is going to the Winter Olympics in Italy as a security detail. So much immigration enforcement, you wouldn't even believe!
Reading the comments on this is the first time I've hoped that most HN comments are made by bots.
nah, HN comments have always been this flavor of awful.
This is one of the reasons it's crucial that the next set of secure messaging systems does away with tying real phone numbers to accounts.
One phone gets compromised and the whole network is identified with their phone numbers.
I haven't tried it, but Signal supports not sharing your phone number/just communicating with usernames: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
You still need to use your phone number to sign up, though.
> You still need to use your phone number to sign up, though.
Which defeats the whole point. What if the FBI politely asks Signal about a phone number?
All they'd learn that way is that that phone number has a Signal account, when it was registered, and when it was last active. In other words, it doesn't tell them whether it's part of a given Signal group. (See https://signal.org/bigbrother/.)
They publicly publish these requests. You can see how little information is provided — just a phone number and two unix timestamps IIRC. https://signal.org/bigbrother/
I might be misremembering or mixing memories but i remember something about them only storing the hash of the number.
So the FBI cant ask what phone number is tied to an account, but if a specific phone number was tied to the specific account? (As in, Signal gets the number, runs it through their hash algorythm and compares that hash to the saved one)
But my memory is very very bad, so like i said, i might be wrong
It would be absolutely trivial for the FBI to hash every single assigned phone number and check which one matches. Hashing only provides any anonymity if the source domain is too large to be enumerable.
Brief research says that Signal does store phone numbers.
Regarding hashing: while unsalted phone number hashes would be easy to reverse then I doubt that any hashing scheme today is set up like that.
You don't even need to think about how the hashing scheme and salt is set up. If Signal can check if a phone number matches the hash in any reasonable amount of time (which is the whole point of keeping a hash in the first place) then the FBI can just do that for all phone numbers with very realistic compute resources once they get Signal to cough up the details of the algorithm and magic numbers used.
Well, Signal would have to disclose the salt of course.
If the Signal Messaging LLC is compromised, then "updates", e.g., spyware, can be remotely installed on every Signal user's computer, assuming every Signal user allows "automatic updates". I don't think Signal has a setting to turn off updates
Not only does one have to worry about other Signal users being compromised, one also has to worry about a third party being compromised: the Signal Messaaging LLC
Signal Messaging LLC is US-based and needs to follow CALEA[1] by law.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...
Hiding your phone number is a setting now. Has been for well over a year.
You can't sign up without one, and it being an option means people who are in danger won't do it.
Also, if someone's phone is confiscated, and you're in their Signal chats and their address book, it doesn't matter if you're hiding your number on Signal.
It's better to just not require such identifying information at all.
That's true for any system where you have contacts linked. Same thing happens when you have names and avatars.
If you don't want to link your contacts... don't link your contacts...
But this doesn't have the result that the GP claimed. The whole network doesn't unravel because in big groups like these one number doesn't have all the other contacts in their system.
For people that need it:
If you are extra concerned, turn on disappearing messages. This is highly suggested for any group chats like the ones being discussed. You should also disable read receipts and typing indicators.Some of these settings are already set btw
I would imagine that the issue that people have here isn't so much that you can hide from other users, but whether or not you can hide your information from the company behind Signal. I'd assume that if you can't hide from the company, then you can't hide from the US government. We know that you can extract messages from a compromised phone because they aren't encrypted at rest. Which I guess would mean that even if you have disappearing messages and similar, your messages could proably still be extracted from a group chat with a comprimised user in it.
If we go full tinfoil, then do you really trust Apple and Google to keep your Signal keys on your device safe from the US government?
It's probably not that bad, but I do know that we're having some serious discussions on Signal here in Europe because it's not necessarily the secure platform we used to think it was. Then again, our main issue is probably that we don't have a secure phone platform with a way to securely certify applications (speaking from a national safety, not personal privacy point of view).
Signal's messages are encrypted at rest though? Because Android and iOS are both full disk encrypted.
I do agree with that when you can't hide from the company, you can't hide from the US government either.
Regarding attacks, even if your current app is e2ee then this could be subverted by simply updating it to a newer version that isn't. Yet another is that when somebody gets full control over your phone, then no system will protect you as the device is functioning as intended (showing you the messages), it just doesn't know that it's no longer the owner of the phone reading them.
Can you easily sign up without a phone number though?
No. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45454478
Using any mobile phone connected to mobile network is breach of OPSEC, period. Even more in countries, where you cannot get anonymous SIM card.
Not using phone numbers in chat app doesn't protect you against someone locating you.
When phone is turned on, even without SIM, your location is saved, in inches. Thanks to 5G.
And some phone turns itself on automatically, lol.
Using laptop (without any wifi card) -> Wifi card (rotating fake MAC) -> wifi network/LTE modem with IMEI spoofing
Physical keys are the real path. Sign every message with your Yubikey.
Same with internet trolls: make it possible to authenticate privately to social media platforms and the bots would disappear!
Gee, like any of competing systems like Session.
Session is a low-privacy fork of Signal.
source:
https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/
hn discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42707409
Zangi does this. No idea on their overall security posture compared to Signal, however.
If only we knew this would happen when these products were launched...
Oh wait, we did.
> it's crucial that the next set of secure messaging systems does away with tying real phone numbers to accounts.
https://olvid.io/
Keep in mind that with secure messaging, if the other side gets compromised, your chats with them are compromised. This seems obvious, but with signal groups of a large size, they're effectively public groups. Signal insists on using your phone number too, refusing user ids or anything that will make analysis hard.
Don't use Signal for organizing anything of this sort, I promise you'll regret it. I've heard people having better luck with Briar, but there might be others too. I only know that Signal and Whatsapp are what you want to avoid. Unless your concern is strictly cryptographic attacks of your chat's network-traffic and nothing more.
> Signal insists on using your phone number too, refusing user ids or anything that will make analysis hard.
That is no longer true, you can use user IDs now.
For the other problem, you can enable self-deleting messages in group chats, limiting the damage when a chat does become compromised. Of course, this doesn't stop any persistent threat, such as law enforcement (is that even the right term anymore?) getting access to an unlocked phone.
No cryptography will protect a group that allows a traitor to join. The fundamental problem is vetting, and you really just can't do that remotely.
It can protect the identity of the members, though.
Apparently, one member of the group uploaded a personal photo as an avatar.
I've also heard of side-channel attacks on Signal that could allow for profiling a user's location, which with the FBI's resources could presumably eventually result in identification.
Sure, I was not talking about Signal. Something like Bitmessage[1] can.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitmessage
What is it like in the US these days? I'm on the outside (occasionally) looking in, and it looks like something out of European history class! The ice seem to have roughly the same priorities and roughly the same methodology as the SA had in the beginning.
Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is saying. But I'm curious to hear Americans view on matters?
As a European I'm also somewhat confused. I always thought that the reason the second amendment was made into such a big deal was because Americans felt they needed to be able to protect themselves in case the government ran amok.
Isn't this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk?
Stuff seems rough over there, if they actually are, take care everybody! Also please tell me how things actually stand inside the US cause it's making very little sense right now.
People are experiencing wildly different Americas depending on their circumstances and level of political involvement.
If you're a tech worker and you still have a job and you think AI is pretty cool and you don't follow news very closely, things seem okay...ish. You are maybe dimly aware of some social problems, but they're all somebody else's problems.
If you're one of the many many thousands of people who have been abducted by federalized lunatics, or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps, things seem urgently and unimaginably bad.
If you're politically involved, things seem tenuous, at best. You likely know someone who either feels justifiably terrified by what's going on, or someone whose life has been seriously impacted by it.
I've spent several months successfully combating one of YC's contributions to all this mess. Tonight, federal law enforcement fired pepper rounds, flashbangs, and tear gas into a crowd of protestors who were noisy -- not violent, not even causing property damage, just noisy. One of the officers aimed the tear gas weapon directly at a protestor's head and caused a serious head injury (the kind that causes convulsions and foaming at the mouth after impact). And, they'll get away with that.
The local police department was flying half a dozen drones directly over this, but they are only there to surveil and look for an excuse to put on riot gear.
There were an assortment of reporters there, but most of them have editors or owners that won't run much of a story about any of it. A few politicians showed up, but they made a short speech and then left immediately. The building where this all happened is in a city center, so, just a block away, life and traffic continues as normal and most people are entirely unaware.
So that's also why nobody's really been making an organized 2A effort either. For most people, this isn't "real", in the sense that it isn't something they're experiencing, and for those that are experiencing it, they're trying to walk a tightrope that resists the current administration without spiraling into a widespread civil war.
> in one of our concentration camps
As a European, I find the use of "concentration camp" to be a very strong word. Trump and its administration are often touted as a Nazi and such. How much of this is hyperbole, and how much of this is real?
Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US?
Note: this is not snark to defend Trump, I'm French and I could not care less. I genuinely want to understand. I feel like the Nazi lexical field is much much weaker in the US, and people are more eager to use it over there than here in Europe.
I think maybe OP was using the traditional definition of the word, and hopefully not trying to imply we have Treblinka’s across the US.
But there is some cause for concern regarding the detention centers and the lack of oversight.
For example, even Congress members have to provide 7 days of notice if they wish to visit a center [1]. So, the only real oversight is from the executive. And these centers are often ran by private companies somewhat notorious for bad conditions and lawsuits related to bad conditions / civil rights violations.
Here’s a story about where we’re holding families and children:
https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2026/01/27/inside-the-dilley...
1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-facilities-homeland-securit...
Nazis were systemic against a religion and disabilities. They made systemic ways of exterminating those deemed "unpure". The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people. Is this really what is happening in the US?
It is often useful to differentiate between "concentration camps" and "death camps" or "extermination camps". The Nazis had both. Some of their concentration camps were focused on concentrating and detaining people, some of them also systematically killed them -- they are not the same. If you fail to make this distinction, then saying "America has concentration camps" could make it sound like they're running extermination camps.
The US does to my knowledge not yet have those, nor as large-scale application of concentration camps as Germany did, and whether you even want to use the term "concentration camp" rather than something more like "detention facility" is up to you, but the federal government certainly has camps where people detained by ICE are being concentrated. Sometimes they are also subject to human rights abuses and/or die there.
Here's one of these camps, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_East_Montana
Here is a list of people dying under ICE detention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_ICE_detentio...
> Here's one of these camps, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_East_Montana
Thats a textbook concentration camp. You are correct in your descriptions and distinction from extermination camps, concentration camps are not that rare even these days around the world in troubled places.
They are as name suggests just to herd bunch of people behind the fence, not much more. Of course, the reasons are usually far from nice and thus due to at most OKish treatment even there some sad things happen due to amount of people crammed together for a long time.
In Europe during WWII we had tons of concentration camps all over conquered Europe but only few were actual extermination ones, usually converted/expanded from concentration ones. When allies were coming nazis often turned concentration -> extermination due to orders given from above.
Thank you for the clarification!
I do agree that there are three slight between "concentration", "death", and "extermination" camps when speaking about Nazi Germany. In France virtually only "concentration" is used in history classes as an umbrella term for all three. It's only very recently (less than 5 years) that I've seen people start to use the more nuanced term. (as an example, any French will tell you that Auschwitz is a concentration camp while it was, in fact, a death camp).
Yet I stand behind what I said about the word "concentration camp" be a strong and heavy word, since those were integral part in the final solution.
I'm not denying that the US has detainment camps akin to the "gentlest" camps from Nazi Germany, far from it. However, I fail to see the difference between e.g. the East Montana one and a large-scale 5k inmate prison, other than it's less regulated than a federal/regular prison thus with more abuse, and filled with regular people instead of criminals. According to the linked Wikipedia articles, the camp has been dubbed after the Alcatraz prison (known for all sorts of violations).
I may be wrong, and they may be indeed set up by ICE and the government to torture and kill the immigrants. I have a hard time to believe it though, as making a detainment camp to frighten and push immigrants to "go back" would me much more effective and less controversial. My guess would be the intent is the latter form of facility, but ends up being the former due to being staffed with ICE and not professional prison crew.
At any rate, even having detainment camps for non-convicted civilians is already too much. We're quick to point fingers at China and their labor camps for Uyghurs, but this is on the way. (as with the Nazi discussion, this is still far from what china does: ad-vitam detainment, children born in captivity, forced sterilization of people, forced religion, etc).
>even having detainment camps for non-convicted civilians is already too much.
How do you suggest enforcing immigration law when millions have entered your country illegally? (If you believe in enforcing it all.)
Fellow European. They are not death camps, but what information does come out of them does sound a lot like concentration camps, already prior to Trump coming to office.
These are all stories about the facility the 5 year old toddler from last week is kept, a facility known as "baby jail".
https://www.proskauerforgood.com/2018/06/pro-bono-for-immigr... https://www.aila.org/blog/volunteering-in-family-detention-s... https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/stories-reve...
The first nazi concentration camp was founded in 1933, gas chambers and systematic killing were only added in 1941 when the "final solution" was implemented. Those last four years are the most well-known period, but for the majority of Hitler's rule concentration camps were just what it says on the tin: camps where undesirables were concentrated. Places that became overcrowded, hotbeds for disease, labor camps and places of medical experimentation. Plenty of people died there even in that period, but from causes like illness, work accidents, malnutrition and bad medical care.
ICE detention centers are not comparable to a 1942 nazi death camp, but comparisons to a 1939 concentration camp seem apt
> The concentration camps had gas chambers to kill people.
First concentration camps were create right after the election 1933 and the gas chambers were not invented yet. They were used against political opposition first, minor criminals second and only then Jews/homosexuals/etc. The regime had to consolidate power and invent the gas chambers first. The deportations, general violence, arrests on made up excuses, exclusion of jews and opposition from public life happened at the beginning.
Trumps rhetoric against Somalis in particular has strong echoes. So does the strategy of arresting and beating people on ethnic membership only.
> Nazis were systemic against a religion
Kinda yes kinda no. Religion was competitor against power ... but klerofascism was a thing. The pope was kinda neutral. And then you have places like Slovakia where catholic church priests were not just facilitating holocaust, but literally leading it. Religion was fairly frequently anti-semitic itself.
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Then you need better reading glasses, unless you killing of two innocent people is actually people guilty or illegals.
While one of these seems like an accident where the officer may have some blame, then both of them can be avoided if you don't behave aggressively or don't show up with a gun at a protest. I.e, bad things sometimes happen, but they are not the situation you wish it to be.
I’m no fan of guns but showing up with a gun is not illegal or criminal in itself that deserves instant death sentence. So you might want to introspect what you’re saying here.
Neither is showing up to a bank with a gun. Yet a robbery is likely to have much more severe consequences if you are armed.
It's funny how people use the lawfulness argument for carrying a gun to protest, but don't use the same argument against deporting illegals.
I have introspected this thoroughly. What I'm saying is if you're confiscated a gun in some highly urgent situation, then the people doing the seizing get even more tense in their mental state, so accidents are easy to make.
While it may be worth it to investigate the situation and there may some blame on the officer, then the allusions people are making (perhaps not you) are completely out of whack.
I'm sure it's inconvenient if your party or candidate lost the presidential election, but you shouldn't turn to lying for retribution.
> If you're one of the many many thousands of people
Correction, criminal illegal aliens. Some false positives have occurred and those people get released. Stop lying.
> or you have a child or family member in one of our concentration camps
I must be one of those comfortable and oblivious tech workers because I don't know about any concentration camps in the US. So you'll have to tell me what this is about.
For example reported on The Majority Report: https://youtu.be/rapv7V78SZo
I believe this[0] article shows the other side of that door. To clarify, I believe the seeming lack of justice system involvement is what chafes for most.
[0] https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/like-handmaids-tale-footage-shows-...
There aren’t Nazi-style extermination camps in the U.S., but an extermination camp is just a subset of concentration camps. There are large-scale immigration detention facilities, with 60k+ people on any given day, where tens of thousands of people are held without criminal trials. Enforcement often targets identity proxies like race, accent, neighborhood, sweeps up citizens and legal residents, uses expedited deportations with effectively suspended habeas, and operates with extremely limited judicial oversight and blatantly ignores judicial rulings.
These are concentration camps, or at least so close that I’m rhetorically OK with it. All of the famous concentration camp programs of history started the same way. And there’s always an excuse for why “no no no, our program is different, these people are illegal, we have to operate like this (suspended legal rights and oversight) to stop the bad people, it’s not targeted by race/religion/etc it’s just the bad people all happen to be like that…”
This is not a good place to be.
Scope of camps: https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/
Formal suspension of habeas was enabled en-masse by: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/thuraissigia...
> Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things?
If you think what you've seen is bad, consider how bad the stuff you don't see is, and then consider how bad it is for those who aren't the type to post on HN.
Also consider that there are 340 million people in the US. With that sort of population size, you can construct whatever narrative you want out of daily video clips of 1-in-a-million events.
>the type to post on HN.
When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site? The userbase here is considerably further left than a very left-wing state such as California. That will very much be reflected in what gets posted here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791909
> When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site?
Today, several. They made themselves known in several threads related to recent events.
It's against the guidelines to call out posts/posters, but you can use the HN Algolia to list the most popular threads from this week/month and you'll see plenty of them.
Which guideline? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I think it should be fine for you to link a few "I support Trump" comments from the past week? Note that believing the Trump administration is correct on a particular issue, or that they are being unfairly criticized, is not the same as advocating that people vote for Trump. I wasn't able to find anything I would consider actual Trump support from a quick skim of recent threads. I don't believe I've ever seen it on HN.
Or perhaps people can support deportation of illegal immigrants without being a "Trump supporter".
Yeah, but what he's doing to the country is so much worse than illegal immigration that it would be silly to bring it up.
>When's the last time you saw a Trump supporter on this site?
Many in this very thread, actually.
>The userbase here is considerably further left than a very left-wing state such as California.
Considering any fixture in American politics "very left-wing" is already an indicator of how skewed right the perspective is. The signature policy goal of the stereotypical "far-left" American politician (Bernie Sanders) is a government healthcare system already present in many countries around the world, including many less developed than the US.
Most techies are libertarians and/or moderates. They definitely live in liberal hot spots, but they aren’t going out of their way to address social wrongs and protest. Heck, most Californians are moderate, mostly concerned about making money and living the good life, the only reason they are called liberal at all is because Pete Wilson alienated most of the states Hispanics from the Republican Party in an ill planned illegal immigration witch hunt. It didn’t just go from Reagan to Newsom overnight, the change was mostly for anti-racism reasons.
California is also hardly a far left state, it still has more trump voters than Texas.
I don't think HN is representative of techies, especially not when discussing politics.
unrelated tangent, sorry. i agree with your comment, just ranting/venting about a detail.
> a very left-wing state such as California.
seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are depending on who you ask. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!
> The userbase here is considerably further left
can't agree, from my own experiences of discussing political topics on here. again, socially open, free minds, sure. but positive towards Silicon Valley, VC-funding, investments and a general lean towards Imperialism(for freedom, of course, not the bad kind). yes, overtly racist comments get downvoted until they're dead.
"further left than very left-wing" could be the description of an anarcho-communist, self-hosted mastodon instance, not a US state.
to end on a funny note, https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQAfP-2...
sorry for being pedantic, and maybe wrong. please show me y'alls POV, i'm not saying that i'm right, it's just kind of my opinion, man.
>seeing any US state being described as "very left-wing" is interesting to me, think it just shows how different these views are between US and Euro. i'd describe California as Centrist. sure, socially open, no issue with sexuality or heritage. but also, free markets, corpo power, $$$, generally pro-system. the Orange is disliked heavily, but after all it's not the system which is the problem, it's the Orange!
California is considering a wealth tax which is already causing billionaires to flee the state.
>to end on a funny note, https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQAfP-2...
It's the Europeans who want us to ship more weapons to Ukraine.
> It's the Europeans who want us to ship more weapons to Ukraine.
well, you chose the one "good" example, where weapons are actually used for defense against a different Imperialist. what about the money going towards the Palestinian Genocide? what about other wars/invasions/operations, started or backed by Democrats/Bi-Partisan support.
> California is considering a wealth tax
a one-time tax of 5% on the net worth of residents with over $1 billion, bunch of commies! some decades ago, wealth tax was a high, double-digit number.
even so, do you think a one-time 5% wealth tax is enough to be called very left-wing?
>well, you chose the one "good" example, where weapons are actually used for defense against a different Imperialist.
It's interesting that in the conflict you have the greatest familiarity with, you support greater US involvement. In other conflicts, you appear to fall back on simple thinking like "dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad".
I would suggest that many Americans have internalized the simple message Europeans have been sending for years: "dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad". And that's why we lack enthusiasm to help Ukraine. We know helping Ukraine will be added to our rap sheet as supposed warmongers.
Personally I am quite envious of the Swiss, and think a Swiss foreign policy would be very good for the US. We have to stop trying to take responsibility for what is going on in other continents. Dropping bombs is bad, therefore the US is bad -- in Ukraine, Israel, everywhere really.
>even so, do you think a one-time 5% wealth tax is enough to be called very left-wing?
By US standards, yes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46793420
You can’t have a genocide where the population increases.
That's the problem with trying to put political opinion on a one dimensional scale. California is definitely very far left wing on the matters that concern the discussion at hand, that is illegal immigration and law enforcement actions related to it.
California isn't "very left-wing". It's liberal, centre-left if you're being kind. The democrats are a centre-right party with some mildly-leftist pockets of members.
I am pointing out that HN is not very representative of the US political spectrum, and opinions about what's going on in the US will be filtered based on that. You're largely just hearing from one set of partisans here.
By US standards, California is very left-wing. International standards are not super relevant. (I'm also a bit skeptical of the cliche that the Democrats are a right-wing party internationally. For example, Obama endorsed Trudeau in Canada. But again, not super relevant.)
Democrats are (or were) considered "right wing" on some stuff and really "left wing" on other stuff. It's really futile trying to compare the political parties with different incentives internationally and putting a single left/right wing label on them.
Democrats were also just a big tent party for a long time, with more 'real right wing' members than 'real left wing' members, maybe that's the reason for the platitude.
Use of 2nd amendment rights to combat government overreach is an outright declaration of rebellion. Cross that line and you are no longer playing rebel. If you dont have enough people behind you it will not go well.
The second amendment as a serious option for a regime reset button was always a fantasy.
This federal government would happily take a lesson from the Chechen wars and use ballistic missiles against a rebelling city if the chips were down. Any 2A fans have their own Patriot missile defense systems? No?
> The second amendment as a serious option for a regime reset button was always a fantasy. This federal government would happily take a lesson from the Chechen wars and use ballistic missiles against a rebelling city if the chips were down. Any 2A fans have their own Patriot missile defense systems? No?
If it's that easy, why did we spend 20 years in Afghanistan only to suffer defeat by goat herders holding AK-47s?
A quick review of the last 100 years will educate you on the viability of asymmetric warfare.
There are plenty of examples of asymmetric warfare where the stronger party crushed the weaker one. WW2 was full of such examples. People point to Afghanistan and Vietnam as if they apply in every situation, for some bizarre reason (I assume motivated reasoning).
The rebels (against the American regime) were all rural, ballistic missiles weren’t very effective when your enemy is wandering around the desert coming in out of rural Pakistan.
To get rid of the libs…they live in dense cities, trump would just have to lob a missile at Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Austin, etc…it’s a war he can actually win quickly. Heck, why do you think it’s so easy for him to sh*t stir right now with a few strategic ICE surges. It’s easy when 90% of the left in Minnesota lives in one urban area.
The NATO forces defeated the Taliban in a timeframe that could be measured in hours. The remaining years were an exercise in nation building, there was never “defeat.” The military simply isn’t the right tool to lift a nation out of poverty and eventually the voters got bored.
In Vietnam, the US was fighting an army backed by the Soviet Union and China that had anti-aircraft and artillery.
No, the US insurgency would turn into a Grozny unless the insurgents get backing from China or some other serious player.
I don’t think it’d be easy to get a Chinese ABM to Minneapolis without anyone noticing.
What could happen in this scenario would be either local military defecting or guerrilla warfare while the US military targets them from afar. You can easily bomb anyone back to Stone Age in hours, but taking control of the ground can be a lot more challenging if the locals don’t cooperate.
Anyway, a full-on civil war is a very unlikely - and undesirable - scenario.
Think of a rebellion as national "unbuilding" and you get some idea of how things might go.
If things get that hot, there will be substantial defectors and various state and federal security services fighting each other.
Lol thats so untrue, are we already at the phase of rewriting this recent history?
US and coalition held Kabul (mostly) and their bases, and that was about it. Rest of the country was lets say contested territory, never really conquered, never yielding to Kabul government or coalition.
Ambushes, attacks, suicide bombers were daily grind. Not really conquered territory, is it.
Whether it was or wasnt defeat - when you see soldiers desperately running away from the country in a very similar fashion that happened in Vietnam, I struggle to not describe it as a full military defeat. The fact that it was orchestrated by politicians doesn't change much.
> Isn't this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk?
It was never really a practical idea, more a sort of latent threat that has proven to be ineffective. Also, yeah, the "don't tread on me" folks mostly aren't very principaled and don't mind authoritarian actions so long as they're dressed up right. Obama wants a public healthcare option? How dare the government institute Death Panels to decide who live or dies! ICE shoot random protestors? That's what they deserve for "impeding" and "assaulting" law enforcement.
The Second Amendment was written so that the US could avoid having a standing federal army and quickly gather up defense forces from States as necessary when attacked. It was thought that having a standing army would lead to bad incentives and militarism. Just like the Executive branch only has enumerated powers, with all main governing functions belonging to Congress. The founders were worried about vesting too much power in one man, so made the President pretty weak. Of course, we've transmogrified ourselves into a nation primed for militarism and authoritarianism by slowly but surely concentrating power into one station. Exactly what the Constitution was written to prevent. I guess they did a bad job.
> The Second Amendment was written so that the US could avoid having a standing federal army and quickly gather up defense forces from States as necessary when attacked.
Too narrow. It secures an individual right, not a federal mobilization clause.
> Isn’t this the exact scenario those arguments were talking about? Have all the second amendment supporters been employed by ice/agree with what they're doing, or was it just empty talk?
Only if you think the second amendment is an on demand partisan defense force. It is not. It is a personal guarantee and a reserve of capacity, not a subscription service where “second amendment supporters” are obligated to show up on cue.
> It was never really a practical idea, more a sort of latent threat that has proven to be ineffective.
“Latent” is largely the point. Deterrence is not measured by constant use, and a right is not refuted by the fact that strangers do not take on extreme personal risk to prove it to you. The first line checks are still speech, courts, elections, oversight. This right exists for when those fail.
> Exactly what the constitution was written to prevent. I guess they did a bad job.
If power has drifted, enforce the constraints. It is the second amendment, placed immediately after speech and assembly, not the third or the tenth. Do not redefine the right into irrelevance and call that proof it failed.
As a footnote, it was also written at a time when a bunch of guys with muskets could face down another bunch of guys with muskets. When one side has tanks and attack helicopters and training and outnumbers you a hundred to one it doesn't really work any more.
That would explain why it was so easy for the US to suppress insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan...
It's actually rather difficult to think of tyrannical regimes which persisted against an armed citizenry in the long term.
Especially when you consider the US citizenry have direct access to logistics and infrastructure. You can't bomb a city or factory into producing more fuel or bombs or any of the million other things that are required to keep the US economy working well enough to fund any military operations. It would be hell on earth to be in the US, but the US military/ICE/cops/courts don't work if the citizenry aren't being productive and playing along nicely.
Is armed with knives enough?
Presumably it isn't, and you'd need a certain minimum level of technological parity with your tyrants.
Presumably that also isn't fixed. So even if rifles might have been sufficient in the early US even though the government had cannons, rifles may not be sufficient when the government has chemical weapons and armored cars.
So where's the industrial base which makes the weapons? Or the money to buy the weapons? For Iraq, Afghanistan, and for that matter in lots of conflicts the US weren't involved in (or were involved in on the anti-government side!) the answer seems straightforward enough: in foreign countries which also don't like your government. Without a bunch of neighbors and rival powers which really didn't want the US in Iraq/Afghanistan, could the insurgents have done much?
Who do you propose should arm the resistance in the US, if government supported "police" paramilitaries run amok? (Let's for the sake of argument not get into whether that has happened yet). It's going to have to be quite an impressive level of support, too, to stand up against systems developed precisely against that sort of eventuality and battle-tested in the US' sphere of influence.
> Is armed with knives enough?
It depends on the numbers. Do they have 100,000 guys with guns but you have a hundred million with knives? Then you have a chance. But your chances improve a lot if your side is starting off with something more effective than that.
> Presumably it isn't, and you'd need a certain minimum level of technological parity with your tyrants.
You don't need parity, you need a foothold to leverage into more.
> So where's the industrial base which makes the weapons? Or the money to buy the weapons?
In a civil war, you take the domestic facilities and equipment by force and then use them. But first you need the capacity to do that. Can 10,000 guys with knives take a military base guarded by a thousand guys with guns? Probably not. Can they if they all have guns? Yeah, probably.
Then the government has to decide if they're going to vaporize the facility when you do that. If they don't, you get nukes. If they do, now you have a mechanism to make them blow up their own infrastructure by feigning attacks. And so on.
> Can they if they all have guns? Yeah, probably.
Heck no, they can't. Even if they could, the government's advantage isn't just in weapons. Long before you'd get your 10000 people with their gun safe stash together, they'd know exactly who you were and what you were planning.
I think your proposal reads like bad power fantasy fiction. You can resist a powerful authoritarian/occupying government with force, but not without a lot of foreign backing - like in Iran right now - and I don't think you are prepared to ask the Russians for help. It would of course open a huge can of worms if you did, and you'd be right to ask if the world where you win with such support will even be better than the world where you lose.
> Heck no, they can't.
Well that settles it then.
> Long before you'd get your 10000 people with their gun safe stash together, they'd know exactly who you were and what you were planning.
It's almost like anonymity and private communications tech belongs next to weapons on the list of things needed to resist authoritarianism.
> not without a lot of foreign backing
Why does it require any foreign backing whatsoever? You're not going to do it if you're three people, but a civil war is when some double digit percentage of the country is on the other side. You don't think that's enough people to supply substantial domestic resources?
Look, I don't want to be mean because if you're in the US right now you're in a situation which sucks. But that situation of 10000 people with guns seizing a military base to bootstrap an effective civil war, is just so absurd I don't even know how to begin.
You're right, private communication is an essential tool of resistance, more important than any weapons. But if you start buying up old Blackberries to give to your kids and all your friends, don't you think that gets you on a watchlist in itself? Not only should your 10000 people have guns to take on a military base, they should have impeccable infosec too?
Pretty much all civil wars in history had foreign backing for one or more sides. It seems no one ever had enough domestic resources to confront the domestic resource control machinery - which makes sense when you think about it. Though the more optimistic way to look at it was that if you had that level of control, you'd win without a civil war.
Knives are basically obsolete technology in military terms. Firearms are not obsolete; that's why almost every soldier (or "paramilitary") carries one. Your technological parity point is technically correct, but it doesn't really apply here.
There are more privately owned guns than people in the US. We are already profusely armed.
I'm not contesting that you're armed. I'm not contesting that guns can still be "useful". But not in resisting a government with anti-"insurgence" drones battle tested against various levels of resistance from Palestine to Ukraine to Afghanistan.
>Afghanistan
We're going in circles. The Afghans won. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791876
The Afghans won - not without foreign support, by the way - against a foreign occupying force, in the end by promising a lot of amnesties to people who had been working with the occupying government, and convincing them to turn en masse. Promises which they from what I understand, mostly kept. They fought for years and died in droves, then they suddenly won "without firing a single shot", figuratively speaking, with diplomacy directed at their own countrymen. I'm sure there are some lessons to be learned there for resisting your own government too there, but I really only mentioned them as a place where anti armed insurgence technology has been extensively battle tested by the government you're considering picking a fight with.
the insurgencies in Afghanistan at least were difficult to suppress because they based of out pakistan, a supposed american ally and notable nuclear power.
to actually do the job of taking out the taliban would require going into pakistan to stop them in their bases.
in iraq, the insurgency was the former iraqi military, not just random citizens with small arms
That however is a political issue, not a military one.
Given free rein the military absolutely can do that.
If the US military wasn't willing to simply flatten cities all over Iraq and Afghanistan, why would you expect them to do that in their own country to their own homes and family members?
Because Iraq or Afghanistan weren't threatening the man in power. Just take a look at what is currently happening in Iran if you wonder what happens when the local authority fears the crowd.
I would say Iran is a much better illustration of what happens when your citizenry is disarmed. The crowd isn't very scary. They don't pose a real threat. There's little risk in crushing them. They can't fight back meaningfully.
If you don’t care about how many you kill, these kinds of insurgencies can be ended. I don’t think the US Armed Forces could be convinced to attack their fellow Americans but if they did it would be worth remembering that the Warsaw Uprising ended poorly for the uprisers.
This is not like Ukraine where there are lots of underground manufacturing facilities.
If you tried building drones to stop US tanks and IFVs then the Californians would tell you that your factory needs to first go through environmental review. By the time the review is done the war will be lost.
> If you tried building drones to stop US tanks and IFVs then the Californians would tell you that your factory needs to first go through environmental review. By the time the review is done the war will be lost.
this would very obviously not be the case if California needed them for war, or had been in on again off again war already for a decade
I don’t think it’s that obvious. The US was delayed in building shells for Ukraine because they couldn’t scale up production at a factory on account of it being historically listed. It’s been 10 years since Ukraine was first attacked in Crimea and we’ve been involved on again off again.
Californians frequently will tell you that we’re in a housing “crisis” and then oppose all housing. I’m sure when another crisis arrives it’ll be different.
What’s the other “crisis” popular as a cause in California? Climate change? Man, this state must be at the forefront of fighting it then. Oh what’s that? Ah, wind and nuclear opposed by local homeowners. I see, I see.
Oh yes, when the next crisis arrives I’m sure it’ll be different. We’re just waiting for a real crisis, guys. Any second now.
Ukraine is taking out tanks and helicopters, as well as infrastructure daily, using 3D printed drones and AliExpress electronics.
Not suggesting anyone tries it, but modern warfare has evolved. Just like the tanks changed warfare in WW1, and tanks/planes changed warfare in WW2, drones are changing warfare once more.
a $10000 drone took out a multi million dollar Russian warship, and while not exactly 3D printed (at least not all of it), drones are cheap enough to manufacture to be expandable, especially if they can target and destroy things that are not that.
For comparison, a single cannon/mortar shell fired on the Ukrainian front costs €3500, and they fire up to 10000 of them per day. Making a few hundred $10000 drones is cheap compared to that, and while they likely don't hold the same "barrage level" destructive power, they are focused weapons and can destroy much more with less.
Have you seen expensive tanks and helicopters being taken out by 500$ drones? No? I have a surprise for you
It also applied to other things existing at that time, like warships, canister shot in cannons or machine guns.
I see a lot from the left about how right-wingers are supposedly hypocritical on gun control. However, concrete examples of hypocrisy are rarely provided. In terms of actual concrete statements, what I'm seeing from gun rights people like Thomas Massie and the NRA is consistent with previous stances:
https://xcancel.com/NRA/status/2015227627464728661#m
https://xcancel.com/RepThomasMassie/status/20155711073281848...
I'd say the left is actually much more hypocritical. Just a few years ago they had essentially no issue with the government taking everyone's guns. Now suddenly they understand the value of an armed citizenry as a final last resort against tyranny, something the right has understood for years, and then they start calling the right "hypocritical"...
The NRA is not a very honest or good gun association, their immediate statement was quite different:
> “For months, radical progressive politicians like Tim Walz have incited violence against law enforcement officers who are simply trying to do their jobs. Unsurprisingly, these calls to dangerously interject oneself into legitimate law-enforcement activities have ended in violence, tragically resulting in injuries and fatalities.
https://x.com/NRA/status/2015224606680826205?ref_src=twsrc%5...
(they then go on to say "let's withhold judgement until there's an investigation" despite them passing quite extreme judgement, with a direct lie, and getting their judgment extremely wrong when there was lots of video showing it wrong when they posted...)
In light of their large change of attitude, the initial critiques were quite correct.
In another Minnesota case, they refused to defend a gun owner that was shot for having a gun, despite doing everything right when stopped by police.
Other gun associations besides the NRA have been more principled and less partisan.
Rep. Massie is barely a Republican, he's pretty much the only one willing to go against Trump on anything. Right now the Republican party is defined by one thing only: slavish obedience to Trump. For Republicans' sake, and the sake of the Republic, I hope that changes soon.
I don't see inconsistency between the two NRA statements. Your interpretation seems imaginative/unsupported.
Gun rights people understand that owning a gun comes with certain responsibilities. The accusation of "hypocrisy" seems to be based on a cartoon understanding of gun rights from people on the left. Find me a gun rights person who previously claimed that resisting arrest while armed is all fun and games.
https://policelawnews.substack.com/p/cbp-involved-alex-prett...
Always being able to come up with some exception [0] doesn't mean that you're not being hypocritical, it just means that you've tricked yourself into being unable to see it. For another incident that resulted in a widespread display of hypocrisy, look at the public reactions to what happened when Kenneth Walker exercised his right to night time home defense - one of the basic scenarios the NRA is always rallying around. But I'm sure you've settled on some coping excuse for that one as well.
The real thing you need to understand is that this fascist movement will always find some grounds to characterize its targets as worthy of othering. If (when) you get tripped up by it, no amount of conforming or having supported it is going to redeem you in the mind of the mob. Rather it's going to be people just like yourself condemning you.
[0] this one seemingly based on an outright shameless lie of "resisting arrest"
I have no opinion on Kenneth Walker. I'm just annoyed by what I see on social media -- people claiming hypocrisy without any supporting evidence. The flip side of your "exception" point is that you have to actually understand what the person said, and what they believe, before you claim hypocrisy... something that lefty activists in the US largely have no interest in doing.
> I'm just annoyed by what I see on social media -- people claiming hypocrisy
Fixed that for you.
(If you had made a concrete point, I would have sought to understand and address it. Instead you basically just did a wordy version of "nuh-uh")
All I want people to do is link to evidence of hypocrisy when they claim it. Argue with an actual person instead of your hallucination of them. Was that too much to ask?
You say hallucination, I say reasonable prediction based on past behavior.
It wasn't too much for you to ask, but apparently my response was too much for you to handle. I brought up Kenneth Walker precisely because that was a situation for which the dust settled long ago and so we don't need to make such predictions. But to this you merely said "I have no opinion"
You then went on to poison the discussion with your own preemptive "I'm not listening" nonsense - "something that lefty activists in the US largely have no interest in doing"
Perhaps it might shock you, but some of us opposed to this regime are actual principled libertarians. I'm a gun owner who actually believes in the natural right to keep and bear arms. My opinion of the NRA is that its main function is fundraising from the gullible, which is why they can't avoid leaning into the culture war bullshit.
>You say hallucination, I say reasonable prediction based on past behavior.
You're also welcome to make a prediction, but label it as a prediction rather than a statement of fact.
Apparently you only address non-substantive points that you can nitpick. So I guess we're done, unless you'd like to go back and do your homework.
To me, this is the substantive point. It's about intellectual honesty. That's the key thing for me.
From my perspective, most of what you're saying is either (a) not substantive/outright disingenuous, or (b) I don't have much to add. If there is a particular point you really want me to respond to, you're welcome to highlight it and I will consider responding (but honestly probably not, for the reasons I gave).
It's not hard to find examples.
"You cannot bring a firearm loaded with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple."
- Kash Patel
“I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign."
- Kristi Noem
“With that being said, you can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns. You just can’t.”
-Donald Trump
And are these really 2nd amendment advocates to begin with? They don't strike me as principled people in general.
That's MAGA, which is the overwhelming majority of the right in the United States.
If you mean to say that officials in Trump's administration are hypocritical, then say that. But many are accusing thousands of rank-and-file gun rights supporters of hypocrisy on a thin to nonexistent evidence base.
Here's how one gun rights group responded to some of the statements you quoted:
https://xcancel.com/gunrights/status/2016268309180907778#m
https://xcancel.com/gunrights/status/2015572391217467562#m
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Massie is the odd man out out of 1000s of Republican politicians in being willing to publicly criticize his own party. He is very not typical. Everybody else marches in lockstep with whatever insanity trump puts out.
PBS: "Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into fatal Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti"
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/republican-calls-are-gro...
> Now suddenly they understand the value of an armed citizenry as a final last resort against tyranny, something the right has understood for years
What? I thought it was pretty clear that I don't consider an armed citizenry to be doing us any good. The government can take the guns, I don't give a shit. It should also stop arming Police and other goons. We can all slug it out in the streets with batons ;)
It's confusing and messy, like most of American history.
Most cosplayers exit when they meet a real villain
> As a European I'm also somewhat confused. I always thought that the reason the second amendment was made into such a big deal was because Americans felt they needed to be able to protect themselves in case the government ran amok.
Americans, yes - not illegal immigrant invaders. As it would turn out, American citizens aren't ready to die for these people just yet.
The man killed was not an illegal or immigrant
Nobody said he was? Are you in the right thread?
I'm wondering pretty much the same thing ...
The news media is not saying a lot of what is happening. So if anything you are missing some of the insanity.
Minneapolis has 0.1% of the total USA population. It is to the USA as Dresden, Lisbon, or Genoa is to the EU in terms of population.
While ICE is mass deporting people nationwide, the murders of citizens and general mayhem they’re perpetrating are primarily just in Minneapolis.
2A supporters are mixed. Some genuinely outraged at the gov, some just making up reasons to support Trump anyway. Following the definition of conservatism, liberals are the group the law binds but does not protect, and they are the group the law protects but does not bind.
In the US, Republicans managed to stack the judicial system with acolytes in a well organized, long term operation over years. They broke rules to steal Supreme Court seats, giving them a majority. They control all branches of government. In that situation, the president has massive power to do what he wants. So he is.
Trump doesn’t really seem to care about any issue really. He’s not much of an ideologue. But his advisors certainly are. Stephen Miller is an open fascist who’s playing Trump like a fiddle and loving every minute of the chaos.
But for most of those of us lucky enough to be citizens, most of the time, we’re just dealing with institutional dysfunction exacerbated by Federal dysfunction. Funding cuts, broken commitments, uncertainty.
We also are all seeing the Federal government pre-emptively brand the citizens it’s new gunning down in the street every two weeks or so “domestic terrorists” and posing with signs saying “one of ours, all of yours,” and so on. So it’s very clear that the government is now building right wing paramilitary forces to try and intimidate us. Clearly that’s not working too well in Minnesota, however!
Liberal Americans overall are: 1. Disgusted with Trump et al 2. Keeping relatively calm and carrying on, because he genuinely did win the popular vote in a free and fair election 3. Figuring out constructive ways to deal with ICE, pressure the Democratic Party to pick better candidates, and thinking about how to protect elections in 2026 and 2028.
On a day to day basis, life feels normal where I live, for me, for now.
What you describe seems to fit the term 'Dual State', and you live your day to day life in the normative state. I hope foe your sake you don't get much contact with the prerogative one.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/05/trump-e...
Interesting, that was a work I wasn't familiar with.
It doesn't feel like you keep calm 'because he won the elections'. It's either that citizens can't do much in the US, fear of getting killed is real especially when disobeying police orders, or, you aren't too affected by Trump's actions to act.
The point is that the overwhelming majority of the country isn’t facing down ICE brutality right now, not the way Minneapolis is. So yes, most are much less immediately and violently affected by Trump. Hence, calm.
The question I was getting at is why those of us disgusted by Trump are protesting less vigorously, despite his government being much worse this time around. It’s a phenomenon widely noted.
For me, that largely comes down to the fact Trump not only won 2024 fair and square, Biden really was manifestly not up to the task of governing. Biden, and careerist Democrats hoping to ride on Biden’s coattails to another term in the White House failed utterly at the critical moment.
A democracy or republic isn’t guaranteed to deliver good governance. The primary goal is to enable peaceful transitions of power.
Trump is threatening that, explicitly. But how to actually address that threat is less clear.
In 2016, we were outraged to see a turd like Trump win. But at that time, the story wasn’t about electoral threats and fascism, it was his disgusting personal character.
The election threat only really manifested on Jan 6. It failed, he exited office, and was facing prosecution. It looked potentially done and dusted, and like the Democrats in federal government were successfully dealing with the problem, as is their role. We were ridin’ with Biden.
Then they slow walked the prosecution that mattered. Biden got on stage to debate Trump and we were absolutely horrified. Then we noticed how vacant he was at other public appearances. It was “my god, he’s not just sleepy, he is incapacitated, and they’ve been lying about it to us for who knows how long?”
Then there was the last ditch effort to field Kamala instead, another weak candidate who wasn’t even liked in the Biden admin. That was pathetic.
So we got Trump. And it wasn’t “we could have had ultra-qualified Hillary, but we got this POS from out of nowhere” like in 2016. It was “holy shit, I am extremely disappointed in my own party.” Nothing added up. We lost trust in our own party and leadership, and it hasn’t come back. Nobody’s excited for any Democrat. We all just know Trump’s gotta go and we’ll line up for Any Democrat (TM). But that doesn’t mean we are proud to do so. It’s a bitter, demoralizing pill to swallow.
Of course fundamentally, we are dealing with all the normal politics problems. Bad voting system, fake news, social media brainwashing, economic illiteracy, checked out voters. American presidential history (and its history as a whole) is full of depressing candidates and terrible shit, political violence, and disenfranchisement we’ve only even approximated eliminating for the last 61 years, since the Voting Rights Act.
So I am hopeful that in the grand sweep of things, we will pull through and keep finding ways to make progress. I think the main thing right now is to keep your energy, hope and belief in the future. They’d like to take that away, and I just won’t let them.
It's bad, we are living under Hitler 2.0 in every single sense of the word. He admires Hitler and says he keeps Hitler's books by his nightstand.
That said, do not rely on a single or even a few Americans for insight into what is going on, as you might get a wildly different perspective from each one, as a consequence of the billions of dollars put into generational propaganda and subliminal mind control out here. We are a nation divided.
> Is stuff really as bad as it looks or are media somehow exaggerating things? I mean I saw the pretti videos and it certainly seems to corroborate what media is saying. But I'm curious to hear Americans view on matters?
The US media is downplaying things because they are terrified of Trump, who now has either direct or indirect control of most of it.
If you're talking about EU media, I can't assess, but I did see a clip of an Italian news crew getting harassed in Minneapolis that's fairly accurate.
It's bad. Really bad. I never thought this would happen in the US. But it's also inept. Really inept. Minnesota is super-majority white, but has taken great pride in being a home for refugee communities, and has gained many from around the world. Minnesotans are, of all the places I've lived in the world, the most open-hearted, caring, and upright moral I've encountered as a group. Hard winters make people trust community. The Georgy Floyd murders, and the riots afterwards, have made communities very strong as they had to watch out for each other, there were no police that were going to come.
For this area with hundreds of thousands people, there are only 600 cops, but 3000 ICE/CBP agents swarming it, a HUGE chunk of their forces. Yet people self-organized to watch out for their schools and their neighbors. Churches serve as central places for people to volunteer to deliver meals to families that can not leave the house due to the racialize abduction of people. Several police chiefs have held news conferences where they say in so many words "You know I'm not a liburul but my officers with brown skin are all getting harassed by ICE when they're off duty, until the show that they are cops, and that's pretty bad." A Republican candidate for Governor withdrew his candidacy because he felt he couldn't be part of a political party that was doing such racialized violence against his own people, and his job was literally to be a defense lawyer to cops accused of wrongdoing!
The deaths are so tragic, but because Minnesotans have been so well organized, so stoic, so non-violent, it fully exposes ICE/CBD for the political terror campaign that they are. That the entire endeavor has nothing to do with enforcing the law, it's all about punishing Minnesota for being Minnesota, for its politics, for its people. If the legal deployment of cameras and whistles and insults and yells is enough to defeat masked goons who wave guns in people faces, assault non-violent people with pepper sprays directly to the eyes, and tear-gas canisters thrown at daycares, then these stupid SA-wannabes are not going to win.
I live in a coastal California bubble that's even whiter than Minnesota, but here we are all rooting for Minnesota. I was talking to another parent today at the elementary school, an immigrant from Spain, a doctor, whose husband is from Minnesota. They are rethinking their choice of staying in the US.
The second amendment thing was always a charade. There are a few people that think it's for protection from the government, but what they really mean is it's for shooting liberals. There's no grander principle. There are a bunch of people that enjoy guns as a hobby, and support the 2nd amendment for that. But we all know that the time for armed defense against the government is only when you're in a bunker in woods or when you're storming the capital to overturn an election because you've been tricked into saying it's a fraudulent election.
They are buffoons, as the Nazis were, but they are very unpopular buffoons and I think the past week shows that after a few more years of grand struggle, normal americans will win. It will be hard. We need to have truth and reconciliation afterwards, and the lack of that after the Civil War and after January 6 are huge causes in today's struggles.
I'm just glad Minnesota is defeating ICE/CBP, as many states would give in to violence faster, and many states would give up faster.
Tremendous post. Is there anything people in other parts of the country can do to help in Minnesota?
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Outside of a couple of outlier cities, is business as usual. Deportations have been occurring for much longer than Trump has been president. It's just in the news now because Democrats want to make a spectacle out of it.
Most people want illegals removed.
To put things in perspective, US is a massive country. All this news is coming from one tier 3 city. (Roughly speaking LA, NYC etc being tier 1. Seattle, Dallas etc being tier 2)
While being the focus, Minnesota is not the only place it's happening. For example, ICE took at least 15 people in the Los Angeles area today[1].
That article is from a local food publication that has largely shifted to covering all ICE behavior in the greater LA area. It's a good place to get a better picture of the kind of stuff that has just become background noise to the degree that it doesn't make the news elsewhere. People could also throw a few bucks their way if they think documenting this is important.
And I'll point to a single example from 13 hours ago[2] for the "the deporting of illegal immigrants is not oppression" type of people like that other commenter. Just a video of a nameless person, taken who knows where, for who knows what, screaming and crying out. This just doesn't make the news, but it's happening countless times every day all over the country in the name of the American people.
[1] - https://lataco.com/daily-memo-january-27th-border-patrol-att...
[2] - https://www.instagram.com/p/DUBjokvEnWh/
Twin cities are 16th largest metro, between Tampa/St. Petersburg and Seattle/Tacoma.
Yeah it’s a slightly blurry line. What metric are you using? I’d say Seattle is way ahead of Minneapolis in terms of economic influence.
> What is it like in the US these days?
For the average American citizen, status quo.
For the scofflaws and illegal immigrants, the realization that accountability for their actions might be right around the corner must be unnerving.
People aren't shooting yet because they know it will turn into a blood bath and should only be used as a last resort. Also as bad as it is in some areas, vast swaths of the US are still only really seeing this in the news. I think the outcome of whats going on in Minnesota will be a sign of whats to come so we won't be waiting long. If citizens start shooting at government employees though, it will be chaos, the US population has had a VERY negative attitude about the government for a long time now.
It’s ironic to me that a European such as yourself would sit comfortably in a context where people are being regularly arrested and jailed for statements made online, in the UK and Germany, particularly, and look elsewhere to find oppression.
The deporting of illegal immigrants is not oppression - it’s fundamental to a free society that a people have the right to determine who may enter into and participate in their society.
This is simply not true.
Some people are investigated because they spread lies, insults and threats. Things that would be investigated (and punished) as well, if done "off line".
The freedom of speech does not mean "freedom to harass, threat or insult people".
The oppression of free speech seems to be happening much more in the USA, where you are not allowed to criticize the politics of the ruling party any more.
You should look up the number of lawsuits German politicians dish out for being criticized online. Funded by the tax payer of course.
So you claim that all 12,000 arrests in the UK and all 3,500 arrests in Germany for online speech are justifiable? https://x.com/croucher_miles/status/2010716875190161614?s=46
Except it does mean exactly that if you have money
This misses the point of how "deportation", snatching of those from communities and decision-making for whom is illegal is actually occurring, and how people are being snatched with disregard to their actual state as a citizen, resident or otherwise of the United States of America.
When facial recognition is said to outrank any other proof, such as a birth certificate, one cannot claim to be operating in good faith when one allows for fallible systems to decide the lives of American citizenry, encourages false imprisonment and allows for violence to be recklessly committed against people who were guilty of no crime at all.
(also, the United States and Canada are alike in their statuses as countries formed of immigrants; we close the door now simply because we feel those coming today are ineducated or don't fit our racial preferences? No different than was done to Chinese people say a hundred years prior.)
Is any law enforcement guaranteed to be exactly correct? No, because every person is fallible, and every system is made up of fallible people. This is why we separate arrest (police) from trial (judge) and judgment (jury), to mitigate those risks.
To malign a system because it is imperfect is to be unrealistic. Surely, we should minimize those harms, but they are not a reason to abdicate our laws.
There's a difference between honest mistakes and gleeful assholery.
These things are not being separated though. Your agents are executing citizens in the street. This is not about illegal immigration at all. It's just straight up oppression.
Deportation of illegal immigrants happened in the previous administrations and nothing like the current chaos unfolded.
I grant that some people protesting against the raids are likely doing that because they don't want illegals to be deported,
but I suspect most of the pushback is against the way this whole thing has been set up and the way agents handled the encounters with protesters so far, leading towards a spiral of distrust and a polarization of the issue.
There seems to be an indication that many of the ICE agents have been insufficiently trained to perform police work in a proper and safe way. and instead behave very aggressively. The abuse of racial profiling is making non-white citizens (including native Americans!) feel unsafe too. To make things worse, there is a loud group of people who are cheering the though guys from the sidelines/armchairs.
People who share those concerns are not necessarily pro-illegal immigration. I know things can be done differently because they have been done differently.
But in this case, one political movement is leveraging the deportation rhetoric to rile up their base, providing another political movement the ammonito to call them tyrannical and riling up their base, which in turn causes the first movement to justify their aggressiveness as counterinsurgence.
This doesn't lead to a good place and it has nothing to do with the fact that the country deserves a sane immigration policy.
The current immigration situation is utterly broken, but it has become such over time (and has many complicated facets) but the idea that this can be fixed in a haste by applying lunt force is the product of a new low point in politics.
If you want a case study in Silicon Valley fascist tendencies, this douche Empact is perfect.
He's spent his life in a society where immigrants, without papers and with, have served his every need. And then you can check out his crappy linktree about his (sic) "wholistic" approach to investing.
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FYI, as a center left from a European perspective that is a beautiful picture of just how right-leaning American politics is. The Democrats is such a big tent it contains pretty much the complete political spectrum in Europe, but for the actuall politics they have been doing, at least regarding economics (excluding identity politics) they are pretty solid right / center right from a European perspective.
From another European perspective I think it says more how absurdly left leaning European politics have become. The US is much more in line with historical norms as well as with non-western societies today.
I would probably argue the opposite, given that Y Combinator is a venture capital firm. This would be more true for Lobsters than here.
(Edit: to go further, it's like... ok, if HN is far-left, what does that make Bluesky? What does that make the Fediverse? It feels almost reductive to compress the range of HN onwards down to "far-left".)
Discussion on this site has little to do with Y Combinator. You see people railing against big tech billionaires every day here.
Bluesky is pretty close to being fellow travelers for the userbase here. If you do a comment search for "bluesky" you can see most comments are neutral or positive. HN might be a bit more genteel in how they discuss things, but there are many users here whose politics are pretty similar to what you find on bluesky.
With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced, it won't take more than a few minutes for FBI to start taking actions, IF they had anything tangible.
This is just an intimidation tactic to stop people talking (chatting)
I'm never sure why people assume that Palantir is magically unlike the overwhelming majority of tech startups/companies I've worked at: vastly over promising what is possible to create hype and value while offering things engineering knows will never really quite work like they're advertised.
To your point, but on a larger scale, over hyping Palantir has the added benefit of providing a chilling effect on public resistance.
As a former government employee I had the same reaction to the Snowden leaks: sure the government might be collecting all of this (which I don't support), but I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
Incompetence might be the greatest safety we have against a true dystopia.
Because Snowden, agree with him or not, showed us that reality blew away our imagination.
It may feel normal now, but back then, serious people, professionals, told us that the claims just were not possible.
Until we learned that they were.
Until that moment, the general sentiment about the government and the internet is that they are too incompetent to do anything about it, companies like Microsoft/Apple/Google/Snapchat are actually secure so lax data/opsec is okay, etc.
Meanwhile, the whole time, communications and tech companies were working hand in hand with the government siphoning up any and all data they could to successfully implement their LifeLog[1] pipe dream.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog
> Until that moment, the general sentiment about the government and the internet is that they are too incompetent to do anything about it
In 2008 I worked with a retired NSA guy who had retired from the agency 5 years prior. He refused to have a cellphone. He refused to have a home ISP. Did not have cable tv, Just OTA. He would only use the internet as needed for the work we were doing and would not use it for anything else (news, etc). He eventually moved to the mountains to live off grid. He left the agency ten years before Snowden disclosed anything.
An example like that in my life and here I sit making comments on the internet.
I question the wisdom of that path though. Like yes the government can probably read a lot of your stuff easily, and all of it if they really want to. But why does that mean you have to live like a medieval hermit in a hut in the mountains?
I have opinions but at the end of the day I'd rather live within the system with everything it has to offer me, even knowing how fake a lot of it is. Living in remote huts is just not that interesting
Maybe he wanted that regardless (remote hut life), and this was just a final push for change. I can see myself, under different circumstances (no family) to enjoy such life and hardships (and simplicity) it brings, at least for some time.
If NSA employs primarily some high functioning people on spectrum or similar types, which often don't work well in societies with tons of strangers, then moving off is also not the worst idea if one has enough skills and good equipment to not make it into constant hellish survival.
Sounds like a guy who doesn’t enjoy the internet or cellphones. Shit, my grandparents never owned a computer, paid for internet, had cable tv, etc.
Are they suspicious of the government? No, just poor and uninterested.
That was not the sentiment, at least not in my experience. There was a far more pervasive and effective argument - if somebody believed that the government is spying on you in everything and everywhere then they're simply crazy, a weirdo, a conspiracy theorist. Think about something like the X-Files and the portrayal of the Lone Gunmen [1] hacking group. Three borderline nutso, socially incompetent, and weird unemployed guys living together and driving around in a scooby-doo van. That was more in line with the typical sentiment.
People don't want to be seen as crazy or on the fringes so it creates a far greater chilling effect than claims that e.g. the government is too incompetent to do something which could lead to casual debate and discussion. Same thing with the event that is the namesake of that group. The argument quickly shifted from viability to simply trying to negatively frame anybody who might even discuss such things.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen
dont worry lifelog was cancelled in 2004 according to that wiki. Phew!
The very same day Mark Zuckerberg's "The Facebook" launched. A total coincidence, with zero evidence that the two are related in any way whatsoever ;)
> Snowden, agree with him or not, showed us that reality blew away our imagination.
pretty much everything Snowden released had been documented (with NSA / CIA approval) in the early 80s in James Bamford's book The Puzzle Palace.
the irony of snowden is that the audience ten years ago mostly had not read the book, so echo chambers of shock form about what was re-confirming decades old capabilities, being misused at the time however.
Considering the US military has historically had capabilities a decade ahead of what people publicly knew about, anyone who said it just wasn't possible probably wasn't a serious professional.
Which claims? HN around that time was taking anything and everything and declaring it conclusively proved everything else.
I honestly have no god damn clue what was actually revealed by the Snowden documents - people just say "they revealed things".
Why are you asking here, versus going to Google and reading the original article from The Guardian? Or the numerous Wikipedia links that are on this page?
that takes effort :)
Because saying "experts said things were impossible and then Snowden" could mean literally anything. Which experts, what things?
Like I said: I've read a ton of stuff, and apparently what people are sure they read is very different to what I read.
You can read about PRISM, Upstream, FAIRVIEW, STORMBREW, NSA Section 215 (PATRIOT Act) in a lot of places. But essentially they collected all call records and tapped the Internet backbone and stored as much traffic as they could. It’s not all automatic but it’s overly streamlined given the promises of court orders. Which were rubber stamped.
Again: which experts were saying what was impossible, which was then revealed to be possible by the Snowden documents?
Is the claim that there was adequate court oversight of operations under those codenames which then turned out not to be the case? Are they referring to specific excesses of the agencies? Breaking certain cryptographic primitives presumed to be secure?
Why is absolutely no one who knows all about Snowden ever able to refer to the files with anything more then a bunch of titles, and when they deign to provide a link also refuses to explain what part of it they are reacting to or what they think it means - you know, normal human communication stuff?
(I mean I know why, it's because at the time HN wound itself up on "the NSA has definitely cracked TLS" and the source was an out of context slide about the ability to monitor decrypted traffic after TLS termination - maybe, because actually it was one extremely information sparse internal briefing slide. But boy were people super confident they knew exactly what it meant, in a way which extends to discussion and reference to every other part of the files in my experience).
I mostly focused on the cryptographic parts of the files. Here's what I wrote after the first details of cryptographic attacks were released: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/09/06/on-nsa/
What I learned in that revelation was that the NSA was deliberately tampering with the design of products and standards to make them more vulnerable to NOBUS decryption. This surprised everyone I knew at the time, because we (perhaps naively) thought this was out of bounds. Google "SIGINT Enabling" and "Bullrun".
But there were many other revelations demonstrating large scale surveillance. One we saw involved monitoring the Google infra by tapping inter-DC fiber connections after SSL was added. Google MUSCULAR, or "SSL added and removed here". We also saw projects to tap unencrypted messaging services and read every message sent. This was "surprising" because it was indiscriminate and large-scale. No doubt these projects (over a decade old) have accelerated in the meantime.
You know how it's considered a kind of low-effort disrespect to answer someone's question by pasting back a response from an LLM? I think equivalently if you ask a question where the best response is what you'd get from an LLM, then you're the one showing a disrespectful lack of effort. It's kind of the 2026 version of LMGTFY.
If you still want a copy-paste response to your question, just let me know – I'm happy to help!
Incompetence could also be incredibly dangerous given enough destructive willpower.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/nsa-palantir-israel-...
They're not trying to use the data to act efficiently (or in the public good for that matter), and they sure as fuck don't want you to see it. They're trying to make sure that they have dirt on anyone who becomes their enemy in the future.
I've often said we're recreating Brazil [1] instead of 1984. It's an excellent film if you haven't seen it btw, and in many ways rather more prophetic and insightful than 1984. But the ending emphasizes that incompetence just leads to a comedy of absurdity, but absurdity is no less dangerous.
As for PRISM, it's regularly used - but we engage in parallel construction since it's probably illegal and if anybody could prove legal standing to challenge it, it would be able to be legally dismantled. Basically information is collected using PRISM, and then we find some legal reason of obtaining a warrant or otherwise 'coincidentally' bumping into the targets, preventing its usage from being challenged, or even acknowledged, in court. There's a good writeup here. [2]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCxVkllxZw
[2] - https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega...
> I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
Someone else on HN said it would be nice if the NSA published statistics or something, data so aggregate you couldn't determine much from it, but still tells you "holy shit they prevented something crazy" levels of information, harder said than done without revealing too much.
The NSA tried to do this during the Snowden leaks!
There were stories like "look at how we stopped this thing using all this data we've been scooping up"... but often the details lead to somewhat underwhelming realities, to say the least.
It might be that this stuff is very useful, but only in very illegal ways.
Secrecy enables several things, including:
- abuse
- incompetence
- getting away with breaking rules and laws
Sometimes, those are desirable or necessary for national security/pragmatic reasons.
For instance, good luck running an effective covert operation without being abusive to someone or breaking rules and laws somewhere!
Usually (80/20 rule) it’s just used to be shitty and make a mess, or be incompetent while pretending to be hot shit.
In a real war, these things usually get sorted out quickly because the results matter (existentially).
Less so when no one can figure out who the actual enemy is, or what we’re even fighting (if anything).
In addition to terrorist stuff, they are probably passing of bunch of stuff to the military or defense industry to do things like fine tune their radar to cutting edge military secrets.
Would be nice if we had some form of statistics in a way that wouldnt endanger any of the intel that just tells the general public "we dont just sit here collecting PB of data daily"
Any statistics that didn't endanger the intel would also be unverifiable and easily falsified, and therefore not particularly trustworthy for the proposed purpose.
You've never seen it because when it's efficient you won't see it.
If they throw out things like due process and reasonable doubt they can do a whole lot with the data they've collected.
That may sound hyperbolic but I hope it's obvious to most people by now that it's not.
They can do parallel construction or use "undercover" informants etc.
Fuzzy Dunlop (it's from The Wire). Their CI was a tennis ball (with an unauthorized camera inside).
> ... I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
It isn't usually a question of efficiency, it is a question of damage. Technically there is an argument that something like the holocaust was inefficiently executed, but still a good reason to actively prevent governments having ready-to-use data on hand about people's ethnic origin.
A lot of the same observations probably apply to the ICE situation too. One of the big problems with the mass-migration programs has always been that there is no reasonable way to undo that sort of thing because it is far too risky for the government to be primed to identify and deport large groups of people. For all the fire and thunder the Trump administration probably isn't going to accomplish very much, but at great cost.
>I've never seen the government efficiently action on any data they have collected.
As a former intelligence officer with combat time I promise you there are A LOT of actions happening based on that data.
doing Bad Things poorly is still doing Bad Things.
I see palntir as a techno whitewashing Mckinsey consultant. But the tech is there to make a much bigger problem than prior art, halucinations et al.
They are still dangerous even if theyre over promising because even placebos are dangerous when the displace real medical interventions.
Because palantirs selling proposition is: you can’t find the answers in your own data, but we can.
It sure would be convenient if they were always ineffective. Sadly there have been periods in history where governments have set themselves to brutality with incredible effectiveness.
No, incompetence is terrifying. No one wants to get caught in a machine driven by imbeciles who don't care about truth or honoring the Constitution.
Competence is also terrifying, but for different reasons.
Except you don't need to solve any remotely hard technical problems for the capabilities to be terrifying here.
I honestly tempt fate for fun to see how good police surveillance tech is the last few years.
I let one of my cars expire the registration a few months Everytime, because I'm lazy and because I want to see if I get flagged by a popup system Everytime a police officer passes near me. My commute car is out of registration 3 months right now. And old cop friend told me they basically never tow unless it's 6 months. I pay the $50 late fee once a year and keep doing my experiment for the last 6-7 years. Still no real signs they care.
My fun car has out of state plates for 10 years now. Ive been pulled over once for speeding, and told the officer I just bought it. I've never registered it since I bought it from a friend a decade ago. They let me go. It makes me wonder if one day they'll say "sir, we have plate scanners of this vehicle driving around this state for a year straight.. pay a fine." Not yet.
Cops use those systems to make easy arrests for things like active warrants, stolen vehicles and they feed into systems that keep track of where licensed vehicles are and when.
In a way that's worse, because the systems aren't looking up your car or to target your vehicle for fines, but to look up and target you for arrest.
Same systems can be used to identify, track and arrest undesirables.
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The algorithm was sorting punch cards and then putting the cards in different stacks on a table.
We can only hope that the surveillance state is still working with the same algorithm…
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The nazi transformation didn't happen over the course of half an hour. Or one election cycle, even. The history is rhyming pretty hard right now.
Hitlers security group that transformed a small section of the SS into brutal killing machines happened rather fast and that is what people are talking about when they are digging up the Totenkopf wearing brown shirts. These never existed in the United States of America and never will. Not even the modern day skin-head neo-nazi's or the neo-nazi militias could be compared. They would have been extinguished by the SS nearly instantly for daring to wear the insignia.
The brownshirts were actually the SA, a police force Hitler originally used for years to brutalize people before the formation of the SS. The SA are very similar to modern day ICE being made up of militant supporters (like proud boys, J6’ers pardoned) who are willing to commit violence without provocation or any fear of being prosecuted for their violence.
The SA was eventually hung out to dry, because Hitler feared Ernst Röhm had too much power (among other reasons)— by executing SA leadership during the Night of the Long Knives (die Nacht der langen Messer)…
To say the violence of the SS was quick to be extreme really forgets the ten plus year road they took to get there. I’d really suggest, as disheartening and sad as it is, to read about all this yourself. The parallels between Nazi Germany and the US right now are astonishing. It’s almost as if someone in the White House is using history as a playbook.
Which sort of goes full circle since Hitler took a lot from how brutal and racist the US towards slaves and non-whites.
Yeah if deportation is now Nazism, then the Allies after WW2 were Nazis too for the millions of mass displaced persons to match new borders.
lol. came here to say pretty much the same thing.
I've generally held this position, but assume a sufficient combination of models could do a lot more than was possible before.
It's noteworthy at this point in time that there is a contradiction. The government is currently ramping up Palantir and they are using "precise targeting" of illegal aliens using "advanced data/algorithms". And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever.
Maybe now is exactly the right time to publicly call out the apparent uselessness of Palantir before they fully deploy their high altitude loitering blimps and drones for pervasive surveillance and tracking protestors to their homes.
(My greater theory is that the slide into authoritarianism is not linear, but rather has a hump in the middle where government speech and actions are necessarily opposite, and that they expect the contradiction to slide. Calling out the contradiction is one of the most important things to do for people to see what is going on.)
I think this is mostly because they don't care about false-negatives. They have forgotten the idea that our justice system was supposed to hold true to: "better a hundred guilty go free than one innocent person suffer" (attributed to Benjamin Franklin).
This can be seen in the case of ChongLy Thao, the American citizen (who was born in Laos). This was the man dragged out into freezing temperatures in his underwear after ICE knocked down his door (without a warrant), because they thought two other men (of Thai origin I think) were living there. The ICE agents attitude was that they must be living there, and ChongLy was hiding them. That being wrong does not cost those ICE agents anything, and that is the source of the problems.
Do you mean false positives? A false negative would be "we checked to see whether Alice was in the country illegally, and the computer said no but the actual answer turned out to be yes".
But they were wrong about the Thai people living there. That's the poster's point. Not that they don't care, but that they were wrong from the get-go because they don't actually have good information.
No, it's pretty clear they don't care and will never care.
They are two points and they are both true.
> And yet, at the very same time we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever.
If the end goal is that the broad, general public are intimidated, then they're not necessarily "finding the wrong people." With the current "semi random" enforcement with many false positives, nobody feels safe, regardless of their legal status. This looks to be the goal: Intimidate everyone.
If they had a 100% true positive rate and a 0% false positive rate, the general population would not feel terrorized.
That's exactly what I'm saying though. I agree that their intent is manufacturing fear and uncertainty.
What I'm saying is that congress and the public should be holding them to their word and asking where all this Palantir money is going if the stated intent of "targeted operations/individuals" is completely misaligned with operational reality.
ICE/DHS are not NSA, they probably don't share efficiently. All the intelligence services are rivals and duplicate capabilities to some degree.
Maybe the wrong people are, in reality, precisely the people they intended to target.
> we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people, seemingly going to any house indescriminently, and generally profiling people instead of using any intelligence whatsoever.
Generally speaking, that is a tactic of oppression, creating a general sense of fear for everyone. Anyone can be arrested or shot.
> we are seeing time and time again that ICE/DHS agents are finding the wrong people
There is a difference between what you are seeing and what is actually happening.
99.9% of the time they are finding the right people, but "illegal alien was deported" is as interesting a news story as "water is wet".
They are going door to door in the neighborhood I grew up in.
They're bringing in a lot of US citizens here in Minneapolis/St Paul, including a bunch of Native folks.
The sex offender they'd been looking for at ChongLy Thao's house had already been in jail for a year.
The Dept of Corrections is annoyed enough about the slander of their work that they now have a whole page with stats and details about their transfers to ICE, including some video of them transferring criminals into ICE custody https://mn.gov/doc/about/news/combatting-dhs-misinformation/
I am pretty nervous about the possibilities for trampling peoples' Constitutional rights in ever more sophisticated ways, but the current iteration can't even merge a database and then get accurate names & addresses out to field agents. (That doesn't stop the kidnappings, it just makes it a big waste of money as adult US citizens with no criminal record do by & large get released.)
The evidence goes strongly against your claims.
[Citation needed.]
How does Palantir defeat Signal's crypto? I suppose it could be done by pwning everybody's phones, but Palantir mostly does surveillance AFAIK, I haven't heard of them getting into the phone hacking business. I think Israeli corps have that market covered.
My guess is that Signal has been compromised by the state for a very long time. The dead canary is their steadfast refusal to update their privacy policy which opens with "Signal is designed to never collect or store any sensitive information." even though they started keeping user's name, phone number, photo, and a list of their contacts permanently in the cloud years ago. Even more recently they started keeping message content itself in the cloud in some cases and have still refused to update their policy.
All the data signal keeps in the cloud is protected by a pin and SGX. Pins are easy to brute force or collect, SGX could be backdoored, but in any case it's leaky and there have already been published attacks on it (and on signal). see https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.... and https://community.signalusers.org/t/sgx-cacheout-sgaxe-attac...
It doesn't, they're infiltrating the groups and/or gaining access to peoples' phones in other ways.
Which is not much different than how the January 6th people were caught.
As ever xkcd holds true - https://xkcd.com/538/
I can easily think of reasons why an intelligence agency might not want to act immediately against members of a group they're interested in, simply because they've managed to identify those members.
I'm sure that people who actually work in intelligence agencies could think of more reasons.
I'm far too lazy to go to a big protest or do anything terribly interesting, but at this point I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid publicly criticizing this administration. Palantir is weird and creepy and has infinite resources to aggregate anything that the government wants, and they could be building a registry of people who they're going to deem as "terrorist-leaning" or some such nonsense.
It's not hard to find long posts of me calling the people in the Trump administration "profoundly stupid", with both my "tombert" alias and my real name [1]. I'm not that worried because if Palantir has any value they would also be able to tell that I'm deeply unambitious with these things, but it's still something that concerns me a bit.
[1] Not that hard to find but I do ask you do not post it here publicly.
> I'm far too lazy to go to a big protest
Then you are part of the problem. Get off your ass and do something, before it's too late. FFS!
How exactly am I part of the problem? I vote in every election I'm allowed to vote in, I didn't vote for Trump, I donate to political organizations that support causes I believe in. Because I don't go outside and hold a sign that no one is going to read I'm enabling this? Get off your high horse.
My wife is a Mexican immigrant. She's a citizen now, but that doesn't appear to be something that matters to this organization. There is no way in hell I am going to put her in jeopardy just to go protest.
I admire your optimism. They already started killing civilians openly on the street in bright daylight.
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While we’re getting rid of the first amendment maybe we should also get rid of the fourth and fifth amendment too since they make law enforcement harder? I’m sure cops in North Korea have a much easier and safer job.
So are you saying that the first amendment should protect government insiders leaking personal employee info to the public for the purposes of endangering those government employees, and to cause harm to their families? based on subjective opinions on whether the people think the actions of said employees are just or unjust?
That's wild if so. That's quite the precedent to set.
Note: I don't support ice or their actions. nor do i support vigilante justice.
Government employee names are public information. What it sounds like is you want to keep that information secret, and maintain a literal secret police.
It is not surprising that people don't agree with you.
Not sure what you are talking about. License plate information that is plainly visible is not “personal employee info”.
> for the purposes of endangering those government employees, and to cause harm to their families?
Isn't this also subjective and depends on the information leaked.
Can't argue with their 110% conviction rate, North Korean tactics work.
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And protesting is not vigilante justice.
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The protesters aren't the ones doing that. Have you not seen the news?
There are protesters that are obstructing law enforcement. It is undeniable that such protestor exist and this HN thread is about going after those people.
The thread is about going after people on Signal who are tracking officer locations. There are entirely legitimate reasons to want that information including exercising your first amendment rights at that location.
And there are illegitimate reasons too like going there to obstruct law enforcement operations. Since there are people obstructing law enforcement, the mechanisms that which such groups of people operate need to be investigated.
That’s not the standard. It doesn’t matter whether there could be illegitimate reasons. There could also be illegitimate reasons for using Google Maps. It’s still allowed.
What matters is the intent of the people publishing the information, which the government will need to prove was illegal.
As part of an investigation Google Maps could be subpoenaed. It's allowed but there may be a need to investigate.
Oh no, not civil disobedience. The horror.
Yes, it is horrible for people to break the law. Glorifying it for protesting purposes is destructive to a civilized society and downgrades us to a third world country.
The protests are because the trump regime is breaking the law.
I see the problem here. So, actually, the ones in masks who are randomly assaulting (sometimes murdering) nonviolent bystanders are ICE, not the protestors. Hope that helps.
I am talking about protestors who obstruct law enforcement and their operations. Protestors who threaten regular people and law enforcement. Protestors who damage other people's property. Protestors who violate noiseordnance. Protestors who are trespassing.
I am not referring to actual bystanders. Implying that I am is purposefully being ignorant of what I am talking about.
4th amendment???! Osama killed that decades ago… they may as well take it off the books… Once we were OK having our junks touched to go from here to there the 4A effectively ceased to exist.
You only have rights you exercise. Don't let the cops trample on your rights. Though... this does seem to work better for white, rich, older dudes than for other people.
I’m reminded of (I think) people in Shanghai complaining that their posts about covid lockdowns were censored, saying “we have free speech”. And if you believe in universal rights, they’re right. They do.
The question is whether the government will respect and protect those rights or not.
I love that THIS is the post that gets me down-voted.
Thanks.
If ICE agents were actually in danger or subject to "vigilante justice", the administration would be CROWING about it SO LOUDLY we'd never hear the end of it. They're spending their entire working days searching for evidence of it. They can't hardly wait!
That's not what is happening here.
s/searching for/manufacturing
Remember, they're accusing the people they killed of heinous motives for their narrative. They can't find it, so they make it up. Keep filming, y'all.
Seems like citizens are the ones who need protection from law and immigration enforcement, considering the public executions we've all witnessed in the past week or so.
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Woof
“Citizens of law enforcement”
What a phrase
you're aware that LEO are citizens right? with rights as well?
If they completed their I-9
The comment was trying to replicate the same feelings as “people of color” but in regards to a lifestyle choice instead of an immutable characteristic, hence my flabbergasted statement at the audacity
the fine nation of law enforcement, which has only colonised the united states for its own good and to bring civilisation to the heathen masses
... that is correct.
The whole premise of the second amendment is about citizens being armed in order to resist/overthrow a government
Of course, if you're taking up arms to resist/overthrow a government, then you should be entirely anticipating that the government will shoot back. Or shoot first.
If protest is approaching/crossing the line into insurgency, people need to seriously consider that they may be putting their life on the line. It's not a game.
I'm pretty sure that if people are taking up arms to resist their government, things have already gone far enough down that path that they feel their lives are in jeopardy.
Just this week there were [~~Catholic~~] PRIESTS who were advised to draw up their last will and testament if they were going to resist [~~ICE in Minneapolis~~] the government https://www.npr.org/2026/01/18/nx-s1-5678579/ice-clashes-new...
How can you think it's a "game'?
Edit - removed incorrect quantifiers
> Just this week there were Catholic PRIESTS who were advised to draw up their last will and testament if they were going to resist ICE in Minneapolis
Episcopal (the US branch of the Anglican Communion), not Catholic, and it wasn't conditioned on going to Minneapolis, it was a statement about the broad situation of the country and the times we are in and what was necessary for them, with events in Minneapolis as a signifier, but not a geographically isolated, contained condition.
Thanks for the feedback, you're right and I've (tried) to mark the incorrect stuff with what markdown would show as strikethroughs)
> How can you think it's a "game'?
Everything seems fueled by social media radicalisation, and the social media side of things is very much 'gameified', all about scoring likes/upvotes/followers (and earning real revenue) for pushing escalating outrage.
Which is VERY different to the discussion at hand.
Is it?
Good’s wife after yelling DRIVE BABY, DRIVE DRIVE and the fallout screamed at agents “Why are you using real bullets!”
These people seem to have thought it was a game.
She was unarmed when she was killed.
A vehicle can be just as deadly as a firearm. And vehicles had previously been used aggressively by the protestors.
There were claims (no idea if true) that the agent who fired the fatal shots had been dragged down the road and injured in a previous vehicle-based altercation.
If him being previously injured affected his mental state such that he needed to kill someone who was not presenting an immediate threat to life, he should not have been on duty.
Every police agency and training in the world will clearly explain that a vehicle is absolutely considered a weapon.
A single rental truck in Nice France killed more people than any mass shooting in the USA, ever.
Show me where the car was being used as a dangerous weapon.
In which case it's no longer relevant because nobody is going to overthrow a government that has nukes, tanks, drones, and chemical weapons using a hunting rifle or a handgun. The idea was cute enough back when the firepower the government had to use against the people was limited to muskets and cannons, but currently the idea of guns being used to overthrow a government with a military like the US is a complete joke.
Today you'll still find a bunch of 2nd amendment supporters insisting against common sense regulations because they need their guns to stop government oppression and tyranny yet you can open youtube right now and find countless examples of government oppression and tyranny and to no surprise those guys aren't using their guns to do a damn thing about any of it. In fact they're usually the ones making excuses for the government and their abuses.
There are reasonable arguments for supporting 2nd amendment and gun ownership but resisting/overthrowing the government is not one of them. That's nothing more than a comforting power fantasy.
>nobody is going to overthrow a government that has nukes, tanks, drones, and chemical weapons using a hunting rifle or a handgun.
The Chechens in the first Chechen war more or less did so by starting with guns and working up the chain via captured weapons. Eventually gaining complete independence for a number of years, against a nuclear power.
I think that it's fair to say that the military power Russia had in the 90s was very different from what the US has today. Even back then, as you say, the war still wasn't won with rifles and handguns. That isn't to say that what the Chechens accomplished wasn't impressive though.
Which is why Chechnya today is an independ... Oh wait.
Wow, in two comments we moved the goalposts from impossible to independence didn't last as many years as I'd have liked.
The text of the second amendment, as written, would seem to indicate that the premise of the second amendment is to arm "a well-regulated militia" (which was relevant to the government that adopted the second amendment, as it had no standing army).
It was basically crowdsourcing the military. We've been running through all the various problems with that idea ever since, including:
- oops, turns out not enough people volunteer and our whole army got nearly wiped out; maybe we need to pay people to be an army for a living (ca. 1791)
- oops, turns out allowing the public to arm themselves and be their own militia can lead people being their own separate militia factions against the government, I guess we don't want that (e.g. Shay's Rebellion, John Brown and various slave rebellions fighting for freedom)
- oops, turns out part of the army can just decide they're a whole new country's army now, guess we don't want that (the civil war)
- oops, turns out actually everyone having guns means any given individual can just shoot whomever they like (like in hundreds of school shootings and mass shootings)
- oops, turns out we gotta give our police force even bigger guns and tanks and stuff so they won't be scared of random normal people on the street having guns (and look where that's gotten us)
Honestly, the whole thing should've been heavily amended to something more sane back in 1791 when the Legion of the United States (the first standing army) was formed, as they were already punting on the mistaken notion that "a well-regulated militia" was the answer instead of "a professional standing army".
No it isn't -- that's an ignorant myth. Madison was the last person in the world who would have endorsed overthrowing his new government ... the Constitution is quite explicit that that is treason and the penalty is death. The first use of the 2A was Washington putting down the Whiskeytown Rebellion.
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Citation please?
Here's one: https://monthlyreview.org/articles/settler-colonialism-and-t...
Can I get one with a little, uh, less spicy, of an "about us" page?
I'm not asking for a primary source, just something without a political axe to grind.
[citation needed]
It's not exactly an unusual claim, and it was very much the loudly espoused position of the Republican Party until, well, last week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...
> In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army ... would be opposed [by] militia." He argued that State governments "would be able to repel the danger" of a federal army, "It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops." He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as "afraid to trust the people with arms"...
This was posited as the nice sounding reason for the second amendment, when the more accurate reason was to ensure citizens had guns to drive out the indigenous peoples and steal their lands.
We rather quickly saw the federal government rolling over the people even with weapons in the Whiskey Rebellion.
I don't disagree.
But it's still very funny seeing the Right wrestle with "wait, the other team has guns?!" and "wait, Trump sounds like he wants gun control?!" right now when this claim has been the basis of their argument for decades.
To be fair, the right struggle with the argument every time it's put to the test.
I recall the 2016 shootings of Dallas Police Officers and the right were apoplectic about the individual
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micah_Xavier_Johnson
Yeah, it is quite funny.
They wrestled with it for about 5 minutes, then got the memo, shrugged and resumed to deep-throat the boot.
Don't forget the very profound usefulness of a "well-armed militia" in putting down slave rebellions and catching escaped slaves.
In 46, Madison was discussing foreign danger in response to Hamilton in 29. but... thx for providing a citation. That's a much better response to downvoting.
>With all the predatory tech Palantir has produced
Palantir is SAP with a hollywood marketing department. I talked to a Palantir guy five or six years ago and he said he was happy every time someone portrayed them as a bond villain in the news because the stock went up the next day.
So much of tech abuse is enabled by this, and it's somewhat more pronounced in America, juvenile attitude toward technology, tech companies and CEOs. These people are laughing on their way to the bank because they convinced both critics and evangelists that their SAAS products are some inevitable genius invention
You don't need sophisticated tech to cause damage, you just need access to data. Palantir is dangerous not because it has some amazing technology that no one else has, it's that they aggregate many data sources of what would be considered private data and expose it with malicious intent (c.f. any interview with the Palantir CEO). Reading my email doesn't require amazing programming, it just requires access.
Postgres can aggregate many data sources of private data. So can SAP. So what is it about their tech that you think makes it different? SAP is a good comparison.
Like I said, their tech is meaningless. It's the deals they cut to gain access to data and the deals they cut to expose that data.
Why would they be the ones cutting deals to gain access to data? The Party is cutting those deals and has been for ages. Deals like these:
> Spyware delivered by text > In August, the Trump administration revived a previously paused contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli-founded company that makes spyware. A Paragon tool called Graphite was used in Europe earlier this year to target journalists and civil society members, according to The Citizen Lab, a research group based at the University of Toronto with expertise in spyware.
> Little is known about how ICE is using Paragon Solutions technology and legal groups recently sued DHS for records about it and tools made by the company Cellebrite. ICE did not respond to NPR's questions about its Paragon Solutions contract and whether it is for Graphite or another tool.
> Graphite can start monitoring a phone — including encrypted messages — just by sending a message to the number. The user doesn't have to click on a link or a message.
> "It has essentially complete access to your phone," said Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a legal and policy group focused on privacy. "It's an extremely dangerous surveillance tech that really goes against our Fourth Amendment protections."
Deals with Flock, and so on. It makes no sense for Palantir to be the one doing those deals rather than the Party. They've been doing so for a long time now. That's the whole point of data brokers, on this site alone there are hundreds of comments and posts about how the Party abuses those to get around laws on mass surveillance - can't legally (or are too incompetent to) gather data ourselves? Just buy it off a data broker. And Snowden showed us more than a decade ago that even without them they can just.. not care about the "legal" part.
Palantir is not the only threat, Paragon is equally nasty. Any company with a mission to enable fascism or supremacism is a problem. Palantir is very open about what they strive to do. I have no doubt their tech is mediocre, but their motive is as malicious as it gets.
Of course they're threats. In the exact same way that companies such as AWS/Amazon and Meta, their motive isn't any different. If you think Bezos and Zuckerberg are even a sliver more ethical than Palantir execs I've got some bad news for you.
I agree, but there’s a difference between overt and covert. Overt can normalize this stuff, so it’s good to push back.
Meh. Palintir is optimized to sell data to the government. Said governments usually don't care about the quality of data about any one individual. Wear sunglasses when you go out and stay off facebook and it's amazing how little palintir signal you send up. Bonus points if you created an LLC to pay your utility bills. But... Palintir is not as good as you seem to be implying.
Oh, you don't need to have Facebook account to have a very comprehensive and accurate profile: https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-pr...
cell phone cameras work both ways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
When the government wants to oppress people, they surveil the activists trying to fight oppression.
Deporting illegal immigrants is not oppression.
Nope, but executing law abiding citizens in the streets is
Neither of them were abiding by the law. Nor were either of them executed. Such hyperbole.
What laws did they break?
Abiding the law?
What law did they break to constitute being shot dead on the spot?
Or do you now support vague charges like "obstruction of justice"?
One person showed up with a gun, the other tried to flee (or run over) an officer.
Wold you as a police officer always behave perfectly in any urgent situation?
It is famously against the law to own a gun, and carry it with a permit in the United States.
It's famously peaceful if you carry a gun to a protest and it famously drives no officer around you even more to their edge.
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My man loves that boot.
If only take sides and don't make any actual arguments, then unfortunately you won't convince anyone either.
Killing your own citizens is.
One person showed up with a gun, the other tried to flee (or run over) an officer.
Carrying a gun, or fleeing, is not punishable by death. In any decent country, of course.
These were accidents, not court proceedings where you have weeks or months to think things over.
My prediction is that if you investigate them, then in the case where the woman was trying to drive away, the officer likely has no fault at all, as the drive may have easily be interpreted as driving towards him. On the armed protestor occasion, there might be some fault as the gun seemed to have gone off unexpectedly. But it won't be punished too hard, if at all, as the victim was actively escalating the situation.
These weren't punishments ("death sentences" as someone else called them). These were accidents where the victims themselves were (mostly) at fault.
They were not accidents. No one accidentally draws, aims a gun and shoots. If that whole sequence is accidental, that person shouldn't be in charge of a weapon.
The shooting part was the accident. Of course you draw and aim a gun if you're detaining someone who also has a gun.
What I'm saying is that he did have a gun, this particular gun was taken away, then he was apparently reaching for something else, which may have been mistaken for a gun, hence the shot. Or, the officer fired at him for some other suspicion. Regardless, you don't have perfect information in a situation like this. The guy wasn't behaving peacefully either.
My suggestion would be to obey orders, don't bring weapons to protests, don't resist when you're being detained. And so on.
He didn't have a gun when he was shot, what are you talking about? He didn't even have a gun in his hand. Or you mean that you can accidentally shoot somebody who had a gun, at some point in the past?
I'd forgive you for thinking they were accidents if you hadn't seen the videos or heard them described to you. They were cold blooded murder.
I did see the videos, that was what made me come to that conclusion.
I don't need any forgiveness from you. You should forgive yourself instead, become part of the grown-ups!
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A wise man told me, you know signal works because its banned in Russia. I also find it incredibly ironic that they have a problem with this, when the DoD is flagrantly using signal for classified communications.
I have full confidence in Signal and their encryption but this argument doesn't make sense to me. It could be the opposite, that Russia knows it's compromised by the US government and don't want people using it. I don't believe that's the case but the point is you can't put too much weight on it.
Wouldn't the Russian government just say that then?
My personal connections who are in the military use it for texting from undisclosed locations.
I've heard from people who have worked with the Signal foundation that it was close to being endorsed for private communication by one branch of government, but that endorsement was rescinded because another branch didn't want people knowing how to stay private.
> I've heard from people who have worked with the Signal foundation that it was close to being endorsed for private communication by one branch of government, but that endorsement was rescinded because another branch didn't want people knowing how to stay private.
The US government recommended Signal to for personal communication. See this article, in the section "Signal in the Biden administration and beyond":
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/03/27/biden-authorized-sign...
And here is the government publication:
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...
They aren't taking issue with Signal, per se... they are upset that people are sharing the whereabouts and movements of ICE officers. Signal just seems to be the medium-of-choice. And this just happens to give them a chance to declare Signal as "bad", since they can't spy on Signal en masse.
It doesn't mean much. Roblox is banned in Russia.
They've been just gradually banning everything not made in Russia.
You know it works because they banned it in Russia? Works for whom?
Yes, at best it implies Russia cannot easily get confidential information from them. Everyone else, the jury is still out for.
There aren't a lot of things I would claim Russia is a leader in, but state sponsored hacking and spying on its own people would both definitely make the list. That's not to say no one has cracked it, but if the Russians couldn't do it there aren't many who could.
Sure, but using Signal for classified info is a violation of policy.
The DOD is not using "flagrantly using Signal." The Secretary of Defense, whatever his preferred pronouns are, is breaking the law.
CISA recommended Signal for encrypted end-to-end communications for "highly targeted individuals."
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/guidance-mo...
The best part is that, in trying to comply with this guidance, the government chose Telemessage to provide the message archiving required by the Federal Records Act.
The only problem is that Telemessage was wildly insecure and was transmitting/storing message archives without any encryption.
Recommendations to the private sector don't condone violating security and retention laws for people working in the public sector.
Military personnel are currently only allowed to use Signal for mobile communications within their unit. Classified information is a different story, though.
I don't think I agree with the following from this guide:
> Do not use a personal virtual private network (VPN). Personal VPNs simply shift residual risks from your internet service provider (ISP) to the VPN provider, often increasing the attack surface. Many free and commercial VPN providers have questionable security and privacy policies. However, if your organization requires a VPN client to access its data, that is a different use case.
What do you disagree with?
> Personal VPNs simply shift residual risks from your internet service provider (ISP) to the VPN provider, often increasing the attack surface.
That's true. A VPN service replaces the ISP as the Internet gateway with the VPN's systems. By adding a component, you increase the attack surface.
> Many free and commercial VPN providers have questionable security and privacy policies.
Certainly true.
> if your organization requires a VPN client to access its data, that is a different use case.
Also true: That's not a VPN service; you are (probably) connecting to your organization's systems.
There may be better VPN services - Mullvad has a good reputation around here - but we really don't know. Successful VPN services would be a magnet for state-level and other attackers, which is what the document may be concerned with.
Come on, man. We're talking about classified information, not general OPSEC advice. I worked in a SCIF. Literally every piece of equipment, down to each ethernet cable, has a sticker with its authorized classification level. This system exists for a reason, like making it impossible to accidently leak information to an uncleared contact in your personal phone. What Hegseth did (and is doing?) is illegal. It doesn't even matter what app is used.
I don't know signal very well but when I have spoken to others about it they mention that the phone number is the only metadata they will have access to.
This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem.
I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years.
Turns out they were right.
They weren't though? Signal requires a phone number to sign up and it is linked to your account but your phone number is not used in the under the hood account or device identification, it is not shared by default, your number can be entirely removed from contact disovery if you wish, and even if they got a warrant or were tapping signal infra directly, it'd be extremely non trivial to extract user phone numbers.
https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/
https://signal.org/blog/building-faster-oram/
https://signal.org/blog/signal-private-group-system/
In past instances where Signal has complied with warrants, such as the 2021 and 2024 Santa Clara County cases, the records they provided included phone numbers to identify the specific accounts for which data was available. This was necessary to specify which requested accounts (identified by phone numbers in the warrants) had associated metadata, such as account creation timestamps and last connection dates.
Yep however that only exposes a value of "last time the user registered/verified their account via phone number activation" and "last day the app connected to the signal servers".
There isn't really anything you can do with that information. The first value is already accessible via other methods (since the phone companies carry those records and will comply with warrants). And for pretty much anyone with signal installed that second value is going to essentially always be the day the search occurred.
And like another user mentioned, the most recent of those warrants is from the day before they moved to username based identification so it is unclear whether the same amount of data is still extractable.
I would think being able to subpoena records for all active signal users would be a cause for concern.
Ironically enough Reddit seems to have a pretty good take on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1qogc2g/comment/o21aeh...
I was genuinely surprised when I went to Reddit and saw that as the most voted comment on the story.
I think that's a fair assessment on their part however it's worth noting that your phone number does not serve as your account ID. It can be used to look up an account but there are caveats to that.
The lookups go through a secure enclave, the system is architected to limit the number of lookups that can be done, and the system has some fairly extensive anti-exfiltration cryptographic fuckery running inside the secure enclave to further limit the extent to which accounts can be efficiently looked up.
And of course you can also remove your phone number from contact discovery (but not from the acct entirely) but I'm not sure how that interacts with lookup for subpoenas. If they use the same system that contact discovery uses, it may be an undocumented way to exclude your account from subpoena responses.
The rest of what they say however is pretty spot on. The priority for signal is privacy, not anonymity. They try to optimise anonymity when they can but they do give up a little anonymity in exchange for anti-spam and user-friendliness.
So of course the ending notes of "use a VPN, configure the settings to maximise anonymity, and maybe even get a secondary phone number to use with it" are all perfectly reasonable suggestions.
This was before Signal switched to a username system.
Others mention you must still register with a phone, although you can remove it from your account after you go through the username stuff? Usually HN is pretty good about identifying that the default path is the path and that opt-out like behavior of this means very little for mass usage.
It's not that you can remove it from your account entirely. Your account is still linked to that number. It's that you can remove the number from contact discovery.
And re: defaults the default behavior on signal is that your phone number is hidden from other users but it can be used to do contact discovery. Notably though you can turn contact discovery off (albeit few people do).
Which of those links actually say that your phone number is private from Signal? If anything, this passage makes it sound like it's the reverse, because they specifically call out usernames not being stored in plaintext, but not phone numbers.
>We have also worked to ensure that keeping your phone number private from the people you speak with doesn’t necessitate giving more personal information to Signal. Your username is not stored in plaintext, meaning that Signal cannot easily see or produce the usernames of given accounts.
> it'd be extremely non trivial
Extremely non trivial. What I'm hearing is "security by obfuscation".
Absolutely nothing in this article is related to feds using conversation metadata to map participants, so, no they weren’t.
If you follow the X chatter on this, some folks got into the groups and tracked all the numbers, their contributions, and when they went "on shift" or "off".
I don't really think Signal tech has anything to do with this.
Yeah. It's notable they didn't crack the crypto. In the 90s when I was a young cypherpunk, I had this idea that when strong crypto was ubiquitous, certainly people would be smart enough to understand its role was only to force bad guys to attack the "higher levels" like attacking human expectations of privacy on a public channel. It was probably unrealistic to assume everyone would automatically understand subtle details of technology.
As a reminder... if you don't know all the people in your encrypted group chat, you could be talking to the man.
That’s really interesting extra context, thanks!
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My Session and Briar chats don't give out the phone numbers of other users.
Yes, but they have their own weaknesses. For instance, Briar exposes your Bluetooth MAC, and there's a bunch of nasty Bluetooth vulns waiting to be exploited. You can't ever perfectly solve for both security and usability, you can only make tradeoffs.
Briar has multiple modes of operation. The Bluetooth mode is not the default mode of operation and is there for circumstances where Internet has been shut down entirely.
For users who configure Briar to connect exclusively over Tor using the normal startup (e.g., for internet-based syncing) and disable Bluetooth, there is no Bluetooth involvement at all, so your Bluetooth MAC address is not exposed.
Neither does Signal.
Both Session and Briar are decentralized technologies where you would never be able to approach a company to get any information. They operate over DHT-like networks and with Tor.
Signal does give out phone numbers when the law man comes, because they have to, and because they designed their system around this identifier.
This changed about two years ago, when they added usernames. ( https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/ )
Signal can still tell law enforcement (1) whether a phone number is registered with Signal, and (2) when that phone number signed up and (3) when it was last active. That's all, and not very concerning to me. To prevent an enumeration attack (e.g. an attacker who adds every phone number to their system contacts), you can also disable discovery my phone number.
While Session prevents that, Session lacks forward secrecy. This is very serious- it's silly to compare Session to Signal when Session is flawed in its cryptography. (Details and further reading here https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/ ). Session has recently claimed they will be upgrading their cryptography in V2 to be up to Signal's standard (forward secrecy and post-quantum security), but until then, I don't think it's worth considering.
I agree that Briar is better, but unfortunately, it can't run on iPhones. I'm in the United States and that excludes 59% of the general population, and about 90% of my generation. It's not at fault of the Briar project, but it's a moot point when I can't use it to talk to people I know.
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We don't do the "duct-tape an insult to the end to drive your point harder" gimmick here. It will lead to loss of your account.
whoa, losing access to a throwaway account created for specifically posting trolling comments? i'm sure they're shaking in their boots at the prospect
This throwaway account wasn't created specifically for posting trolling comments, this is just my personality :-(
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Signal's use of phone numbers is the least of your issues if you've reached this level of inspection. Signal could be the most pristine perfect thing in the world, and the traffic from the rest of your phone is exactly as exposing as your phone number is when your enemy is the US government who can force cooperation from the infrastructure providers.
Your point is correct but irrelevant to this conversation.
The question here is NOT "if Signal didn't leak your phone number could you still get screwed?" Of course you could, no one is disputing that.
The question is "if you did everything else perfect, but use Signal could the phone number be used to screw you?" The answer is ALSO of course, but the reason why we're talking about it is that this point was made to the creator of Signal many many times over the years, and he dismissed it and his fanboys ridiculed it.
I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for something better.
Is there any reason they didn't use email? It seems like something that would have been easier to keep some anonymity., while still allowing the person to authenticate.
email is notoriously insecure and goes through servers that allow it to be archived. also, email UIs tend not to be optimized for instantaneous delivery of messages.
I have no idea if that was true 20 years ago, but it's not true now. XMPP doesn't have this problem; your host instance knows your IP but you can connect via Tor.
Tor has the problem that you frequently don't know who's running all the nodes in the network. For a while the FBI was running Tor exit nodes in an attempt to see who messages were being sent to. maybe they still are.
OTR has been on XMPP for so long now
Is that good? According to the wikipedia page it seems last stable release was 9 years ago. Is anyone using that? Last time I had a look at XMPP everybody was using OMEMO.
OMEMO has its own flaws too
https://soatok.blog/2024/08/04/against-xmppomemo/
Sorry, I don't pay attention to anyone who disses PGP. I don't care if it's easy to misuse. I focus on using it well instead of bitching about misusing it.
If there's one thing we learned from Snowden is that the NSA can't break PGP, so these people who live in the world of theory have no credibility with me.
Before my arrest (CFAA) I operated on Tor and PGP for years. I had property seized and I had a long look at my discovery material, as I was curious which elements they had obtained.
I never saw a single speck of anything I ever sent to anyone via PGP in there. They had access to my SIGAINT e-mail and my BitMessage unlocked, but I used PGP for everything on top of that.
Stay safe!
Would be curious to know (if you're willing to share) how you were found if you were working to obscure / encrypt your communications. What _was_ it that ultimately gave you away or allowed them to ID you?
I'd be curious as well, though I completely understand if they don't want to talk. Someone should write a book just listing the usual mistakes.
if you sign PGP messages with a key you associated with your identity, the have high confidence you sent emails signed with that key. i.e. - PGP does not offer group deniable signatures as a default option.
wow. that's a phenomenally bad policy. There are many legit critiques which can be leveled at PGP, depending on your use case. [Open]PGP is not a silver bullet. You have to use it correctly.
"You have to use it correctly" is true for everything. Stop parroting garbage you read and exercise some critical thinking.
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Briar and Session are the better encrypted messengers.
Session lacks forward secrecy, which isn't ideal.
I remember listening to his talks and had some respect for him. He could defeat any argument about any perceived security regarding any facet of tech. Not so much any more. He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never be secure. I get why he did it. That little boat needed an upgrade and I would do it too. Of course this topic evokes some serious psychological responses in most people. Wait for it.
> He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never be secure
I assume because of the baseband stuff to be FCC compliant? Last I checked that meant DMA channels, etc. to access the real phone processor. All easily activated over the air.
All easily activated over the air.
Indeed. The only reason this is not used by customer support for more casual access, firmware upgrades and debugging is a matter of policy and the risk of mass bricking phones and as such this is not exposed to them. There are other access avenues as well including JTAG debugging over USB and Bluetooth.
I don't think the FCC requires DMA channels. That's done out of convenience because it's how PCIe works.
The FCC doesn't require DMA channels, but the baseband processor may have access to it among anything else.
That's done for convenience because that's how PCIe works.
Any citation on this? I’ve never heard that.
47 CFR Part 2 and Part 15
FCC devices are certified / allowed to use a spectrum, but you must maintain compliance. If you're a mobile phone manufacturer you have to be certain that if a bug occurs, the devices don't start becoming wifi jammers or anything like that.
This means you need to be able to push firmware updates over the air (OTA). These must be signed to avoid just anyone to push out such an OTA.
The government has a history of compelling companies to push out signed updates.
There are hobbyist groups that tinker with these things. They are just as lazy as me and do not publish much. One has to find and participate in their semi-private .onion forums. Not my cup of tea. Most of it goes over my head and requires special hardware I am not interested in tinkering with.
I could have sworn Signal adopted usernames sometime back, but in my eyes its a little too late.
Suppose they didn't require that. Wouldn't that open themselves up to DDoS? An angry nation or ransom-seeker could direct bots to create accounts and stuff them with noise.
I think the deal is you marry the strong crypto with a human mediated security process which provides high confidence the message sender maps to the human you think they are. And even if they are, they could be a narc. Nothing in strong crypto prevents narcs in whom ill-advised trust has been granted from copying messages they're getting over the encrypted channel and forwarding them to the man.
And even then, a trusted participant could not understand they're not supposed to give their private keys out or could be rubber-hosed into revealing their key pin. All sorts of ways to subvert "secure" messaging besides breaking the crypto.
I guess what I'm saying is "Strong cryptography is required, but not sufficient to ensure secure messaging."
Yes. Cheap–identity systems such as Session and SimpleX are trivially vulnerable to this, and your only defence is to not give out your address as they are unguessable. If you have someone's address, you can spam them, and they can't stop it except by deleting the app or resetting to a new address and losing all their contacts.
SimpleX does better than Session because the address used to add new contacts is different from the address used with any existing contact and is independently revocable. But if that address is out there, you can receive a full queue of spam contacts before you next open the SimpleX app.
Both Session and SimpleX are trivially vulnerable to storage DoS as well.
There are a lot of solutions to denial of service attacks than to collect personal information. Plus, you know, you can always delete an account later? If what Signal says is true, then this amounts to a few records in their database which isn't cause for concern IMO
The steps to trouble:
- identify who owns the number
- compel that person to give unlocked phone
- government can read messages of _all_ people in group chat not just that person
Corollary:
Disappearing messages severely limits what can be read
Unless they compel people at gunpoint (which prevents the government from bringing a case), they will probably not have much luck with this. As soon as a user sets up a passcode or other lock on their phone, it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US government to look inside.
It's much more likely that the government convinces one member of the group chat to turn on the other members and give up their phone numbers.
> which prevents the government from bringing a case
Genuinely, from outside, it seems like your government doesn't give a damn on what they are and aren't allowed to do.
Yes, but I’m not going to unlock my phone with a passcode, and unlike biometric unlock they have no way to force me to unlock my phone.
The district courts will eventually back me up on this. Our country has fallen a long way, but the district courts have remained good, and my case is unlikely to be one that goes up to appellate courts, where things get much worse.
There’s an important distinction: the government doesn’t care about what it is allowed to do, but it is still limited by what it is not capable of doing. It’s important to understand that they still do have many constraints they operate under, and that we need to find and exploit those constraints as much as possible while we fight them
They are capable of putting you in prison until you unlock your phone, or simply executing you.
Feels like the latter would be counter-productive unless there's an app for that.
They are, but again, district courts have been pretty good, and I would be out of jail in <30 days, unless my case goes up on appeal.
And if I die in jail because I won’t unlock my phone: fuck ‘em, they’ll have to actually do it.
I don’t plan on being killed by the regime, but I don’t think I would’ve survived as a German in Nazi Germany, either. I’m not putting my survival above everything else in the world.
Looks that way from the inside as well.
Yes and all of the credulous rubes still whinging about how they "can't imagine" how it's gotten this bad or how much worse it can get, or how "this is not who we are" at some point should no longer be taken as suckers in good faith, and at some point must rightly be viewed as either willfully complicit bad faith interlocuters, or useful idiots.
Learning about WWII in high school, I often wondered how the people allowed the Axis leaders gain power. Now I know. However, I feel we're worse for allowing it to happen because we were supposed to "never again".
Worse, I often wondered how some people collaborated. Now I know that many people would rather have a chunk of the population rounded up and killed than lose their job.
"Whoever can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." and "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
etc, etc. So it goes
Agreed. To see "Never Again" morphed into "Never Again for me, Now Again for thee" has been one of the most heartwrenching, sleep depriving things I've witnessed since some deaths in my family.
Watching it in real time, I still don't understand it. I could see how Trump won the first time around; Hillary Clinton was unpopular with most people outside of her party's leadership, but the second just seems insane. The kinds of things that would happen were obvious to me, and I am no expert.
Two party system. As many people didn't like Hillary, clearly there were a lot of people unhappy with Biden->Harris. When you don't like the current admin's direction and/or their party, there's only one other party to select. I think there were plenty of voters that truly did not believe this would be the result of that protest vote.
Protest votes are probably overstated, I think most of it comes down to people staying home. Everybody in America already knows what side they're on, and they either vote for that side or not at all. Virtually all political messaging is either trying to moralize your side or demoralize the other, to manipulate the relative ratios of who stays home on election day.
> I think most of it comes down to people staying home
Obama was able to get people motivated. Neither Biden nor Harris had anywhere near that motivating ability. I don't know that the Dems have anyone as motivating as Obama line up. The Dems seem to be hoping that enough people will be repulsed by the current admin to show up.
> Obama was able to get people motivated. Neither Biden nor Harris had anywhere near that
How do you explain Biden getting so many more votes than Obama even while Trump improved with black and Hispanics over past Republican candidates?
Newsom is an extremely strong candidate. Vance has several critical vulnerabilities that can demoralize right wing voters if the election is handled properly, and the Republicans really don't have anybody else. Rubio maybe, but Rubio won't be able to get ahead of Vance.
> Newsom is an extremely strong candidate.
For what office? President? Do you live in California?
Trump had more than several critical vulns as well which did not dissuade voters. The electorate isn't as predictable as many try to make it sound
Trump was able to moralize his voters, despite his weaknesses, by using a kind of charisma that Vance utterly lacks.
I think Vance isn't planning on using charisma, but violence.
Prior to 2020, I usually voted for third parties so I do understand that kind of thinking. The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office; it seemed early on like congress and institutional norms would restrain him. To swing the popular vote in the 2024 election, almost all of the third party votes would have needed to go to Harris, so I don't think that's sufficient to explain it.
By the end of his first term, the danger was hard to miss, and the attempt to remain in power after losing the election should have cemented it for everyone.
I was unhappy with Biden and Harris. I voted for them in 2020 and 2024 anyway because I understood the alternative.
> The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office
I don't get it, was there anything surprising about him after his inauguration? He sure sounded dangerous on the campaign trail.
The norm in 2016 was that candidates didn't make a serious attempt to do the more outlandish things they talked about in their campaign. When they did, advisers would usually talk them into a saner version of it, or congress wouldn't allow it.
> The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office;
I just do not understand this sentence at all. The writing was clearly on the wall. All of the Project 2025 conversations told us exactly what was going to happen. People claiming it was not obvious at best were not paying attention at all. For anyone paying attention, it was horrifying see the election results coming in.
Project 2025 did not exist in 2016. We are in agreement about 2024.
Not the second time, the third time. Remember that Biden whooped Trump's ass once and could have whooped his ass a second time, but the donor class (career retards) got cold feet when they were forced to confront his senility, and instead of letting the election be one senile old man against another senile old man, they replaced Biden with the archetype of an HR bitch. I hope nobody thinks it a coincidence that the two times Trump won were the two times he was up against a woman. Americans don't want to vote for their mother-in-law, nor for the head of HR. And yes, that certainly is sexist, but it is what it is.
I just pray they run Newsom this time. Despite his "being from California" handicap, I think he should be able to easily beat Vance by simply being a handsome white man with a white family. Vance is critically flawed and will demoralize much of the far right IFF his opponent doesn't share those same weaknesses.
You have to remember that "the government" is not a monolith. Evidence goes before a judge who is (supposed to be) independent, and cases are tried in front of a jury of citizens. In the future that system may fall but for now it's working properly. Except for the Supreme Court... which is a giant wrench in the idea the system still works, but that doesn't mean a lower court judge won't jettison evidence obtained by gunpoint.
Evidence goes before a judge
What evidence went before a judge prior to the two latest executions in Minneapolis?
There's a pretty big difference between getting killed in an altercation with ICE, and executing someone just because they refuse to give up their password.
Not really. ICE breaks into your home — remember they don't need a warrant for this. Demands to see your phone. It's locked. Holds a gun to your head and demands you unlock it. You refuse. Pulls the trigger.
Does it really seem that far–fetched when compared to the other ICE murders?
>Does it really seem that far–fetched when compared to the other ICE murders?
No, not really, because in the two killings you can vaguely argue they felt threatened. Pointing a gun to someone's head and demanding the password isn't anywhere close to that. Don't get me wrong, the killings are an affront to civil liberties and should be condemned/prosecuted accordingly, but to think that ICE agents are going around and reenacting the opening scene from Inglorious Bastards shows that your worldview can't handle more nuance than "fascism? true/false".
> but to think that ICE agents are going around and reenacting the opening scene from Inglorious Bastards shows that your worldview can't handle more nuance than "fascism? true/false".
Precisely.
There's no question that ICE is daily trampling civil liberties (esp 4th amendment).
But in both killings there is a reasonable interpretation that they feared for their lives.
Now should they have is another question. With better training, a 6v1 < 5ft engagement can easily disarm anyone with anything less than a suicide vest.
But still, we aren't at the "run around and headshot dissenters" phase.
> there is a reasonable interpretation that they feared for their lives
... Did you watch the videos from multiple people filming?
> ... Did you watch the videos from multiple people filming?
Yeah, did you? Any more substantive discourse you'd like to add to the conversation?
To be clear about the word "reasonable" in my comment, it's similar to the usage of the very same word in the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt".
The agents involved in the shootings aren't claiming that:
- the driver telepathically communicated their ill intent
- they saw Pretti transform into a Satan spawn and knew they had to put him down
They claim (unsurprisingly, to protect themselves) that they feared for their life because either a car was driving at them or they thought Pretti had another firearm. These are reasonable fears, that a reasonable person has.
That doesn't mean the agents involved are without blame. In fact, especially in Pretti's case, they constructed a pretext to began engagement with him (given that he was simply exercising his 1st amendment right just prior).
But once in the situation, a reasonable person could have feared for their lives.
> once in the situation, a reasonable person could have feared for their lives.
Sure, all things being equal, a person on the Clapham omnibus, yada, yada.
However, specifically in this situation it is very frequently not "median people" in the mix, it is LEO-phillic wannabe (or ex) soldier types that are often exchanging encrypted chat messages about "owning the libs", "goddamn <insert ethic slur>'s" and exchange grooming notes on provoking "officer-induced jeopardy" .. how to escalate a situation into what passes for "justified homicide" or least a chance to put the boot in.
Those countries that investigate and prosecute shootings by LEO's often find such things at the root of wrongful deaths.
You're not really disagreeing with the parent.
>That doesn't mean the agents involved are without blame. In fact, especially in Pretti's case, they constructed a pretext to began engagement with him (given that he was simply exercising his 1st amendment right just prior).
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The old 'shoot em in the leg' defense.
The courts may (still) be independent, but it feels like they are pointless because the government just wholesale ignores them anyway. If the executive branch doesn't enforce, or selectively enforces court judgements, you may as well shutter the courts.
They haven't for a long time, just that most of the time they were doing things we thought was for good (EPA, civil rights act, controlled substance act, etc) and we thereby entered a post-constitutional world to let that stuff slide by despite the 10th amendment limiting the federal powers to enumerated powers.
Eventually we got used to letting the feds slide on all the good things to the point everything was just operating on slick ice, and people like Trump just pushed it to the next logical step which is to also use the post-constitutional world to his own personal advantage and for gross tyranny against the populace.
The civil rights acts had firm constitutional grounding in the 14th and 15th amendments.
14th and 15th amendments were binding on government. The civil rights act was binding on private businesses, even those engaging in intrastate trade.
The civil rights act of 1875, which also tried to bind on private businesses, was found unconstitutional in doing so, despite coming after the 15th amendment. But by the 60s and 70s we were already in a post-constitutional society as FDRs threatening to pack the courts, the 'necessities' implemented during WWII, and the progressive era more or less ended up with SCOTUS deferring to everything as interstate commerce (most notable, in Wickard v Filburn). The 14th and 15th amendment did not change between the time the same things were found unconstitutional, then magically constitutional ~80+ years later.
The truth is, the civil rights act was seen as so important (that time around) that they bent the constitution to let it work. And now much of the most relied on pieces of legislation relied on a tortured interpretation of the constitution, making things incredibly difficult to fix, and setting the stage for people like Trump.
If civil rights are unconstitutional, you don't have a country.
They'll just threaten to throw the book at you if you don't unlock your phone, and if you aren't rich, your lawyer will tell you to take the plea deal they offer because it beats sitting in prison until you die.
All they have to do is pretend to be a concerned neighbor who wants to help give mutual aid and hope that someone in the group chat takes the bait and adds them in. No further convincing is needed.
social engineering for the win.
If you aren't saving people's phone numbers in your own contacts, signal isn't storing them in group chats (and even if you are, it doesn't say which number, just that you have a contact with them).
Signal doesn't share numbers by default and hasn't for a few years now. And you can toggle a setting to remove your number from contact discovery/lookup entirely if you are so inclined.
> it is beyond the ability of even most parts of the US government to look inside.
I'm sure the Israeli spyware companies can help with that.
Although then they'd have to start burning their zero days to just go after protestors, which I doubt they're willing to do. I imagine they like to save those for bigger targets.
Cellebrite can break into every phone except GrapheneOS.
There are multiple companies that can get different amounts of information off of locked phones including iPhones, and they work with LE.
I’m also curious what they could get off of cloud backups. Thinking in terms of auth, keys, etc. For SMS it’s almost as good as phone access, but I am not sure for apps.
or convince one member of a group chat to show their group chat...
I'm confident the people executing non-complaint people in the street would be capable of compelling a citizen.
Or just let the guy to enter the country after unlocking her phone.
https://xkcd.com/538/
This is accurate, but the important point is that threatening people with wrenches isn’t scalable in the way mass surveillance is.
The problem with mass surveillance is the “mass” part: warrantless fishing expeditions.
hunh. we haven't even started talking about stingray, tracking radios and so forth.
it is difficult to wrench someone when you do not know who they are
Someone knows who they are and they can bash different skulls until one of them gives them what they're looking for.
Who is someone?
I mean they have a lot of tools to figure out who you are if they catch you at a rally or something like that. Cameras and facial identification, cell phone location tracking and more. What they also want is the list of people you're coordinating with that aren't there.
Which is just a redux of what I find myself saying constantly: privacy usually isn't even the problem. The problem is the people kicking in your door.
If you're willing to kick in doors to suppress legal rights, then having accurate information isn't necessary at all.
If your resistance plan is to chat about stuff privately, then by definition you're also not doing much resisting to you know, the door kicking.
It's even easier than that. They're simply asking on neighborhood Facebook (and other services too, I assume) groups to be added to mutual aid Signal groups and hoping that somebody will add them without bothering to vet them first.
I think disappearing messages only works if you activate it on your local device. And if the man compromises someone without everyone else knowing, they get all messages after that.
But yes... it does limit what can be read. My point is it's not perfect.
Is the message on storage zero'd out or just deleted?
compel that person to give unlocked phone
Celebrite or just JTAG over bluetooth or USB. It's always been a thing but legally they are not supposed to use it. Of course laws after the NSA debacle are always followed. Pinky promise.
Presumably this is data taken from interdicted phones of people in the groups, not, like, a traffic-analytic attack on Signal itself.
It appears to be primarily getting agents into the chats. To me the questionable conduct is their NPSM-7-adjacent redefining of legal political categories and activities as "terrorists/-ism" for the purpose of legal harassment or worse. Whether that is technically legal or not it should be outrageous to the public.
I wonder whether the protesters could opt for offshore alternatives that don't require exposing their phone number to a company that could be compelled to reveal it by US law. For example, there is Threema[1], a Swiss option priced at 5 euros one-time. It is interesting on Android as you can pay anonymously[2], therefore it doesn't depend on Google Play and its services (they offer Threema Push services of their own.) If your threat model includes traffic analysis, likely none of it would make much difference as far as US state-side sigint product line is concerned, but with Threema a determined party might as well get a chance! Arguably, the US protest organisers must be prepared for the situation to escalate, and adjust their security model accordingly: GrapheneOS, Mullvad subscription with DAITA countermeasures, Threema for Android, pay for everything with Monero?
[1] https://threema.com/
[2] https://shop.threema.ch/en
It's worth noting that the way Signal's architecture is set up, Signal the organisation doesn't have access to users' phone numbers.
They technically have logs from when verification happens (as that goes through an SMS verification service) but that just documents that you have an account/when you registered. And it's unclear whether those records are available anymore since no warrants have been issued since they moved to the new username system.
And the actual profile and contact discovery infra is all designed to be actively hostile to snooping on identifiable information even with hardware access (requiring compromise of secure enclaves + multiple levels of obfuscation and cryptographic anti-extraction techniques on top).
Perhaps you're right that they couldn't be compelled by law to reveal it, then! However, I can still find people on Signal using their phone number, by design. If they can do that, surely there is sufficient information, and appropriate means, for US state-side signals intelligence to do so, too. I don't think Signal self-hosts their infrastructure, so it wouldn't be much of a challenge considering it's a priority target.
Now, whether FBI and friends would be determined to use PII obtained in this way to that end—is a point of contention, but why take the chance?
Better yet, don't expose your PII to third parties in the first place.
Yeah it should be technically feasible to do "eventually" but it's non trivial. I linked a bunch of their blogs on how they harden contact discovery, etc. And of course you can turn contact discovery off entirely in the settings.
Settings > Privacy > Phone Number > Who can find me by number > Nobody
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46786794
> And of course you can turn contact discovery off entirely in the settings.
I know right and that would keep you hidden from Average Joe, but not US government. The mechanism to match your account to your phone number remains in place.
Note that Threema has had a recent change in ownership to a German investment firm. Supposedly nothing will change but I can’t help but be wary
Just being owned by an offshore company doesn't mean that they still can't be infiltrated. But as you pointed out, just because Company A creates an app does not mean that Company B can't come in later to take control.
The alarming extent of US-affiliated signals intelligence collection is well-documented, but in the case of Threema it's largely inconsequential; you can still purchase the license for it anonymously, optionally build from source, and actively resist traffic analysis when using it.
That is to say: it allows a determined party to largely remain anonymous even in the face of upstream provider's compromise.
I don't think it's much of a problem at all. Many of the protesters and observers are not hiding their identities, so finding their phone number isn't a problem. Even with content, coordinating legal activities isn't a problem either.
I would never agree with you. protestors behaving legally or practicing civil disobedience can still have their lives ruined by people in power.
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-supreme-court-s...
The literal point of civil disobedience is accepting that you may end up in jail:
"Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law."
-- Letter from the Birmingham Jail, MLK Jr: https://people.uncw.edu/schmidt/201Stuff/F14/B%20SophistSocr...
That's not the point of civil disobedience, it's an unfortunate side effect. You praise a martyr for their sacrifice, you deplore that the sacrifice was necessary.
It's not that the point of breaking a law is that you go to jail, it's that breaking the law without any intention of going to jail isn't a sacrifice. 'Martyrs' who don't give anything up, who act without punishment aren't celebrated, they're just right.
Yeah, that doesn't make it "not a problem."
It makes it a problem that's inherently present for any act of civil disobedience, unless you truly believe that you can hide from the US government. I'm pretty sure that all of the technical workarounds in the world, all of the tradecraft, won't save you from the weakest link in your social network.
That's life, if you can't take that heat stay out of the kitchen. It's also why elections are a much safer and more reliable way to enact change in your country than "direct action" is except under the most dire of circumstances.
Sure? Can't tell what the point of this comment is.
No one is arguing that people who practice civil disobedience can expect to be immune from government response.
This works when protesting an unjust law with known penalties. King knew he would be arrested and had an approximate idea on the range of time he could be incarcerated for. I don't know if it's the same bargain when you are subjecting yourself to an actor that does not believe it is bound by the law.
What? No, he didn't. The police went after peaceful civil rights protesters with clubs and dogs. They knew they could be badly hurt or killed and did it anyway.
Oh, apologies, I'm not saying that King didn't risk considerable injury or death. I'm saying that I don't think he is talking about that in this particular passage. The passage gp quoted is about how accepting lawful penalties from an unjust law venerates and respects the rule of law.
I think it's different with illegal "penalties" like being mauled by a dog or an extrajudicial killing. While those leaders of the civil rights movement faced those risks, I don't think King is asking people to martyr themselves in that passage, but to respect the law.
In contrast to accepting punishments from unjust laws, I think there is no lawless unjust punishment you should accept.
If you let the government stomp on your constitutional rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's respect for injustice.
Accepting jail over 1A protected protests only proves you're weak (not in the morally deficient way, just from a physical possibilities way) enough to be taken. No one thinks more highly of you or your 'respect for the law' for being caught and imprisoned in such case, though we might not think lesser of you, since we all understand it is often a suicide mission to resist it.
>If you let the government stomp on your constitutional rights and willingly go to jail on unconstitutional grounds, then that's not respect for the law. That's respect for injustice.
My point is about civil disobedience, not disobedience generally. The point of civil disobedience is to bring attention to unjust laws by forcing people to deal with the fact they they are imprisoning people for doing something that doesn't actually deserve prison.
Expecting to not end up in prison for engaging in civil disobedience misses the point. It's like when people go on a "hunger strike" by not eating solid foods. The point is self-sacrifice to build something better for others.
https://www.kqed.org/arts/11557246/san-francisco-hunger-stri...
If that's not what you're into -- and it's not something I'm into -- then I would suggest other forms of disobedience. Freedoms are rarely granted by asking for them.
Using your 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment rights is considered civil disobedience at this point; keep up.
If your point is to ignore the history and political philosophy of civil disobedience because "times are different now," then just grab your gun and start your civil war already... because that's where you've concluded we're at.
I'm not even really sure why I'm getting so much pushback here. I've thought this administration should have been impeached and removed within a week of the inauguration in 2017. I just am not sure where all this "why won't you admit that things are so bad, and shouldn't be this way" is helpful, when Trump was democratically elected. When you have a tyranny from a majority, the parallels to MLK are very clear, and you can't expect that change with come without sacrifice.
Civil disobedience is only nice and easy when you're sect is already in power, which -- when we're talking about people who generally support liberal democracy -- it has been since probably the McCarthy Era.
Materially impeding law enforcement operations, interfering with arrests, harassing or assault officers, and so forth is not 1A protected and is illegal. There’s lots of this going on and some of it is orchestrated in these chats. They may nevertheless be civil disobedience, maybe even for a just cause, but I have no problem with people still being arrested for this. You obviously cannot have a civil society where that is legally tolerated.
It isn’t just people walking around holding signs or filming ICE. Can we please distinguish these cases?
Importantly this definition references an individual’s conscience. Seditious conspiracy is another matter. Here is the statute:
> If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
A group chat coordinating use of force may be tough.
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> protestors behaving legally or practicing civil disobedience can still have their lives ruined by people in power.
They surely can. But the point was more than the people in power don't really need Signal metadata to do that. On the lists of security concerns modern protestors need to be worrying about, Signal really just isn't very high.
This is the price we pay to defend our rights. I would also expect any reasonable grand jury to reject such charges given how flagrantly the government has attempted to bias the public against protesters.
How do you connect a strangers face to a phone number? Or does it require the ELITE app?
Palantir steps in indeed
conspiracy charges are a thing, and they'll only need a few examples of manifestly illegal interference.
it will be quite easy for a prosecutor to charge lots of these people.
it's been done for less, and even if the case is thrown out it can drag on for years and involve jail time before any conviction.
If they could arrest people for what they've been doing, they would have already arrested people. And they have arrested a few here and there for "assault" (things like daring to react when being shoved by an annoyed officer), but the thing that's really pissing DHS off is that the protesters and observers are not breaking the law.
Remember that most of the participants in J6 walked away and were later rounded up and arrested across the country once the FBI had collected voluminous digital and surveillance evidence to support prosecution.
The J6 insurrectionists committed real crimes, and it's very good that they were rounded up, but afaiu most of the evidence had to do with them provably assaulting officers, damaging property, and breaking into a government building. Not that they messaged other people when they were legally demonstrating before the Capital invasion.
The real protection for the legal protesters and observers in MN is numbers. They can't arrest and control and entire populace.
People were also charged for coordinating and supporting J6 without being there, e.g. Enrique Tarrio of the "Proud Boys" was charged with seditious conspiracy based on activity in messaging apps. If people in these Signal chats were aware that people were using force to inhibit federal law enforcement, which some of the leaked training materials suggest is most likely true and easy to prove, and there are messages showing their support or coordination of those actions, I assume they could face the same charges.
They had a lot more than metadata on Enrique Tarrio.
Right, usually law enforcement gets chat logs from a participant (search warrant for a phone, informants, undercover FBI agents, etc) and uses the metadata to connect messages to a real person's identity.
Fortunately for us (or really unfortunately for us) most of the competent FBI agents have been fired or quit, with the new bar simply being loyalty to the president.
The FBI is weak now compared to what it was even two years ago.
Most are probably just keeping their heads down, trying to wait out this administration. When you're in that kind of cushy career track, you'd have to be very dumb or very selfless to give it up.
That was a different, Biden's, FBI
Yeah, and I wouldn't bet money on this happening for that reason. But it is possible.
one person walking away from a police encounter doesn't mean police think that person did not break the law.
prosecutors may take their time and file charges at their leisure.
That may be true in the abstract (although it doesn't matter if the cops think you're breaking the law. What matters is whether or not a judge does).
However, neither Border patrol nor ICE have been exhibiting thoughtfulness or patience, so I doubt they're playing any such long game.
Conspiracy requires an agreement to commit an illegal act, and entering into that agreement must be intentional.
Some of the signal messages I've seen screenshotted (granted screenshots can be altered) make it seem like the participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track vehicles that they think are ICE. That would probably be an illegal use of that data if true.
> make it seem like the participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track vehicles
The whole reason cops love ALPR data is anyone's allowed to collect it, so they don't need a warrant.
The government falling victim to ALPR for once might actually be the push we need to get some reform. That said, they'll probably try to ban it for everybody but themselves. Never before have they had such comprehensive surveillance and I don't expect them to give it up easily.
It’s probably illegal for a state law enforcement official (presumably) to share it with randos on the internet though.
I remember having to explain to you that the CFAA doesn't apply to German citizens in Germany committing acts against a German website, so I'll take that legal advice with a few Dead Seas worth of salt.
Tow trucks have ALPR cameras to find repossessions. Plenty of private options for obtaining that sort of data; you can buy your own for a couple hundred bucks. https://linovision.com/products/2-mp-deepinview-anpr-box-wit...
Government intimidation of the practice of constitutional rights... what ever could go wrong.
I was replying specifically to this:
> This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem
I was not saying it's not a problem that the feds are doing this, because that's not what I was replying to.
You are going to need to clarify more. I have no idea what you are for.
Why does a person have to be "for" something?
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The statement was made to point out that this is an example where a phone number is enough metadata to to problematic for privacy. It stands on its own. It doesn't need more context or purpose.
"sleaze"?
That seems like a weak argument.
I mean, carrying a weapon is a 2nd amendment right, but if I bring it to a protest and then start intimidating people with it, the police going after me is not "Government intimidation of the practice of constitutional rights".
Protesting is a constitution right, but if you break the law while protesting, you're fair game for prosecution.
Was starting to think about setting up a neighborhood Signal group, but now thinking that maybe something like Briar might be safer... only problem is that Briar only works on Android which is going to exclude a lot of iPhone users.
I spent a dozen years in SF, where my friend circles routinely used Signal. It's my primary messaging app, including to family and childhood friends.
I live in NY now. Just today, I got a message from a close friend who also did SF->NY "I'm deleting Signal to get more space on my phone, because nobody here uses it. Find me on WhatsApp or SMS."
To a naïve audience, Signal can have a stigma "I don't do anything illegal, so why should I bother maintaining yet-another messenger whose core competency is private messaging?" Signal is reasonably mainstream, and there are still a lot of people who won't use it.
I suspect you'll have an uphill battle using something even more obscure.
> Signal can have a stigma "I don't do anything illegal, so why should I bother ..."
Aside: I see similar attitudes when I mention I use VPN all of the time
What about BitChat?
Why wouldn't you just use random abandoned forums or web article message threads? Iirc this is what teenagers used to do when schools banned various social media but not devices. Just put the URL in a discrete qr code that only a person in the neighborhood could see.
but this is not a technical attack that returns the metadata.
much more closer to the $5 wrench attack
https://xkcd.com/538/
I highly recommend this book. It goes into who funds these things.
https://www.amazon.com/Surveillance-Valley-Military-History-...
I have seen anti-Signal FUD all over the place since it was discovered that protesters have been coordinating on Signal.
Here’s the facts:
- Protesters have been coordinating using Signal
- Breaches of private Signal groups by journalists and counter protesters were due to poor opsec and vetting
- If the feds have an eye into those groups, it’s likely that they gained access in the same way as well as through informants (which are common)
- Signal is still known to be secure
- In terms of potential compromise, it’s much more likely for feds to use spyware like Pegasus to compromise the endpoint than for them to be able to break Signal. If NSA has a Signal vulnerability they will probably use it very sparingly and on high profile foreign targets.
- The fact that even casual third parties can break into these groups because of opsec issues shows that encryption is not a panacea. People will always make mistakes, so the fact that secure platforms exist is not a threat in itself, and legal backdoors are not needed.
The downside of opsec is that it breeds paranoia and fear about legal, civic participation. In a way, bullshit investigations like this are an intimidation tactic. What are they going to find - a bunch of Minnesotans that were mad about state-backed killings?
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The only reason you think this is because all of your opinions are predetermined by MAGA elites.
Also the current US government think it’s secure enough for their war planning!
They actually used a hackish third party client (interesting since Signal forbids those) which stores message logs centrally, assuming it’s for required USG record keeping. Turns out that it’s possible to invite unwanted guests into your chat whether you’re a protestor or a government official. (It also appears that government contractors still write shitty software.)
Thanks. This really should be the top comment.
Feds and ICE are using Palantir ELITE.
That’s only for targeting. From what I understand ELITE does not include device compromise or eavesdropping. If feds want to compromise a device that has Signal, they would use something like Pegasus that uses exploits to deliver a spyware package, likely through SMS, Whatsapp, or spear phishing URL. (I don’t actually know which software is currently in use but it would be similar to Pegasus.)
As mentioned by someone else, they just need to take the phone of a demonstrator to access their signal groups.
https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-phone...
True, physical interception is probably the easiest method, at least for short term access. Once the captured user is identified and removed from the group they will lose access though.
i suppose what he means is that the phones of protestors which have signal chat will be investigated.
Assuming they dont have disappearing messages activated, and assuming any protestors willingly unlock their phones.
> willingly unlock their phones
Or they are running any mainstream iPhone or Android phone, they've unlocked the phone at least once since their last reboot, and the police have access to graykey. Not sure what the current state of things is, since we rely on leaked documents, but my take-away from the 2024 leaks was GrapheneOS Before First Unlock (BFU) is the only defense.
Where has there been any allegations iPhone before first unlock has been bypassed?
GrapheneOS isn't quite as secure in the real world. Pixels continue to have baseband and OOBConfig exploits that allow pushing zero interaction updates, or system memory access.
Here's the iPhone spreadsheet from the 2024 leak: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qZESd9Zj5HkMZnIjLStS...
It only goes up to iOS 18 since that was the latest version at the time.
Here is an article about the leaks: https://archive.ph/JTLIU
https://freedom.press/digisec/blog/new-leaks-on-police-phone...
I don't think locked[1] GrapheneOS is considered vulnerable for AFU attack anymore: https://www.androidauthority.com/cellebrite-leak-google-pixe...
Notice even unlocked doesn't allow FFS.
[1] assuming standard security settings of course.
Isn't latest iPhones also have similar security profile on BFU. The latest support table I saw from one of the vendors was also confirming this.
>is the only defense.
Or you know, the 2nd amendment.
Id be willing to bet that ICE would have a much smaller impact if they would be met with bullets instead of cameras. In the end, what ICE is doing doesn't really matter to Trump, as long as MAGA believes that things are being done, even if nothing is being done, he doesn't care.
Never fear, the 2nd amendments days are numbered too. Trump just said 'You can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns' (the 'in' in this context being 'outside')
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-you-cant-have-gu...
I really hope he implements this, because we are gonna see mental gymnastics on the Olympic level from the right wing commentators.
They already continue to support him after proposing (twice!) taking people's guns without due process.
Fed
Ah yes, there is the uncomfortable feeling deep in your gut that you suppress, but a part of you knows it can happen.
I hope you realize that civil unrest is coming. Maybe not in a month. Maybe not even in a year. But at some point, after Trump fucks with elections and installs himself as a 3d term president, and the economy takes a nose dive as companies start pulling out of US, peoples savings are destroyed, and states start being more separationist, you are gonna see way worse things.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fedpost#English
i know what fedposting means.
Im just saying your reaction to it is predictable
Nothing about the 2nd amendment legalizes shooting law enforcement officers.
This has always been the absurdity of the moronic claims of the 2nd amendment being to overthrow government tyranny: You may own the gun legally, but at no point will your actions be legal. If you've decided the government needs to be overthrown, you are already throwing "law" out the window, even if you have a valid argument that the government you are overthrowing has abandoned the constitution.
Why the fuck do you need legal guns to commit treason? Last I checked, most government overthrows don't even involve people armed with private rifles!
If you are overthrowing the government, you will need to take over local police stations. At the moment, you no longer need private arms, and what you are doing isn't legal anyway.
Meanwhile, every single fucking time it has come up, the gun nuts go radio silent when the government kills the right person who happens to own a gun. Every. Single. Time.
It took minutes for the "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" people who raised a million dollars for Kyle Rittenhouse to defend himself for driving to a protest in a different state while armed to the teeth to of course get to shoot someone to turn around and say "Actually bringing a gun to a protest makes you a terrorist and you need to be shot". Minutes. They have also put up GoFundMes for the guy who executed that man.
If you are too scared to stand up to your government without a fucking rifle, you have never been an actual threat to your government, and they know that.
Sure there is the usual hypocrisy but IMO what's more interesting is that, based on some posts that pop up on my FB feed, there has been a real backlash among gun nuts and people like Rittenhouse himself.
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That's a strange take. It also feels like exactly what they are hoping to have happen. Encouraging gun violence is not something condoned, so not sure why you are posting that nonsense. Are you an agitator?
Strange take? Are you kidding me?
The second amendment is literally in the constitution for the EXACT reason where if a governing entity decides to violate the security and freedoms of people, the people have the right to own weapons and organize a militia.
Plus nobody really needs to die. Having enough people point guns at them is going to make them think twice about starting shit. Contrary to popular belief, ICE agents aren't exactly martyrs for the cause. There are already groups of people armed outside protecting others, for this exact reason.
You are the actual fed lmao.
I wish we would stop using that word 'agitator', while I understand the subjective idea that someone is just trying to stir up trouble, it kind of undermines the idea that we should be able to express opinions no matter how distasteful.
and apparently it now a perfectly valid reason for the state to execute someone without being charged or a trial.
anyone promoting for people to start showing up and shooting at law enforcement, even if it is ICE, is what if not an agitator?
where is the line? I was fine with the word until it started being used to justify killing innocents
Then be upset with them for misappropriating the word. I'm using it just fine, thank you very much!
I consider the term to be a label of a bad-faith actor vs. someone who holds genuine conviction that the "agitating action" is a good thing.
A Chinese bot farmer who says we should be shooting each other? Agitator.
A neighbor who says "If I see LEO murder someone, I'm taking them on"? Not an agitator.
> A neighbor who says "If I see LEO murder someone, I'm taking them on"? Not an agitator.
That's not what was said here though
There are already people on X who have infiltrated chats and posted screen captures. Getting the full content of the chats isn't going to be difficult. They have way to many people in them.
Or has biometric login turned on and didn't lock their phone behind a passcode before being arrested.
Unlocking isn't necessary, We've already seen that Apple and Google will turn data over on government requests.
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-complies-percent-us-go...
Non-paywalled link?
https://archive.ph/copyn
It wasn’t paywalled for me, BTW.
Unfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully vetted, in which case they could be feds collecting "evidence". Some chats may have publicly circulating invite links.
But any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a first-amendment basis is doing the business of an authoritarian dictator. This is fully protected speech and assembly.
> any judge that doesn't immediately reject such cases on a first-amendment basis
If you say something illegal in a chat with a cop in it, or say it in public, I don’t think there are Constitutional issues with the police using that as evidence. (If you didn’t say anything illegal, you have a valid defence.)
Not sure what difference that makes, it's not like the current regime limits their actions to respect constitutional bounds.
Sure. Can you give me an example of something that's illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal observers?
One of the things that has been circulating in videos of the Signal chats online is someone confirming/not confirming that certain license plates are related to ICE. Perhaps if someone is misusing their access to an administrative or law enforcement database to ‘run plates’ and report on who owns the vehicle, this could be unlawful.
I don’t know if anyone IS using such a database unlawfully - they might be checking the plate number against an Excel sheet they created based on other reports from people opposed to ICE - but if its a databse they shouldn’t be using in this way, if might be against the law.
> Perhaps if someone is misusing their access to an administrative or law enforcement database to ‘run plates’ and report on who owns the vehicle, this could be unlawful.
But that's not an example of something that would be illegal to say in a chat. It would be an example of something that's illegal to do regardless of the chat.
I don't think the idea is that the speech in the chat is inherently illegal; it's that it could be used as evidence of illegal activity. Using that example - if someone in the chat asks about plate XYZ at 10AM, and if a phone linked to "Bob" posts to the group chat at 10:04 AM that license plate XYZ is used by ICE, and the internal logs show that Bob queried the ICE database about plate XYZ at 10:02 AM, and no one else queried that license plate in the past month, that is pretty good evidence that Bob violated the CFAA.
> Can you give me an example of something that's illegal to say in a group chat that coordinates legal observers?
Actual examples? No. I don’t believe it happened.
Hypothetical examples? Co-ordinating gunning down ICE agents. If the chat stays on topic to “coordinat[ing] legal observers,” there shouldn’t be liability. The risk with open chats is they can go off topic if unmoderated.
"ICE are at (address)" apparently
> Unfortunately not everyone in a group chat may be fully vetted,
Curious how many group chats have unknowingly allowed a well known journalist into their groups.
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> Patel said he got the idea for the investigation from Higby.
This is confirmation that this wasn't being investigated until just now. This is surprising, I would have thought that "how are these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look into.
> I would have thought that "how are these people organizing" would have been an obvious thing to look into.
You assume competence. Have you heard (or heard of) Kash Patel?
Why is it so obvious to you to investigate something that is perfectly legal?
> something that is perfectly legal
The goal is to prevent ICE / BP from doing their jobs. Which I rather suspect is not actually legal.
Thinking they're incompetent doesn't change that. Thinking the specific laws they're (nominally) enforcing are evil doesn't change that. Thinking that national borders are fundamentally illegitimate doesn't change that.
Perhaps the FBI had been ignoring this out of incompetence. Perhaps they'd been ignoring it as a form of protest. Either is interesting.
Indeed, as sibling commenter notes, it's not to prevent ICE from doing their jobs. Observers do not take physical actions to block ICE/CBP. Observers are there to
1) get the name & some other info from the person being abducted so that their family can be contacted
2) record the encounter so that ICE/CBP has some check on their behavior, or legal action can be taken in the future to prosecute them for violence and destruction of property
3) recover the belongings of the person abducted and ensure family/friends can get these things, as often wallet, cell phone, shoes, coat, and vehicle (even still running) are left behind
4) get a tow truck for any vehicle left behind, preferably from one of the tow services that is towing for free or low cost
4) connect family/friends with legal resources, if needed, or simply let them know that their lawyer needs to get to the Whipple Building ASAP
None of those things are illegal. In some of the small rural towns in Minnesota, there aren't observers there, and the phones/vehicles/wallets of people kidnapped from Walmart are just... left in the parking lot, in the snow. It adds insult to injury to have your phone & wallet gone, your car window smashed in, and a big fee from the municipal towing lot if you're a US citizen who is then released from detainment 12 hours later. And if you're not a US citizen but you have legal status, you want your family to get an attorney working ASAP to ensure you're not flown to Texas -- because if you're flown to Texas, even in error, you need to get back on your own (again without your wallet/phone/etc if those things didn't happen to stick with you).
Not to mention they keep releasing people with no phone & no jacket, even no shoes, into the zero or negative degree weather we've been having.
> Observers do not take physical actions to block ICE/CBP.
As clearly seen in multiple videos, including at least one video of almost every major incident we're supposed to get outraged about, yes, they clearly do.
> Not to mention they keep releasing people with no phone & no jacket, even no shoes, into the zero or negative degree weather we've been having.
How come the cold weather doesn't justify ICE wearing "masks" which often appear to just be face/neck warmers?
> The goal is to prevent ICE / BP from doing their jobs.
No. The goal is to protest ICE / BP doing their jobs in criminal ways.
The current bias is so large for the administration that most people haven't even clocked that what they are doing is legal
> “As soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it,”
So when a right wing 'reporter' highlights people are doing things within their legal right, there's an investigation straight away.
But they can release the Epstien files when the victims themselves are asking them to.
> if that leads to a break in the federal statute or a violation of some law, then we are going to arrest people
That's not how the justice system works, you can't just go on fishing expeditions to find a crime.
Don't want to spoil the fun here. But easy:
Don't write anything that you don't want LEO to read.
Schrödinger's HN story: Is it a tech story (in which case it's uninteresting) or is it a political story (in which case it's against the rules)? It's both.
Yeah Cam Higby & friends have "infiltrated" the Signal groups. It's not that hard frankly, and most of the chats emphasize that 1) they're unvetted, 2) don't do anything illegal, anywhere, including taking a right on red if the sign is there saying not to 3) don't write anything you don't want read back to you in a court of law. Higby and friends do have "How do you do, Fellow Kids?" energy in those chats.
Here's what I'm interested in: anyone know what Penlink's tools' capabilities actually are? Tangles and WebLoc. Are they as useful as advertised?
Why is it so hard for someone like Trump to admit that a mistake was made by one of his agents, put him in jail and leave Minnesota alone at least for a while? It was predictable that things would get worse if he didn't back off and tell the truth.
How many rights can Trump trample in one year? This is a big deal. I realize most of the problems started with the patriot act (most members of congress are culpable for that). We should all have zero tolerance for the erosion of our rights, zero tolerance for fake emergencies!
Osama bin Laden won.
The FBI should investigate the murders done by ICE and until done with that, remain silent.
And importantly the DoJ attorneys who would be responsible for investigating g the murders resigned because they were prevented from performing the standard procedure investigation that happens after every single shooting. They were instead directed to investigate the family of the person who was shot:
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/nyt-6-federal-prosecutor...
We are through the looking glass, folks. This will be dropped and ignored like so many other outrages unless we demand answers from Congress, and hold SCOTUS responsible for partisan abdication of their constitutional duties.
> unless we demand answers from Congress, and hold SCOTUS responsible for partisan abdication of their constitutional duties.
You can demand answers from Congress, but until a significant portion of the GOP base demands answers, they are just going to ignore your demands. As of now 39% of Americans support the administration. Also, you can't hold SCOTUS responsible, only Congress can.
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Currently they are attempting to strip our second amendment rights. They murdered a man in the street, from hands up to shit in the back in under 20 seconds, merely for lawful possession and in direct violation of the 2nd amendment. The President is bumbling around today mumbling "you can't bring a gun to a protest" when yes the 2nd amendment directly allows that.
A lot of people that care a lot about the 2nd amendment saw the photo of Pretti's gun on the ICE rental car seat, and they saw a well-used, well-cared-for weapon that was clean and seen a lot time at the range. They saw that it can happen to somebody just like them.
> you can't bring a gun to a protest" when yes the 2nd amendment directly allows that.
They conveniently forgot their excuses for Rittenhouse. Guess they all changed their mind and think he should be arrested.
The core belief of the Trump administration is that there are two groups: an in-group which the law protects but does not bind, and an out-group which the law binds but does not protect. --Someone far more insightful than me
As often happens these days, I’m confused at the hysteria here.
Police messed up and someone got killed. I feel like outrage is warranted if nothing is done about it, but after seeing the videos I’m fairly confident this won’t get swept under the rug. Will we retract our outrage when a conviction is delivered? Is there a reason we expect nothing to come of this?
Because the people doing the investigating are on the side of the people who committed the crimes. And the people who voted for them seem predisposed to vote for them again, even if this gets swept under the rug.
News cycles go fast. Outrage is quickly forgotten. Now more than ever, as there are new outrages coming on the heels of the last.
As often happens these days, I’m confused at the hysteria here.
No you're not. You're choosing words like 'hysteria' to delegitimize others' opinions while striking a posture of disinterested neutrality.
I'm an outsider, I can well understand the ever growing outrage.
In a nutshell, to date, US ICE & DHS interactions have resulted in 10 people shot **, 3 people killed, and established a pattern of high level officials immediately blatently lying and contradicting video evidence.
That pattern includes obvious attempts to avoid investigation, to excuse people involved, to not investigate the bigger picture of how interactions are staged such that civilian deaths are inevitable.
It's good to see the citizens of the US dig in and demand that federal forces and federal heads of agencies be held accountable for clearly screwed up deployments and behaviours.
** My apologies, I just saw a Wash Post headliine that indicates it is now 16 shootings that are being actively swept under a rug.
A lot of people would disagree with your use of the word “police.”
They wear masks, don’t get warrants before entering houses, regularly arrest American citizens, and are operating far from anything a reasonable person would call an immigration or customs checkpoint.
Also, they’ve been ordered in public (by Trump) and private (by superiors) to violate the law, and have been promised “absolute immunity” for their crimes (by Trump).
One other thing: Trump and his administration have made it clear (in writing) that ICE’s mission in Minnesota is to terrorize the public until Governor Walz makes a bunch of policy changes that the courts have declined to force. So, there’s no reasonable argument to be made that they’re acting as law enforcement.
> Will we retract our outrage when a conviction is delivered? Is there a reason we expect nothing to come of this?
I doubt the Trump DOJ will want to prosecute this. Now, if Democrats win in 2028, maybe the Newsom (or whoever) DOJ will-but Trump might just give everyone involved a pardon on the way out the door. And I doubt a state prosecution would survive the current SCOTUS majority.
So yes, there are decent reasons to suspect “nothing to come of this” in the purely legal domain. Obviously it is making an impact in the political domain.
> Police messed up and someone got killed.
ICE, a federal agency and not a state or municipal police force, had a man face down and unarmed. There were what, half a dozen of them? He was completely subdued. They then shot him in the back.
This was not a “mistake.” This was murder.
There is no investigation. They haven't even released the officers' names.
Is your ignorance intentional? The FBI raided the ICE agents home to remove incriminating paraphernalia and blocked normal investigative processes. Heads of various agencies staffed by Trump loyalists called the victim a domestic terrorist while a video showed him being shit kicked and not meaningfully resisting before being executed by an agent who I would be doing a service to by calling undisciplined.
The entire fact that ICE is in Minnesota instead of a border state with heavier illegal immigration on patrols performing illegal 4th-amendment violating door to door raids is already a complete abomination in the face of American’s rights and their constitution.
And you disapprove of outrage over an innocent man being extrajudicially executed in the face of all of this?
Let me know how the boot tasted so at least I can learn something from this
This is what I don't understand about American authoritarians. Historically speaking, if you try to take away the liberty of Americans, they respond with lethal violence.
Britain tried to tax Americans without government representation, and they started sending the tax man home naked and covered in tar, feathers, and third-degree burns. These stories are then taught to schoolchildren as examples of how Americans demand freedom above all else.
If the powers that be keep doing whatever they want without consequence, eventually there will be consequences, and those consequences very well could be the act of being physically removed from their ivory towers and vivisected in the streets.
according to urban dictionary, wolfenstein as a verb means
To kill or utterly destroy a large group of enemies with an extreme overabundance of weapons and items, including throwing knives to the head, poison, stabs to the neck or back, kicks to the chest, shoves off of high ledges, multiple headshots, artillery, panzer rockets, flames, dynamite, mines, construction pliers, airstrikes, or even slamming a door into someone's chest. Wolfensteining a group of enemies requires that every kill be performed using a different method
you are calling for extreme violence?
According to Urban Dictionary, cat as a noun means:
> an epic creature that will shoot fire at you if you get near it. you can usually find one outside or near/in a house. its main abilities are to chomp and scratch but they can also pounce, shoot lasers out of their eyes, be cute, jump as high as they want, and fly. do not fight one unless you are equipped with extreme power armor and heavy assault cannons. […]
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cat
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I think that is what he is doing, I think it's an accurate expression of his thinking.
I was informing the community what the word means after putting in the effort to look it up.
If you are not curious, if you can't handle differences of opinion, you don't belong here.
I don’t object to you defining something.
> I think that is what he is doing, I think it's an accurate expression of his thinking.
It isn’t. It is like saying “you can do that but you will eventually get beat up.” That is not saying “people should beat you up.” There is a world of difference in those 2 statements. Your accusation hinges on the worst possible - debatably possible at best tbh - interpretation of their statement. It is bait, it is dishonest, and you’re being intentional about it.
This is not a difference of opinion, this is not curiosity, you are just being difficult.
That's straight up corrupt third world country stuff.
"Sh*thole countries" was projection
Everything is a projection with these people. Including the pedophilia.
It is going to get a lot worse. Trump's eventual goal is to send the military to all Democrat-controlled cities. Back in September Trump gathered military leaders in a room and told them America is under "invasion from within". He said: "This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war too. It's a war from within."
You spend too much time on the internet.
I see you all over these comments. People were denying it would get as bad as it has already gotten.
I'm here indeed. How bad is it, objectively?
We went from the "War On Drugs" to the "War On Ourselves".
How is it corrupt? The DA chose to resign, they weren't forced out.
I as someone with power over you will repeatedly force you to do an illegal and or immoral act. I have doubt you have the balls to resign rather than follow along, but if you do resign I hope you don't say you were forced out. Be honest.
They were prevented from following just policy, and were being forced to perform actions that go against professional ethics, politically driven prosecutions unconnected from fact or law.
People resigned to send the message to the public: the integrity of the office had been compromised, and the lawyers (lawyers!!) couldn't stay due to their ethics. This is a difficult thing to understand for people that lack ethics.
If those shooters don't get presidential pardons, they're going to get prosecuted sooner or later. No statute of limitations for murder, right?
They're wearing masks. Have they been identified?
Presidential pardons have no impact and their liability for state-law murder charges (though federal seizure of crime scenes and destruction of evidence might, in practice.)
Yes, but In re Neagle (1890) is SCOTUS precedent granting federal agents immunity from state criminal prosecution for acts committed while carrying out their official duties (and the act at question in that case was homicide). Now, its precise boundaries are contested - in Idaho v. Horiuchi (2001), the 9th Circuit held that In re Neagle didn’t apply if the federal agent used unreasonable force - but that case was rendered moot when the state charges were dropped, and hence the issue never made it to SCOTUS. Considering the current SCOTUS majority’s prior form on related topics (see Trump v. United States), I think odds are high they’ll read In re Neagle narrowly, and invalidate any state criminal prosecution attempts.
In re Neagle (while, unfortunately, it does not state as clear of a rule as Horiuchi on the standard that should be applied) conducts an expansive facts-based analysis on the question of whether, in fact, the acts performed were done in in the performance of his lawful federal duties (if anything, the implicit standard seems less generous to the federal officer than Horiuchi’s explicit rule, which would allow Supremacy Clause immunity if the agent had an actual and objectively reasonable belief that he acted within his lawful duties, even if, in fact, he did not.)
But, yeah, any state prosecutions (likely especially the first) is going to (1) get removed to federal court, and (2) go through a wringer of federal litigation, likely reaching the Supreme Court, over Supremacy Clause immunity before much substantive happens on anything else.
OTOH, the federal duty at issue in in re Neagle was literally protecting the life of a Supreme Court justice riding circuit, as much as the present Court may have a pro-Trump bias, I wouldn't count on it being as strong of a bias as it had in Neagle.
I just realised another angle: 28 U.S.C. § 1442 enables state prosecutions of federal agents to be removed to federal court. Now, if Trump pardons the agent, does the federal pardon preclude that trial in federal court? To my knowledge, there is no direct case law on this question; there is an arguable case that the answer is “no”, but ultimately the answer is whatever SCOTUS wants it to be.
I'll eat your hat if any of these goons ever see in the inside of a holding cell
But pardons only apply to federal crimes… murder is a state offense.
Correct, state charges are mostly pardon proof and there is no statute of limitations on murder.
So ... you're saying that this militia as every incentive to overthrow democratie so that they never get prosecuted, right ?
See where this is going ?
They don't need to overthrow democracy, they just need to use jurisdiction removal to have the state charges placed in federal court, and then appeal it up to SCOTUS who will overturn the decision.
The US couldn't win a war in the middle east with trillions of dollars, thousands of soldiers dead, and tens of thousands substantially wounded. Hasn't won a war since WW2. Is everything going swimmingly? Certainly not. There are 340M Americans, ~20k-30k ICE folks, and ~1M soldiers on US soil. These odds don't keep me up at night. 77% of US 18-24 cohort don't qualify for military service without some form of waiver (due to obesity, drug use, or mental health issues).
I admit, US propaganda is very good at projecting an image of strength. I strongly doubt it is prepared for a civil ground war, based on all available evidence. It cannot even keep other nation states out of critical systems. See fragile systems for what they are.
There are 340 million Americans, but 80 million of them voted for this administration, and another 80 million were not interested either way. Only about 20% of the population voted to oppose it.
If you're imagining a large scale revolt, figure that the revolutionaries will be outnumbered by counter-revolutionaries, even without the military. (Which would also include police forces amounting to millions more.)
I have no confidence in the gravy seals of this country, broadly speaking. What’s the average health and age of someone who voted for this? Not great, based on the evidence, especially considering the quality of ICE folks (bottom of the barrel).
https://www.kff.org/from-drew-altman/trump-voters-on-medicai...
https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-breakout/voters-in-trump-c...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8294501/
Well, they are entirely Presidential pardon proof, but each state usually has its own pardon provisions. Unlikely to benefit ICE agents as a broad class in any of the places where conflicts over their role are currently prominent, though.
They should charge it as a criminal conspiracy and use the state felony murder statute to go after leadership.
That depends, the civil service has a lot of leverage because most of them cannot easily be fired. And POTUS needs the civil service to execute his policy goals so his fellow party members and possibly himself can get re-elected.
Therefore there is considerable leverage for allied servants to form an alliance that more or less offers their allegiance in exchange for non-prosecution. I would expect especially DHS to basically become a non-functional (or even seditious) department if they prosecute those guys and they could purposefully make the president look bad by making his security apparatus look incompetent.
> Therefore there is considerable leverage for allied servants to form an alliance that more or less offers their allegiance in exchange for non-prosecution.
Won't help if the prosecuting sovereignty isn't the one they work for (state vs federal charges.)
Also won't work if the agency is disbanded and they are dismissed en masse before the prosecution happens.
> the civil service has a lot of leverage because most of them cannot easily be fired
Unless, as Doge showed us, you ignore the law, fire them anyway, and the SCOTUS says, "Yeah, whatever."
Maybe not in the most recent case with the border patrol. Aside from their bad gear and bad communication the agent that cleared the Sig said "Muffled word Gun" and the guys holding the known agitator down clearly misunderstood that as "Gun!" so they repeated it and the agent in cover position fired. I'm sure it did not help that all these guys could hear is blaring loud whistles which is why I would personally hold the protestors partially responsible. I know I will catch flak for those observations but I stand by them as I am neither left nor right and these observations are just obvious. As an insufferable principal armchair commander I would also add that these incidents are primarily occurring in sanctuary cities where antifa community organizers are escalating non stop in hopes that someone dies and they can use it as political fodder later on and in hopes they can radicalize people. Just my opinion but I think it is going to backfire. The normies can see what is going on.
> cleared the Sig said "Muffled word Gun"
The person in front said "I've got the gun, I've got the gun", and I can tell that quite clearly in the videos.
> here antifa community organizers are escalating non stop in hopes that someone dies [...] in hopes they can radicalize people
I think this rhetorical frame highlights how many people don't believe in protest. Expressing disdain for trampling of civil liberties is not 'escalation' any more than the curtailment of fourth amendment rights that inspire the protests.
I am not attacking you (I believe we should all be able to express how we feel with respect to the government). I just want to highlight a reason why you may feel that this level of unrest is meant to "radicalize people".
The person in front said "I've got the gun, I've got the gun", and I can tell that quite clearly in the videos.
That means there is an even better version that what I saw and heard which means normies will figure out fairly quick this was not malicious intent. Perhaps malicious incompetency but certainly not an intentional execution.
I just want to highlight a reason why you may feel that this level of unrest is meant to "radicalize people".
I would accept that if these were just protesters, stood at the side of the road holding up signs but a number of them are far from it. They have formed military squads, dox agents and attack them at home and in their personal vehicles, coordinate their attacks between multiple groups of "vetted" agitators. They are tracking their personal vehicles and their family members. They are blocking traffic and forcing people out of their cars. At best this is an insurgency being coordinated from out-of-state agitators and at the behest of the state governor. They are egging people on to break numerous laws, obstruct federal agents, throw bricks at agents or anyone they think is an agent, use bull-horns at full volume in the ears of anyone supporting the agents. I could go on for hours regarding all the illegal shenanigans. So yeah these are people trying to radicalize others and trying to get people hurt or killed. This is primarily occurring in sanctuary cities where the government is actively encouraging their citizens to attack federal agents. That is not even close to anything that resembles protesting and is not anywhere near a protected right.
I also blame President Trump for not invoking the insurrection act and curtailing this very early on.
Thanks for your response, I think we disagree on a few things but I appreciate your arguments.
My main question is how you might frame the protests (comprising legal and potentially illegal behaviors) in the context of how the US was founded, or in the French revolutions. Were we in the 1750s, would your assessment about how to go about protesting be the same?
Here, I'm not making arguments about what is or is not similar, just trying to understand how you view historical political upheaval from the perspective of the people who lived in those times.
edit: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/01/27/congress/pr...
Apparently the agents yelled 'he's got a gun'
My main question is how you might frame the protests (comprising legal and potentially illegal behaviors) in the context of how the US was founded, or in the French revolutions. Were we in the 1750s, would your assessment about how to go about protesting be the same?
The founding of the nation was far more violent and laws were sparse but I am sure you know how complex of a question you are asking. There are multi-volume books and movies created around that mess. I would never want a return to those times and behaviors that we are purportedly evolved beyond.
What I do not understand is why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants. I am told it is for voting purposes to get more delegates but it can't really be worth it. At least in my opinion it would not be worth it. All of that said I am not in favor of kicking people out that have been here for decades and that had properly integrated into our society. That I could see people protesting if they were in fact just protesting.
> What I do not understand is why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants. I am told it is for voting purposes to get more delegates but it can't really be worth it. At least in my opinion it would not be worth
My issue with the current tactics is a loss of our Bill of Rights privileges (note this doesn't depend on citizenship), which really can only go poorly from here.
> What I do not understand is why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants.
There's an easy argument about maintaining Constitutional rights for every person—once we stop doing that, we're essentially finished as a democracy.
The majority of people being removed are not criminals of any sort whatsoever. It's tricky to get data about this as DHS is releasing very political statements[1] but many have been in the US for decades and have no criminal records in Minnesota. Also, Minnesota is not a liberal state—being a Democrat means different things in different parts of the country, and things are quite 'centrist' there; I say this to discourage porting sensibilities from other states.
1. DHS Highlights Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens Arrested in Minnesota Yesterday Including Murderers, Drug Traffickers, and an Illegal Alien with TWENTY-FOUR Convictions - (this is the title of the relevant webpage)
edit - To distill my perspective, I am worried that we will lose our rights, not because I am alarmist, but because this has happened in several democracies this century, notably Turkey (but also cf Hungary, Poland, the Philipnes). Even amongst undemocratic nations, strongmen are upending institutions (China, but also more recently in West Africa).
The only way the US can escape is by continually standing up for what rights we still have.
> why people in some cities are defending violent illegal immigrants
Most are not violent.[1] Many of them are “here for decades and that had properly integrated into our society” just like you said, or are attempting to integrate and be here legally, so people are defending them. If the government can trample one group over the worst crimes of a few of its members, it can trample any group for any reason, so we must stand together to protect our freedom.
[1] https://www.cato.org/blog/5-ice-detainees-have-violent-convi...
I guess I'll bite.
ICE is not targeting violent illegal immigrants. They are targeting legal residents, immigrants with pending asylum cases that allow them to stay, US citizens that happen to look like immigrants maybe, people that are legally recording their activities in public from a safe distance, all kinds of people really.
they are protesting masked armed thugs running around their neighborhood smashing windows and dragging people out of cars because they happen to feel like it. running up to people and pepper spraying them in eyes for saying things they dont like. and yes, shooting them.
I think everyone can understand someone saying 'wtf, no' in those circumstances. except you.
congress isn't going to do anything. All it would take is about 20 republican sentors to bring this shit to a halt. They are not doing anything, they all have blood on their hands.
At this point I think the only thing that will work is organizing a month where the nation stops spending money and going to work.
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80 million Americans thought it.
“For my friends everything, for my enemies the law” ― Oscar R. Benavides
The police (FBI and ICE included) are never your friends. They work to protect the rich and powerful and not us.
They work to protect the government. Now, for peasants there isn't much of a distinction, but the rich and powerful would do well to remember it.
Cynical responses like this are meant to make the speaker sound smart, but actually what you're doing is making further tyranny more likely, because you're deliberately overlooking that-- whatever the existing problems with the FBI-- there is a significant difference between their behavior now and their behavior before.
Not even bothering to run the established investigation playbook when law enforcement kills a civilian is a major departure, and one worth noticing. But if all you do is go "same old same old", then you can safely lean back in your chair and do nothing as the problem worsens, while calling yourself so much smarter and more insightful than the people around you.
I would disagree to a certain extent. "Law enforcement is not your friend" is a good mindset as a citizen. You should never hand them information without a lawyer and you should always push for oversight.
I agree that the "same at it ever was and always will be" attitude isn't great. It's defeatist and I choose not to live my life that way, even if it would be much easier mentally.
I think part of the reason I see this attitude so often is that, especially since 9/11, a large portion of the US population has decided that the police and military are infallible and should be trusted completely, so any large-scale attempt at reform runs into these unwavering supporters (and, in the case of the police, their unions).
I don't agree law enforcement is not the problem. Its the people in the system that are making these problems worse. You start blaming systems and then its a catch all that does nothing.
I won't disagree that the people inside the system are making it worse but the system is currently setup to incentivize bad behavior.
- Overly broad qualified immunity
- The power of the police unions
- Lawsuit settlements coming out of public funds
- Collusion between prosecutors' and the police
These are all issues that need to be resolved to restore the sanity in policing.
At the federal level, the FBI needs to be reigned in...somehow. They all to often work outside the bounds of their defined role and powers. This isn't a new problem and one could argue it has been an issue since the beginning.
Furthermore, going back as far as I remember, if you take part in a protest the police personally disagree with they will use violence against you regardless of your occupation.
Nothing cynical, that’s just the truth. They’re called law enforcement for a reason, not emergency hugs.
Whether they behave like civilized people or like thugs should be besides the point regardless of your political leaning in the matter of the system. Naturally from a basic human perspective civilized law enforcement is much more preferable than the alternative, but they aren’t your friends!
By before, what do you mean? COINTELPRO?
This is exactly my point. Yes, COINTELPRO was really bad. But it was intelligence and disruption, they weren't executing people on the street and then bragging about how they'd get away with it. Do you not see the difference?
They drugged and executed Fred Hampton and no one suffered any consequences for that as far as I know.
The only significant difference is that law enforcement is treating white people the way they've always treated everyone else. Which is a difference in degree, but not character.
They've always treated white nationalists and other weirdos like this. I mean, the whole "any infraction is a grounds for execution" ROE is very reminiscent of Ruby Ridge, for example.
But the kind of white people we have here have never really had anything in common with those people so now that the Feds are coming after people of the sort of political persuasion they identify with for the first time since, the 1970s it "feels" like they're just now going after white people.
ICE just hired 12000 Ruby Ridge types as their untrained SA brownshirts. It is inevitable that they have no understanding of basic civics and rage against lawful protestors they see as the enemy.
Considerable amount of cops are white nationalists themselves.
Back in the 1980s we had jokes about the KKK being a barbecue club for law enforcement. The punchline of the joke invariably hinges on the ambiguity as to whether they're there on the job as informants or "organically".
The irony is that Ruby Ridge and Waco were big rallying points for the “patriot” right when it was precisely this mentality that led to those events.
Now a lot of those same patriot right types are cheering this on if not enlisting.
I guess nothing matters and there's no point to expecting any sort of justice from the system. And at least now I can laugh at those other people being hurt. (</s>)
cmon man seriously?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_letter?wprov=...
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/newb...
Software engineers are definitely among the class of people protected by the police
Depends on the race of the engineer. If you're gay or live in a blue city/state then you also lose your protection
911 informs the cops of your sexual preferences when they dispatch them?
Sorta, if you live in a blue city—so really just a city at this point-then it wraps around a small amount and your local police are, at least when it comes to this crap, largely on your side. ICE is making huge messes and leaving it to the local PD to clean it up which is not exactly endearing. Nobody likes when a bunch of people come in and start pissing in your Cheerios. Especially when those Cheerios are "rebuilding trust with your local community."
It’s conditional on whether you are affirming the opinions of your employer or oppositional
I'll be sure to bring my mechanical keyboard and secondary vertical monitor out in public so they'll know I'm one of the good ones.
Engineers are just workers
There is no protected class from malevolent government. Everyone from oligarchs down to the have nots can be targets. Let's not keep relearning that lesson.
They will, one day. No statute of limitations on murder.
Biology is definitely a limit.
The lack of a legal limit means they are never safe from justice catching up, even decades later. This lawless administration won't last. Some perpetrators may die of natural causes before that point, but 2026 and 2028 elections aren't far away.
And which opposition to the ruling class do you see appearing in the next 2 or 4 years that would purse anyone but the lowliest of perpetrators?
When the crime is murdering people in cold blood, I will take nailing the “lowliest of perpetrators” (e.g. cold blooded murderers) to the fucking wall.
Yes, I hope future administrators go up and down the chain of command looking at everyone who was involved in the cover-up, and charges them with conspiracy to commit murder, but a future Democratic administration will at least identify and prosecute the murderers themselves. While Republican administrations will conceal the identity of the killers and continue to have them out on the streets
Don't get me wrong, I'd gladly take any small victory. But thinking of it in terms of 2026 or 2028 just means you've kicked the can down to 2030 or 2032.
I mean, these will likely be state cases no matter what.
The question is, can the State of Minnesota put together enough evidence to convict these agents for murder and conspiracy to commit murder without the involvement of the federal government?
If so, we could see cases brought as early as this year.
If not, then the next question is can Democrats get them enough information by controlling one branch of the federal government. In that case, we could imagine a prosecution brought in 2027.
Otherwise, if we need Democrats to control the executive branch to get enough information it might be 2029.
I don’t think it will take long, because the State of Minnesota will have put the case together and be waiting to go. So the question will be how quickly can they get any necessary evidence, incorporate that into their case, and then bring charges.
>The question is, can the State of Minnesota put together enough evidence to convict these agents for murder and conspiracy to commit murder without the involvement of the federal government?
They'd have to fight the feds for jurisdiction and will unfortunately likely lose that fight.
> They'd have to fight the feds for jurisdiction and will unfortunately likely lose that fight.
That’s simply not how the system works. There’s no one assigned entity with “jurisdiction” over a crime.
The state and federal governments are dual sovereigns and each are empowered to enforce their own laws. It doesn’t even violate double jeopardy for the Feds and a state to prosecute the same actions.
The only thing that matters is if the state can obtain enough evidence that they feel they could secure a conviction before a jury of the shooter’s peers.
That's simply not how the system works.
The federal sovereign can usurp the state sovereign's courts jurisdiction and use jurisdiction removal[] to try the state charge in federal court. This is exactly what happened when Lon Horiuchi was charged by a state for killing (sniping) an innocent unarmed mother with a baby in her hands, and part of how he got off free.
Given the feds are always keen to do this when possible, it's not for nothing that they do it.
[] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_jurisdiction
They were hot blooded murders
pfffffff no they wont.
No. They should investigate both.
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In case anyone thinks you're kidding, Kash Patel's embarssing sychophancy includes publishing a election denial children's "book" portraying Trump as a king and himself as a hero.
51 senators voted to confirm this unqualified moron to lead the top law enforcement agency.
It's literally not a joke, probably the most egregious example of a completely unqualified doormat that will do whatever dear leader wants. It's also by design, no roadblocks for the fanta menace.
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> the "resistance" rings in MN are behaving like the insurgents the US has fought for decades in the Middle East
This is a horrifying and very unpariortic thing to say about people who are trying to prevent their daycares from being tear bombed, prevent masked thugs from beating detained law-abiding citizens before releasing them without charges, from masked thugs killing law-abiding people for exercising basic rights.
King George would have used that language. We sent him the Declaration of Independence, and the list of wrongs in that document is mostly relevant again today.
If you are framing this as insurgency, I place my bet on the strong people fighting bullets with mere whistles and cameras, as they are already coming out on top. If they ever resort to a fraction of the violence that the masked thugs are already using, they will not lose.
Their daycares, or their "daycares"? Not clear which one you mean.
I was not aware of that fake daycare propaganda until someone else exposed its meaning later in the thread.
As a parent, you should know that believing this obviously false propaganda requires both 1) a weird and overly specific interest in daycares, and 2) not enough normal healthy exposure to kids to understand what daycares don't let weird freaks come inspect the children. Namely, repeating this obvious lie gives off pedo vibes, and I would never let you near my children after hearing you gobble up that propaganda uncritically and then even going so far as to spread it. Ick
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https://www.minnpost.com/other-nonprofit-media/2026/01/heres...
From the MinnPost article:
Most child care centers are locked and have obscured doors or windows for children’s safety. Children are also kept in classrooms and would not likely be visible from a reception area. One of the day cares in the video told several news outlets that it did not grant Shirley entrance because he showed up with a handful of masked men, which raised suspicions that the men were agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least one of the centers was closed at the time Shirley arrived because it opens later in the day to serve the children of second-shift workers.
Is there a history of child care fraud in the state?
Yes, but it’s not as widespread as Shirley claims.
Not a MN resident, but both the daycare my child attended before starting school and every daycare in my area have a combination of tinted/obscured windows and strict access control, even for parents (eg: a parent isn't allowed to make a "surprise inspection" without a court order).
If anything, I'd be suspicious of (and not send my child to) any daycare that _didn't_ have those security features.
Please don't spread propaganda lies here pretending it to be a majority of cases to such an extreme. You saw some clips of people investigating doorway entrances and lobby areas and were shocked the lobbies aren't full of children hovering at the exit's threshold because you were told to expect them there. In fact what you saw was someone unable to find any of the evidence that has existed.
Ah yes, Tim isn't running again because there is no truth to it. My god. Some of you are so obsessed with the "narrative" that you'll look at the sun and say it's night.
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oh good, people on Hacker News Dot Com are taking Nick Shirley at face value.
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They're using IEDs and suicide bombings???
I don't what you are talking about but it's nonsense and offensive, a bald faced lie so outrageous that people are supposed to be shocked into silence?
The tactics being used are:
* whistles * recording with phones * free speech * communication with neighbors * sharing with neighbors, ala potlucks * training each other on legal means of resistance * caring for people kicked out of detention centers in the dead of winter without their coats or phones * bringing meals to families that are afraid to leave the house, since the political persecution is largely a function of skin color, as numerous police chiefs have attested when recounting what ICE/CBP does to their officers when off duty.
Calling this "insurgent tactics" instead of neighbors being neighbors is most definitely a perverse and disgusting values assessment. When the hell have insurgents used the whistle and the phone camera as their "tactics"?!
Saying that this lawful activity, all 100% lawful, somehow "impedes federal enforcement of laws" is actually a statement that the supposed enforcement is being conducted in a completely lawless, unconstitutional, and dangerous manner.
Keep on talking like you are, because people right now are sniffing out who is their neighbor and who will betray them when ICE moves on to the next city. Your neighbors probably already know, but being able to share specific sentences like "insurgent tactics" and how cameras are somehow "impeding" masked men abducting people, when days later we don't even know the identity of officers that shot and killed a man on film, who was in no way impeding law enforcement. And the only people who talk about "impeding law enforcement" also lie profusely when there is direct evidence on film contradicting their lies.
There is terrorism going on, there is lawlessness, there is a great deal of elevated crime in Minnesota, but it all the doing of masked ICE/CBP agents that face zero accountability for breaking our laws and violating our most sacred rights.
>I don't what you are talking about but it's nonsense and offensive
This just reads as "I don't know whether you're on Other Team.. but, I'll assume you are, here goes:"
Trump is morally obligated to deport felon illegals to protect americans. 70 million plus americans voted for it. Trump can't give up because a few thousand people are playing "im not touching you" with ICE.
No, felon illegals are supposed to go to prison and serve their sentence before deportation. You know, because they committed felonies.
Crossing the border illegally is a misdemeanor and overstaying your visa is a civil violation and not even a crime. Yet somehow those are the only ones he's targeting. Those, and actual lawful immigrants that say things that he doesn't like.
wow.dhs.gov
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Yes because the US was famously the good guy in its forays into the middle east.
I love this example because it demonstrates like 5 different levels of ignorance about American politics and foreign relations, plus a good helping of propaganda.
You're projecting a values claim on the American wars in the middle east on me that I didn't make. It's pretty clear that the ME wars were all around bad and evil.
It doesn't change the organization and tactics used to identify targets are the same methods and strategies used by insurgent groups to select targets and attack. AQI was very sophisticated for the technology they had. Their warriors were brave, cunning, and true believers with efficacious systems for what was available to them.
Twenty years of that, plus the rest of the middle east has now made it particularity common knowledge how to run insurgency cells worldwide. This combined with American expertise brought back and with people legally aiding these groups in setting up their C2 structures with what is effective and what works is no surprise.
This investigation should be no surprise to anyone. They use these techniques because they work. They are so effective at target acquisition, monitoring, and selective engagement that if they flipped from their current tactics to more violent ones it would be a large casualty event.
You have an occupation force killing bystanders in your streets. Resistance is exactly what is needed.
"bystanders"
What's needed is MNPD sharing their data around the criminal illegal aliens with ICE so that they can execute the deportation orders that have already been issued by judges.
The structure of your message implies you are not American. DHS posts the people they deport here:
https://www.dhs.gov/wow
It's really hard to go down that list and say "yeah i'd rather have these people here than have ICE deporting people".
MPD _is_ sharing and coordinating with ICE _when they're supposed to be_. MPD has already transferred ~70 people to ICE for deportation this year alone, after they completed prison sentences (which ICE claimed as their own arrests).
I'm guessing they would be 70 actual undocumented immigrants with actual criminal records then?
Not "brown looking" native americans or "foreign looking" US citizens that have been incorrectly identified and dragged without warrents from their homes and families barely dressed into the snow?
I'm not sure of the immigration status, just an article that called out ~70 transfers from MPD DOC to ICE following incarceration. I'd imagine it's a mix of documented and undocumented immigrants, as being convicted of a crime is a valid reason for the state to revoke a visa.
Good to see a subset of the system working as intended.
It's well past time whatever is left of DOGE got to working culling the over reach of the rest of the current ICE / DHS system.
That would not be a problem if they deported these people, instead of what they are doing.
The people you don't like are always guilty, right? Two people are accidentally killed, somewhat due to their own actions, but do you this can mean nothing else than "oppression".
> agreed to allow
pardon my ignorance, but why would that be up to your President?
Not a lawyer, but there's a lot of back and forth around jurisdiction between local and federal enforcement. If the President directs the DoJ to not fight to own the investigation over local, then it is up to the Executive Branch.
Both can be true, but only one is.
Equating civil resistance, even in heated forms like disrupting raids or blocking roads, with decades‑long insurgencies that involved organized armed groups, territorial control, foreign combatants, and protracted guerrilla campaigns is like comparing a neighborhood disagreement over lawn care to Napoleon invading Russia.
Like i've said over and over, the tactics used are the distilled what works from those insurgencies honed over decades. They are incredibly effective. The network that was built (several max signal chats, organized territory, labor specialization) has essentially created an effective targeting mechanism.
This isn't a bunch of people organically protesting, this is an organized system designed to "target" ICE agents. The only difference is the payload delivery between physical disruption vs weapon based attacks.
So what's the supposed goal of this "targeting" of ICE agents? Because that's a key to the insurgency vs protest thing.
We have chats, organized territory and labor specialization in a company I work for, too. It doesn't say anything by itself. It's just describing a means of human cooperation. Goal is to write software. You can have organized protest movement too. Unless the goal is to overthrow governing authority, or whatnot, it's not insurgency.
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They might not have the capacity to do more considering they still need to redact the rest of the epstein files that show their president is a child trafficking pedophile
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They are running communications rings geographically distributed across the city via Signal. They organize into specialized roles for identifying suspected agents (spotters), tailing them, and moving to contact with ICE. They use the ARMY SALUTE[0][1] method to handle their reports.
Anyone who ran convoys in the Middle East, patrolled, or did intel around it will know this playbook. The resistance is impressive because it's taken lessons learned from observing the US Military overseas dealing with insurgencies.
0 - https://www.usainscom.army.mil/iSALUTE/iSALUTEFORM/ 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHIPEVj0pRo
So i wonder why he people of the city would act the same way as a group being invaded by a hostile force? Just like the Middle east its the people being invaded, they are the problem, not the invaders.
It's more like Minneapolis has been "chosen" as the battle point by people opposed to Trump in every step. It's the same person leading deportations as under Obama, they deport less than Obama did, yet they have been demonized almost immediately after the Trump administration took over. Why?
During the Obama administration, state and local LEO worked with ICE to deport. Now they are directed not to. Without that protection and cooperation from local officers, it becomes significantly harder and more dangerous to execute these operations. So they put masks on because the local agitators are doxxing them, threatening their families, and making life unsafe for the agents.
So now we have this lack of cooperation from local government that creates unsafe and dangerous operating conditions for ICE. What are they supposed to do? Not enforce the law because the local government says no? We already fought a war about Federal power versus state power. Heck, Obama (whom i voted for 2x) sued Arizona (Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387) over supremacy of the Federal Government with respect to immigration.
There would be no problems if Minneapolis and Minnesota leadership reacted the way other cities like Memphis did. Instead they've explicitly, or tacitly, endorsed this escalating resistance movement. I can't imagine ever putting my hands on a LEO and expecting it to go well, yet they do it freely. Officers are only human, and day-in day-out of this, combined with very real actionable threats against your life, and family life are only going to create more tensions and more mistakes.
This is no invasion hostile force, this is a chosen focal point to challenge the will and ability of this administration to enforce the democratically made laws.
You left out a pretty important detail. Your "insurgents" in America aren't shooting people or planting IEDs. Communicating and protesting, on the other hand, are sacrosanct rights in the US.
You're missing the forest for the trees here. The network and techniques used here are the same, but even more refined and tech enabled, of those insurgency groups. The power is the network of people in their specialized roles that can quickly target the enemy (ICE) and deliver a payload (obstruction).
The FBI has a long history of attempting to infiltrate and destabilize these groups. In the early 2010s there was a push to infiltrate right leaning groups. They especially called out in their published documents disgruntled veterans returning from the wars and unhappy with leadership noting a worry they would use the skills picked up at war at home.
It's absolutely no surprise that the FBI would investigate this behavior.
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Alex Pretti's death should not have happened, and also
- he was carrying
- despite that, he involved himself in physical altercations with federal officers
- his group of disruption activists was quite successful; if you watch any video, it is very clearly difficult for the federal agents to communicate with one another
- one federal agent probably made the mistake of shooting one time, perhaps erroneously thinking Pretti had his gun out
- another federal agent probably made the mistake of shooting several times, perhaps thinking that the one shot was Pretti
basically, everything that could go wrong, went wrong, Pretti is not blameless, his group is not blameless, the ICE agents are not blameless, and it probably wasn't murder
Stop acting like we're talking about two kids who did an oopsie
Small town cops in third world countries are more professional than any of these ICE clowns, these mistakes happened because they keep hiring the lowest if the low, both in term of intelect and morality
Parent does have a point though.
Sounds like something for an investigation to figure out - wonder why they are fighting that so hard. Also sure sounds like a lot of victim blaming considering he died without ever doing anything warranting his death.
Are we still doing the "he was carrying" thing. Like for real?
Yet, he was. Are there any points in the list that aren't correct. ("Like for real?")
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That’s why I said “respectfully”, to keep it professional while commenting on their logic issue.
Next time I’ll add /s
Oh wow this article contains “ICE” in the title and isn’t flagged yet!
Interesting, this may result in showing how secure signal really is.
They're going to give this more scrutiny than they did to Hegseth leaking sensitive government information.
> “You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way”
Remember when words, at least usually, meant things?
This sounds like IMAX level projection
For real, if you're legitimately worried about your officers being legally entrapped, you've got some really untrustworthy officers.
I remember a time when people were better at lying, at least.
- Don't join giant group chats unless you're Whiskey Pete inviting journalists into a "clean" opsec group.
- Know others very personally or not at all.
- Don't take a phone to any event without it being in a proven good RF blocking bag.. I wished they made a bag that allowed taking pictures and video with audio.
- New people can potentially be liabilities such as crazy, stupid, undercover cops or adversaries, and/or destructive without a care.
- Avoid people who think violence is "the way" because there's rarely a positive or politically-acceptable offramp for it.
- Destruction of property can be effective non-violent resistance in limited circumstances, e.g., The Boston Tea Party, but that's becoming a criminal in the eyes of the current regime and 95% of rebellions fail.
> Destruction of property can be effective non-violent resistance in limited circumstances, e.g., The Boston Tea Party, but that's becoming a criminal in the eyes of the current regime and 95% of rebellions fail.
I'm pretty sure that almost everyone would generally consider destruction of someone else's property to be a crime.
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Next step: Those citizens will disappear and only turn up again in a mass grave 50 years later.
Next step: there will be no such things. But there will be more accidents such as this if you disobey police officers, e.g, drive towards them, carry a gun, etc.
Couple of minor nits:
1. Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal group.
2. Signal was not the app Hegseth, et al. used. They used TM SGNL, which is a fork of Signal. But that's a minor nit.
3. Encryption is not the same thing as authentication. And authentication is somewhat meaningless if you let everyone into your encrypted group chat.
> Some rando on X saying "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" doesn't mean said rando actually did infiltrate a signal group.
Cam Higby has close to 400 thousand followers and routinely gets multiple millions of views on his tweets, including almost 23 million views on his pinned "OMG! I infiltrated a lefty signal group" tweet. And this tweet is the start of a thread that provides quite a lot of (watermarked) evidence that he did, in fact, infiltrate such a group.
Anyone organizing your neighborhood and events keep inner circle chats to only people you have personally vetted and use a new group chat for every event/topic and delete the groups for past events.
Be mindful of what you share in a big group chat where you don’t know everyone
I’d be curious to know what they plan to charge people with.
Jaywalking, misappropriating funds during a renovation? Whatever the police state wants...
domestic terrorism, of course
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Coming soon, treason.
The article subhead implies obstruction of justice.
I heard a totally unsubstantiated rumor that the participants were sending (ICE agent) plate numbers to people with NCIC access to run the plates. If that's the case it would be a pretty easy felony charge for all involved.
I have no reason to believe that's true, just what word on the street was they might be charged with.
If you have no reason to believe it's true, and understand the rumor to be unsubstantiated, why bother to spread it?
Because the question was what they might be charged with, not what they did.
Did you expect the government to charge people in good faith? It doesn't matter it if it's true or not, even putting them in the slammer for a long time while awaiting trial and forcing them to hire expensive attorneys is a win.
No, I don't expect the Trump administration to operate in good faith.
The post you replied to didn't ask what they might be charged with. It asked what they "plan" to charge.
And you replied with internet rumor nonsense. It's actually fine to say "I don't know" or simply not reply at all when someone asks a question to which you do not have an answer.
Several undercover reporters have reported this. They are obviously lying. If the administration confirms the same, they are obviously lying. Who shall we believe then? The NYTimes?
These "undercover" reporters have screenshots, surely they could show one of actual crimes instead of something that you keep willfully misinterpreting as such. We've already given you the mundane explanation, but it seemingly relies too much on people being able to work together as social creatures and not enough on a technological system.
What this reads as is a bunch of credulous X users trying to one-up each other and looking for reasons that Trump and his cronies are not once again lying to your face.
It is neither necessary nor particularly useful for them to be running plates for reasons you've already identified.
> surely they could show one of actual crimes
That's exactly what they have done - shared the information pointing to the organized attempt to interfere with the ongoing federal operation. This is a crime.
You keep saying this, but there actually is a legal standard for this, and following people around, yelling at them, none of that is interference with public acts.
> following people around, yelling at them, none of that is interference with public acts.
Physically obstructing them is interference. There are countless videos where protesters can clearly be seen to do this, even as they are then defended as supposedly "merely exercising free speech rights".
18 U.S.C. § 372 — Conspiracy to impede or injure officer
If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.
Federal felony
> by force, intimidation, or threat
You seem to be glossing over the key piece of that statute. Peaceful protest is protected by the first amendment (free speech, right to assembly).
Intimidation, or threat at the very least seems applicable here if you have any idea of what's going on in Minnesota and what these Signal chats are being used for.
You heard about the one who got his finger bit off, yes?
If you threaten to kill somebody then follow them around for days at a time, is that intimidation?
Blocking law enforcement's vehicles and their person (I saw several protestors put hands on officers), when they are conducting arrests, certainly seems to fit the bill.
Presumably Seditious Conspiracy, like many people involved in J6. Conspiracy to use force to prevent or delay enforcement of laws.
Or, at the very least, what they want to try to convince a grand jury to indict people on.
That's another angle that needs to be discussed more often with respect to Trump's DoJ: if you're impaneled on a grand jury for charges coming out of these investigations, you don't have to give them a bill.
Terrorism seems to be their default claim if you're against the Trump admin.
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They don’t need to if they just shoot them on the street.
I hope they're just looking for foreign influence I'm not sure what you could charge peaceful protestors with that would survive in court.
Not voting for them.
Tracking the murderers who executed citizens in the street and then fled the scene of the crime and any sort of trial or investigation? That ICE and Immigration and Border Patrol? I wonder why. And since when is tracking public officials operating in public in the capacity of their government jobs illegal?
These federal goons need to be tracked and observed to record their crimes. That much is indisputable.
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Are you holding up some random unverified substack, featuring an obvious AI-generated photo, as a reliable source of information?
> You should probably read the original source before taking the opinion of your favorite pundit.
This is not an "original source" of the article in question.
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Great add
And you need to watch the videos but I imagine the cognitive dissonance is too uncomfortable.
When Trump saw the video of Renee Good's execution, he faltered. He hadn't seen that before.
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No, the ones on broadcast television news where they go scene by scene breaking down any claims of Alex being at fault being bogus lies that you are now repeating.
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I’ve never seen a set of voluntary fall guys like Noem, Patel and Miller. (And Hegseth for when a military operation fails.)
Every one is a potential fall guy except the King. First sign you're a liability and under the bus you go. And unless you're on Truth Social you're usually the last to know.
Miller is not the fall guy. The other clowns, yes, but not him. He's the most hard-core fascist in the bunch.
I don't know if I'd classify Noem as a patsy or fall gal, either.
When you mention an anecdote about shooting a hunting dog in your autobiography, that shows something beyond just being a "true believer" or stooge. That is willingly pointing out that you are willing to act out your lack of empathy through violence towards an animal.
I'm not a clinician (and haven't met Noem) but that just seems to me to be something indicative of a personality disorder.
Noem strikes me as a loyalist and a team player through and through, so probably a fall gal.
Miller is different. He has his own agenda, a lot of which has becomes trumps agenda. But trumps agenda changing does not change what Miller’s agenda is.
Trump has loyalty only to himself and in his first term was constantly throwing people under the bus after he decided they were a liability to the Main Character.
I could imagine we'll see the same thing again, before or after the midterms, and Miller and Bessent are two I expect to see have a dethroning at some point simply on account of Trump never taking responsibility for anything.
That and I've seen both try to speak "on behalf" of Trump, something the authoritarian personality doesn't appreciate.
However some of that logic is based on 1st round Trump not being as senile and insane as 2nd round Trump. It's possible his weakening cognitive faculties have made him even more open to manipulation.
Honestly Miller strikes me different. It’s not coincidence he’s survived so long.
He’s not an idiot. He knows how much damage he can absorb and how to position himself to not take more than that. He never positions himself as the implementation person who will take the hits. He’s the idea guy, and the manipulator/cheerleader. He doesn’t seem to expect trump to take care of him for his loyalty, so he doesn’t position himself to require it.
I think ultimately he won’t be thrown under the bus because his relationship with Trump is mutually beneficial, and they both see it as transactional. For both of them, the other is a means to an end. Soul mates in hell I guess.
From the outside it seems like he is so far gone that his inner circle is actually making all the decisions now.
She's complaining (via 'sources') that she's 'being hung to try' for parroting Stephen Miller's approved line, so I have a hunch she'll bite their ankles on the way out.
She's an opportunist. For someone like her to be nationally relevant they have to latch onto MAGA and embrace the crazy. See MTG, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz.
To me, those people you list are absolutely opportunists, but there's just something different about Noem. Like they're hedonists who are engaging in a grift and know that they have to sling arrows that will own the libs in order to keep the gravy train rolling. MTG seems to have, at least for a while a few months ago, found her limit on what she'll put up with. Gaetz had at least enough shame/self-awareness to realize that his continued career was untenable at the time he was being considered for AG. Boebert's the girl who told your science teacher to go fuck himself when he caught her smoking behind the high school gym with her age-inappropriate boyfriend.
Maybe I'm just really hung up on the dog thing, but that is the crux of it. There's basically no one who hears a story of shooting a dog for misbehaving and thinks, "yeah, that'll show the libs". That's not a story out of a politician's biography as much as it is a story out of a book profiling a serial killer's childhood.
71% of American households have pets [0] and there's a good chance that those who don't have had at least one in the past. There was absolutely no benefit to including that in the book, and I'd be stunned if the publisher didn't at least try to talk her out of putting it in there, given her political ambitions. If they didn't try to get it cut, they didn't do their jobs; if she ignored them, then she really does display a tendency to take pride in behavior that is recognized across the political spectrum in American society as cruel and antisocial.
She genuinely gives me the creeps.
[0] https://worldanimalfoundation.org/advocate/pet-ownership-sta...
> Miller is not the fall guy. The other clowns, yes, but not him
He’s going to jail in a way Trump isn’t. That’s ultimately a fall guy.
That's because miller is the only "smart" one to never defy trump. Of course, that means being his lap dog, but that's the position he chose.
The FBI should investigate the first item in the Bill of Rights.
https://www.phreeli.com/ lets people use phones without revealing identity.
Not sure what the point of the service is. Given that it's more expensive than other MVNOs, and isn't even more private. You can still buy prepaid SIMs in store with cash, so it's harder to get more private than that. Not to mention this company asks for your zip+4 code (which identifies down to a specific street), and information for E-911. It's basically like Trump Mobile but for people who care about "privacy".
Can prepaid eSIMs be used anonymously?
Yes, but it's harder than just buying an esim from silent.link (or whatever) and installing it. The biggest issue is that phones have IMEIs that you can't change, so even with an esim you bought "anonymously", that won't do you any good if you install it to your iPhone that's linked to you in some way, eg. bought in Apple store with your credit card, inserted another SIM/esim that has your billing information, or simply the phone has pinged cell towers near your home/work for an extended amount of time.
For max privacy, remember to buy the phone anonymously as well. Be cognizant of links to non-anonymous IPs, emails, and identities.
I was unaware that you could buy a SIM with cash and no private data collected. I thought they had KYC laws like prepaid cash cards.
>I thought they had KYC laws like prepaid cash cards.
You don't. You could even order sim cards off ebay/amazon if you wanted to, which definitely doesn't have any KYC.
Clearly there is no point in it for you. The stores would ID you. As for the nine digit zip, I don't think they validate it. Your anti-privacy agenda is crystal clear.
>The stores would ID you
Source?
>As for the nine digit zip, I don't think they validate it.
Why collect it then? Imagine having a service promising "lets people use phones without revealing identity" but for whatever reason asks for a bunch of info, then brushes it aside with "yeah but you can fill in fake information so it's fine".
>Your anti-privacy agenda is crystal clear.
Your inability to take any criticism without resorting to personal attacks is crystal clear.
The answer to that question is so obvious that anyone raising it must necessarily be doing it in extremely bad faith. It's because the government mandates 911 service, and that the 911 service must be given the user's primary "location" when required. Your "criticism" is hereby redirected at yourself.
Why? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
To intimidate. They're probably quite aware they'll lose in court. But in the mean time they might discourage some folks from turning out on the street.
Are you under the impression that the current administration cares about what the law says?
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"
They're "investigating", presumably with data gleaned from arrests and CIs; you have a right to speech, and a right not to be prosecuted for speech, but a much, much narrower right not to be "investigated", collapsing to ~epsilon when the investigation involves data the FBI already has.
Yeah whenever people say “the first amendment is not a freedom from consequences” it is only a freedom from certain consequences (and that freedom only goes as far as the government is willing to protect it). It is a freedom from being convicted. They can still arrest you, you can still spend time in jail, prosecutors can even file charges. A court is supposed to throw those charges out. And in extreme cases you can be convicted and sent to prison for years before SCOTUS rules.
Nobody has been charged.
I think GP is speaking generally, not with regard to this situation specifically; obviously people have been charged for constitutionally-protected speech before.
No. According to the latest reports, while searching for ICE vehicles, the protesters are unlawfully scanning license plates, which strongly suggests they are receiving insider help.
There is nothing unlawful about scanning license plates. You are allowed to photograph them in the same way you are allowed to stand around writing them into a notebook if that activity is your idea of fun. Where do people get these ideas?!
I think the idea was that they were getting people associated with Minnesota DPS to do lookups on the plates.
Why would that even be necessary? They are almost certainly just contributing confirmed ICE plate numbers to an Excel file and then checking against it. Low tech and simple. This “criminal insider” angle is just building a bogeyman.
I don't think it's a real thing, I'm just saying that's what the claim is.
Can you rule out the much less technically advanced explanation that this information was crowdsourced? And people are simply observing the license plates that are plainly displayed?
Frankly I don’t think it should have to come to license plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need secret police.
No, I cannot. One of the undercover journalists was in their group for days.
> Frankly I don’t think it should have to come to license plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need secret police.
None of that matters _today_, because _today_ the law is different.
What the law is, is a question for lawyers. What the law should be is a question for the people.
For example, a lot of people thought it was wrong that federal agents could cover their faces. Sacramento agreed. Now there is a law preventing it.
That law enforcement is permitted to hide their faces, drive unmarked vehicles, not display name tags, badges, or uniforms is concerning. Anyone can buy a gun, a vest, and a velcro “police” patch. There is very little that marks these agents as official law enforcement. I’m somewhat surprised that none of these agents have been shot entering a home under the mistaken perception by the homeowner that it’s a criminal home invasion.
Or alternatively, that criminals haven’t simply claimed to be ICE as an excuse to break into someone’s house.
Where was the outrage when Obama deported 3.1 million people? Why was there no media coverage? Trump has deported 300k and the MSM is turning upside down. Doesn’t make any sense to me.
No one is upset about the number of deportations. No one is complaining about the number of deportations. If you don't listen to what the complaints are about to start with, you can't argue that they are hypocritical.
Ok. What are people upset about, and why are they only upset in one city?
> What are people upset about,
A wide array of policy issues related to the targeting and manner of execution of Trump’s mass deportation program, not the number of deportations.
Also, a number of specific instances of violence by the federal government during what is (at least notionally) the execution of immigration enforcement.
> why are they only upset in one city?
People are very clearly not “only upset in one city”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_mass_deportat...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ren%C3%A9e_Good_protes...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/24/protests-ale...
And prior to that, when Obama deported 3.1 million people, the deportations were nice and dandy, right?
> And prior to that, when Obama deported 3.1 million people, the deportations were nice and dandy, right?
There was significant criticism of them, but both the policy and the manner of execution were different, a fact which Trump presaged in BOTH of his successful campaigns, explicitly stating plans for a different manner of execution (in the 2024 campaign explicitly referencing the notorious 1950s “Operation Wetback” as a model), and which Trump officials have crowed about throughout the execution of the campaign. Pretending the differences that provoke different responses don’t exists when their architects have been as proud of them as critics have been angry at them is just some intense bad faith denial of facts.
There were contemporary criticism of Obama's deportation policy on both the right and the left. I have no idea why you think that is some sort of gotcha that somehow makes the equivalency between Obama and Trump's immigration enforcement valid.
No. The outrage now versus back then is day and night. There were pretty much no protests during Obama’s term, even though the scale of deportations was much larger. That contrast is highly suspicious.
Dragonwriter has already laid out some of the differences for you to research further beyond the single data point of number of deportations. You've asked the same question multiple times but seem to not want to actually engage with the answers so I'll leave it there.
People keep telling you that it has nothing to do with the number of deportations, and you keep insisting that it does. Why do you believe the number of deportations is the most important factor?
Copying my other response here:
The core issue is the media. I worked at a large news company in New York during the Obama’s term. There was a training for our reporters: anything negative about Obama was strictly prohibited. Ad revenue.
I don't believe this.
When talking to someone at-risk of deportation earlier in the year, they asked me, "Why should I do anything differently? Obama and Biden did the same exact shit."
And there's a lot of truth to that which a lot of people need to reconcile with.
The fact that we don't have DACA solidified into a path towards citizenship by now is just sad.
And I agree with you, but that's not what I'm questioning. Given the 10x larger scale of deportations during the Obama's term, why were there no protests?
During Obama's term the practice of warrentless entry into actual citizens homes wasn't widespread.
During Obama's term the leaders of DHS / ICE were not blatently lying about events captured on film and evading legitmate investigations into deaths at the hands of officers.
During Obamas term people with no criminal record were not being offshored to hell-hole prison camps with serious abuses of human rights.
Give me a break - https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/border-patrol-wa...
Can you link to the tweet in which Obama defended the agents right to threaten a child with rape?
From your linked article:
There's your difference. Thank you for playing.The core issue is the media. I worked at a large news company in New York during the Obama’s term. There was a training for our reporters: anything negative about Obama was strictly prohibited. Ad revenue.
As many others have pointed out, the deeper issue is the size of the boot, the disregard for citizens rights, the extremes of the offshore gulags, the fevor with which the upper levels embrace the brutality.
I am unable to assist further with your stated struggle for comprehension.
You are still missing the point. You were intentionally underinformed during the Obama's term.
"Unlawfully scanning license plates"? What does that even mean?
Like searching a vehicle database? That's available to all sorts of people, like auto body repair shops.
Taking a photo of a license plate? Nothing illegal about that.
You're confusing 'seeing a license plate' with 'querying restricted databases'.
Taking a photo is legal. Running plates through law-enforcement/ALPR systems is not, and auto body shops don't have that access.
Real-time identification != observation - it implies unauthorized data access.
If that was what you meant, you should have said that. Do you have any actual evidence this is happening, or are you just confusing possibility with probability?
I don't buy the claim that it's happening, but they were pretty clearly talking about the lookups, not the photos. They started off by mentioning "insiders".
> If that was what you meant, you should have said that.
I think the choice of the verb "scanning" indicated it clearly enough.
Perhaps for you. This word is equally applicable to visual observation.
Journalists doing ride alongs have already identified the system and it doesn't really on "restricted databases", they rely on observation and multiple attestation. In any case, there are indeed commercial services for looking up license plate data, and they rely on watching the notices that are published when you register your vehicle. It's the same reason why you receive all sorts of scammy warranty "notices" when you buy a car.
In fact the first clue that they look for is having Illinois Permanent plates because that is a strong indicator that they are using rental vehicles. That doesn't take a database, it's just a strong signal that can be confirmed by other evidence.
Do federal agents rent their vehicles?
The crowd sourced lists don't identify the owners of the vehicles, because that does not matter. They identify vehicles that ICE is using, and "likely a rental" is one good signal.
There is no evidence of this at all.
There is enough smoke to at least perform an investigation. As I said, this administration has deported 10x less people than the previous administrations.
You seem quite narrowly focused on the number of deportations rather than the methods being implemented. The primary criticisms of the current ICE surge in Minnesota focus on the general aggressiveness and lack of professionalism of these agents, not the deportations numbers.
> The primary criticisms of the current ICE surge in Minnesota focus on the general aggressiveness and lack of professionalism of these agents
This doesn't seem to have been remotely as much of an issue in states where local law enforcement cooperates with ICE and where protesters generally don't physically get in the way and don't resist arrest on the relatively rare occasions of arrest. This seems, to me, unlikely to be a coincidence.
> through law-enforcement/ALPR systems
Were they doing that? I haven't read the article, that's why I'm asking.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/minnesota-signal-gate-di...
I don’t see anything there about querying license plate databases. There is a spreadsheet of donors to some kind of organization.
https://x.com/camhigby/status/2015093635096658172
Also, what is the outrage about? This administration has deported the least number of people compared to all previous administrations. Obama deported 3.1 million people, ten times more than Trump today. Same ICE, same border patrol.
It literally say it is a crowdsourced list... a completely legal activity. If you can't figure out what the outrage is about after Alex Pretti and Renée Good then you're being intentionally obtuse.
1. The outrage had been there prior to their death.
2. Their death is the outcome of the outrage.
Their deaths are an outcome of the heavy handed immigration enforcement that has caused the outrage. The raw number of deportations is not the only metric. The enforcement tactics of the Obama admin are not the same as Trump's, this is obvious and incontrovertible.
You don't have to agree with the criticisms but to not even be able to understand why people are upset stretches believability.
Duh... You're still collapsing cause and context. The protests preceded the deaths; the deaths occurred during confrontations created by the protests. That makes them an outcome of escalation, not the original trigger.
And 'different tactics' doesn’t explain the reaction gap, as i said, under Obama there were 3.1M+ deportations and at least 56 documented deaths in ICE custody (https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/re...) with nowhere near this level of outrage. What changed is media framing and amplification, not the existence of harsh enforcement.
It doesn't have to be the original trigger, you asked "what is the outrage about?" and those deaths are part of it.
> And 'different tactics' doesn’t explain the reaction gap, as i said, under Obama there were 3.1M+ deportations and at least 56 documented deaths in ICE custody
You continuously ask this same question, get an answer, and ignore it. ICE enforcement was not the same under Obama and Trump even if Obama had high deportation numbers. The deaths in that report were from medical issues or neglect. Horrible, absolutely, but not shootings, not American citizens, and not protesters.
Maybe instead of assuming everyone is a stooge that can only do what the media tells them, consider they may actually have some legitimate grievances?
I don't know what they think they're doing there. If the most interesting thing they found was the public website leading to a fundraising platform for mutual aid a) there is literally nothing illegal there, and b) you can find that website linked to publicly by conservatively 25% of the twin cities population. It's literally the most prominent fundraising website anyone has been posting.
Wrong. The "protesters" were conducting counterintelligence to locate where ICE was operating. The plan was to disrupt the operation. Like it or not, this is against the law. Period.
I know you want to frame it a different way, but the articles you are posting don't describe anything that's illegal.
I'm not framing anything. There are screenshots of the chats where people literally say "ICE vehicle has been identified, everybody, go there!". This is called interfering.
The "interfering" this are describing is your framing. You want it to be interference in a legally actionable way, but it simply isn't.
18 U.S.C. § 111 - Assaulting, resisting, impeding officers (including federal agents)
18 U.S.C. § 1505 - Obstruction of Federal Officers (this includes ICE itself - obstructing or interfering with an ICE arrest is a crime)
18 U.S.C. § 118 - Obstructing, resisting, or interfering with federal protective functions
18 USC 111 does not apply here. Forcible action is an element. The action doesn’t have to be itself the use of force; it’s sufficient that a threat being some action that causes an officer to reasonably fear bodily harm. But obviously the actions we’re talking about on this subthread fall well short of that definition. If they didn't the law would be unconstitutional.
Those other two laws seem like an even weirder fit for the fact pattern in this subthread.
But that's not the end of the analysis. The legal line isn't 'force or nothing'; it's intent + conduct. Speech and observation are protected, but coordinated action intended to impede enforcement is not.
If "ICE vehicle has been identified, everybody go there" is followed by mobbing vehicles, blocking movement, inducing agents to disengage, or warning targets to evade arrest, that crosses from protected speech into actionable conduct.
Is that your theory, or is there case law that backs it up? From what I saw the bounds on 18 USC 111 are quite narrow indeed: I found a case where the defendant _fired at federal agents with his shotgun_, and the appeals court threw it out because the jury was incorrectly instructed that they could use the fact that he shot at them when considering he misled them afterwards. But actually, the jury was not allowed to do that. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/199...
Quote: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is "directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and (2) it is "likely to incite or produce such action."
See Brandenburg v. Ohio (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/492)
Brandenburg v. Ohio was decided in favor of the appellant. As I suspected, there are no cases of a US court interpreting your theory of the law on 18 USC 111.
When has the constitution mattered to this administration?
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No, they haven’t. This kind of advocacy crosses from lazy nihilism to negligence.
> > > Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
> > The fascists won. That’s why?
> No, they haven’t.
Yes, they did, that’s why they are able to use the executive branch of the federal government to enforce their wishes at the moment, with virtually no constraint yet from the legislative branch, and no significant consequences yet for ignoring contrary orders from the judicial branch.
They may lose at some point in the future, but something that might happen in the future is irrelevant to the question of why what is happening now is happening, and it is happening because they won. Unambiguously.
They are not able to enforce their will unchecked. The legislature is more than willing to turn on Trump when he crosses the line, hence the whole idea of "TACO."
The fascists haven't won because if they did, they would be killing a lot more dissidents in the street. They killed two and the public outcry is so angry that Kristi Noem might be impeached. Democrats are willing to shut down the government to starve ICE if they have to. Even GOP legislators are criticizing Trump, which is a dangerous activity for any Republican looking to keep their seat.
Impeached and replaced with someone just as bad. This just happened with Tom Homan getting Bongino's spot. No one is being prosecuted for the murders, and in fact at least one investigator has quit their career position in the FBI for being asked to bury it.
I'm not seeing a whole lot of meaningful checks.
> Impeached and replaced with someone just as bad. This just happened with Tom Homan getting Bongino's spot
Bovino (Border Patrol “at large” Commander who may or may not have lost that title and been returned to his sector command), not Bongino (the podcaster-turned-FBI Deputy Director who resigned to go back to podcasting), and Homan didn't get Bovino’s job, only his spotlight (he was already the head of border policy for the White House.)
They inarguably won the last election and control 2 branches of government.
> They inarguably won the last election and control 2 branches of government
Elected branches. Subject to further contests in months. That’s now how fascists endgame.
It’s stupid and wrong to claim fascists have won in America. The only people peddling this lie are fascists who can read polls.
I'm not arguing they've won forever, but having the executive branch and a majority (albiet not a an opposition-proof supermajority) in the legislative branch is significant. I would say MAGA is well represented at the state level also.
I hope the midterms go smoothly and the GOP loses heavily at the polls and legislative power changes hands in January, but I'm not 100% confident of that any more.
I should’ve clarified. They won the 2024 election. And the democrats are controlled opposition who take money from fascists. For all intents and purposes they have won. That may not be a permanent state of affairs.
I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
> I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
I don't think it makes sense to reject an explanation of current events grounded in a battle that is clearly over having been won and the victor using the ground they’ve gained to produce the events being discussed merelt because the broader war isn’t over and that victor may potentially lose some subsequent battle.
Yes, won that battle but not the war.
I think the dissent is about the latter. It's not over yet, so people should not give up.
The root comment clearly has ambiguity that people take both ways.
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Given that Newsom was on a podcast just last week caving to even the slightest pushback, I wouldn't count on him to be bombastic to anyone. He's 100% optics-driven-cowardice.
Well see. Anything can happen. Maybe Im wrong and people this time around do want sanity. Or Trump drone strikes him if he sees him getting too much steam.
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Why even bother replying
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i think it sets the framing that beating them back is from a losing position rather than equal.
if you want the fascists to un-win, you need to treat the world as it is: the fascists are ascendent.
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Because too many people dismissed the claims that electing Trump would lead to a fascist administration as alarmist. Turns out he meant every word he said during his campaign.
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Yes - very, very dumb people did vote for him.
Conspiracy to commit a crime is typically not included in protected speech. Whether you think that's happening here will depend mostly on what side you take, I suspect.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/
Are you pro or against this?
The fact that one speaks while committing a crime does not entitle one to a 1A defense against prosecution for that crime, even if committing the crime requires that speech. The prosecution is not about the content of the speech, but about the criminal activity it enables. A bank robber cannot claim "Your Honour, I was simply expressing my view that I am entitled to the bank's money". Similarly for conspiracy.
18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
Freedom of expression does not include freedom from prosecution for real crimes.
“ If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both”
You keep commenting to cite this statute when you clearly have not actually read what it says. Peaceful protest is explicitly protected by the first amendment.
Interesting that there would be people on a "side" that think there was a conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime?
Interference with a law enforcement investigation?
18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech. If all info could be interpreted as impediments to federal officers then phones, the internet, the human voice, etc would be illegal
> This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech.
Yes, but physical impediments are physical impediments. The protesters have been repeatedly seen to impede, or attempt to impede, ICE physically.
It's a crime.
What do you have against crime?
Nonviolent political action is often criminalized.
In the fascist's mind, anything that isn't supporting Dear Leader's vision of "greatness" is a crime.
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We already know that "doxxing" on its own is not a crime, and moreover that [non-undercover] federal agents are not entitled to keep their identities secret.
We also know that legal observation and making noise does not constitute interference.
So those may be their stated reasons, but they will not hold up in court.
Federal felony, not free speech.
18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
There's been lots of legal writing pointing out these statutes basically refer to impeding an officer by threat or physical force, which that statute you cite states. It doesn't refer to anything about providing food to someone who is fearing for their lives and won't leave the home, or communicating about the publicly observed whereabouts of law enforcement.
Are these federal officers? They’re men in masks with camo and body armor kidnapping people off the streets and refusing to show identification beyond a patch that says “ICE”.
That is who is alleged to be impeded.
Sure, but you should read what "impede" and "interfere" mean both in the regs and court precedent. Following ICE agents around is neither impeding or interfering by current federal court definitions. But yeah... that can change quickly.
“Free speech” is a concept not a law. The first amendment protects certain types of speech. Whether something is free speech or not does not depend on the US government’s opinion or the Chinese government or your mother in law.
Publishing locations alone is not conspiracy to commit a crime. If ICE is impeded as a result of this information, that’s not enough. Conspiracy requires the government to prove that multiple people intended to impede them.
Which is probably the easiest thing ever to prove, since people are openly trying to impede them
Coordinating roadblocks, "dearrests", warning the subjects of law enforcement operations, and intentionally causing the maximum amount of noise in neighborhoods neighborhood are not things you will be able to get a federal judge to characterize as "constitutionally protected speech".
The “arrests” are being done in a deeply unconstitutional way. Acting to uphold the constitution is beyond speech, it’s a duty of all americans.
Actually... making noise in a neighborhood is constitutionally protected speech (as I have learned when my neighbors crank the sub-par disco up to 11.)
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.72
this is to say that ICE is breaking MN law no?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause
Also, it turns out the law is interpreted by judges who often (but not always) have careers as attorneys. It is not, thankfully, interpreted by people dropping into the internet comments section.
That the law is written in a way that an individual rate-payer may believe they understand its application is irrelevant to the way it actually is. "The Law" is not necessarily the written corpus of enumerated regulations, but also the judicary's day-to-day interpretation of the written text, tempered by exhortations from (hopefully) decent legal minds arguing before the court. That's the theory, anyway.
an old lady and a fucking nurse shot by goons in masks and tactical gear... and they are labelling who as terrorists??? ffs america
Just a reminder that we're dealing with propagandists here.
As many have already stated, Signal is overwhelmingly secure. More secure than any other alternative with similar viability here.
If the feds were actually concerned about that, publicly "investigating" Signal chats is a great way to drive activists to less secure alternatives, while also benefiting from scattering activist comms.
I'm convinced all this talk around Signal, including Hegseths fuckup, is to discourage "normies" (for lack of a better term) from using it. Even in this very HN thread, where you'd expect technical nuance, there are people spreading FUD around the phone number requirement as if that'd be your downfall... a timestamp and a phone number? How would that get someone convicted in court?
They don't have to get a conviction if they know your address and have a gun.
So more nonsense. How about tracking down the murderer first.
Perspective from Central Europe (Austria): I can tell you that essentially nobody here has any doubt that bad faith is at play.
Our mainstream news outlets are openly calling the "official" versions from the Trump administration what they are – lies. The video evidence is clear to anyone watching: this was murder. No amount of spin changes what the footage shows.
As citizens of a country that knows firsthand how fascism begins, we recognize the patterns: the brazen lying in the face of obvious evidence, the dehumanization, the paramilitarized enforcement without accountability. We've seen this playbook before.
What Americans might not fully grasp is how catastrophically the US has damaged its standing abroad. The sentiment here has shifted from "trusted ally" to "unreliable partner we need to become independent from as quickly as possible." The only thing most Europeans still find relevant about the US at this point is Wall Street.
The fact that the FBI is investigating citizens documenting government violence rather than the government agents committing violence tells you everything about where this is heading.
Url changed from https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/kash-patel-..., which points to this.
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Yeah! Signal has nothing to do with technology. The government trying to snoop on a private E2EE service is not worth discussion.
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Many people on hacker news have a reason to care about the united states government's position on signal and their evolving efforts relating to civil rights.
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An American VA Hospital ICU Nurse was disarmed and executed. Which crime is it OK to be chemically and physically assaulted before being disarmed and shot dead?
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I have seen the videos. He was already on the ground, fixated by several ICE agents, when he was shot 10(!) times. That was after he had been peppersprayed and beaten to the head. At no point did he actually draw or reach for his gun. There was absolutely no reason to shoot him.
> With any luck investigation will reveal more details.
Kristi Noem said: "This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement." She even went so far as calling this an act of "domestic terrorism". At this point, do you seriously believe there will be a neutral investigation?
Being on the ground doesn't remove any potential that he could be dangerous.
I don't know why he was being beaten on the ground, that seemed a little excessive. Not sure how many times he was shot, but generally if law enforcement ever makes the determination to shoot they do it to shoot to kill.
They knew he had 1 gun, so he could have 2 guns. The officers don't see the angle most of the camera angles see. They see the perspective they see, from themselves. That is the perspective that will matter by law. What situation were they in and what did they see when they made their decision?
You have the luxury of seeing a perspective the officer did not see, and the officer has the luxury of seeing a perspective you did not see.
People who are in favor of throwing the officer's life away without knowing all of the details are doing basically doing exactly what they're accusing the officer of in suggesting that he threw away this person's life without knowing all the information.
I don't know what Kristi Noem is on about, but she's a political appointee and not an investigator.
The Sig P320 that an agent took off of him went off while it was in a federal cop's hand. This is the same Sig P320 that the US Army rejected and was mass recalled for going off on its own.
Unfortunately, when the shot went off he was still fighting with them, actively resisting and not complying. Fighting with federal cops like that is a good way to get killed. He played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.
Please do not spread misinformation! There is no indication that Alex' weapon went off.
> As far as I understand it, he laid hands on the officer, then struggled against arrest.
That's not how I understand it.
> Supposedly one of the videos shows him reaching for some black object. I don't know.
It would be good if you'd watch this review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIOwTMsDSZA
So I checked it out, but it's not really relevant. These activists appear to have followed the federal law enforcement. That highly suggests they knew exactly who they were. The officers didn't show up unannounced to the front door of someone who happened to be an activist. No reasonable court is likely to determine that they were unaware who they were dealing with.
> it's not really relevant
It's relevant because you said you didn't know. The review provides information that helps you to know.
> These activists appear to have followed the federal law enforcement.
Nothing illegal about that at all.
> That highly suggests they knew exactly who they were. ... No reasonable court is likely to determine that they were unaware who they were dealing with.
That's not relevant.
What's your point? No reasonable court would find that the activists did anything wrong, while they certainly would find two federal employees ("officers") are culpable in the murder of one of those activists.
> The officers didn't show up unannounced to the front door of someone who happened to be an activist.
So?
You probably linked the wrong video, because the video you linked is not relevant.
> Nothing illegal about that at all.
The first thing I said is that it's not illegal.
> No reasonable court would find that the activists did anything wrong, while they certainly would find two federal employees ("officers") are culpable in the murder of one of those activists.
The videos don't show all the events leading up to the moment he was shot, but multiple federal laws were broken just in the videos we do have. Murder has a specific definition and nothing here suggests murder.
The very start of the incident is an officer chasing a woman, she slips and falls, the officer chasing her catches up and then Pretti pushes the officer away.
That's almost certainly not the start. It's very common to not show what you did to agitate the officers and to only record after they come after you. If there are longer videos I haven't seen them, but its a very common tactic to cut out critical context to maximize emotional reaction on social media.
This is just lunatic speech. The one place he didn't have a gun was in his hands. You're out here acting like if he'd had a gun strapped to his ankle it would have been proof beyond any doubt he was intending to shoot and kill ICE officers.
He was pepper sprayed and on the ground surrounded by 6 agents when he was killed. At the time when an agent said that he had a gun (this was after his gun was removed), he was physically pinned with his arms restrained. He wasn't 'reaching for an object'. He was carrying his phone in his hand before he was restrained and shot a dozen times.
They don't necessarily know that's the only gun he had and the officers aren't Neo, seeing every camera angle at once. What you see from your outside perspective is not what they see. They have to act based on the information they have, which is why it's important you listen to law enforcement for your own safety. All the whistles make that harder, which might be part of the point.
Again: he was on the ground, with his eyes sprayed with mace, and he was, at least until seconds before he was shot, physically restrained. It doesn't matter if he could potentially have had another gun. They aren't Neo but there were six of them surrounding him, and the one who shot him only took eyes off to mace another protestor.
There are multiple videos from multiple angles and a multitude of witnesses.
The only investigation being done is by the DHS, who is blocking all other state level investigations. The same DHS who lied about easy disproven things that were recorded and destroy evidences.
What are you waiting or expecting from a investigation to make up your mind?
In the case of George Floyd, that was local police. In this scenario, these are federal law enforcement officers so it probably is correct for this case to be handled federally as far as I know.
I don't know what you're referring to about DHS lying about disproven things and destroying evidence. If you can give me links I'll look into it.
> What are you waiting or expecting from a investigation to make up your mind?
I've seen enough video to know that it's not impossible the officer reacted within the spirit of the law. To get a sense for that requires testimony from the officer that fired the shot. Please watch court cases some time and you'll get a sense for how the application of these kinds of laws work. I'm not a lawyer, but if you ever have to defend yourself against someone you'll be thankful the laws work the way that they do.
We have a justice system for a reason. It doesn't always work, but it lays out a process for evaluating evidence. Why do we do it that way? We do it that way, because it is not that uncommon that perceptions, witnesses, videos and many other things can be deceptive. They can make you believe things which are not true. So you try to establish all of the relevant facts as they apply to the law. Not based on how you feel, but based on the law.
It actually hurts some of the witnesses that are obviously activists, because it means they aren't unbiased objective observers, but are predisposed to a perspective and have a possible agenda in mind which risks reducing the quality of their testimony. A law enforcement officer that thinks he might be found guilty also risks their testimony being weak. The video quality is also often bad and there are people obstructing important details at times. All of those things have to be considered.
Of course when you are emotionally invested, you might want them to just rush to what you obviously see. Again, you will be very thankful that the justice system generally doesn't rush to those conclusions so readily if you ever have to defend yourself in court when you know you're innocent.
Good lord. There's no helping you if you cannot see with your eyes, my friend. I'd have to be blind to not see this poor man trying to defend a woman, then tackled, beaten, disarmed, shot dead in the back and head with 10 bullets.
I've seen enough of these kinds of situations to know it's easy to trick people into seeing what you guide them to see. It's like lying with statistical charts, but more insidious.
Why is it so important to you that other people see what you see before any investigation is complete? Look at how courts handle video evidence to gain some perspective on why your thinking which seems to rely so heavily on video evidence alone is simply flawed.
> to rely so heavily on video evidence alone is simply flawed.
Don't trust your eyes. That is the final and most essential command.
He was killed for carrying a gun. How do I know that? Thats what they've been saying over and over again. Absolutely gross.
> because it's just pitting people against law enforcement who have no idea what they're up against.
i think people know exactly what theyre up against: a lawless executive, many members of which have never had to work in places where they are held accountable to the constitution before.
its more important for the government to follow the constitution than for citizens to follow the law. if the government isnt following the law, there is no law
If you're talking about the Trump administration, they're surrounded by lawyers and constantly battling things up to supreme court decisions, which is not what lawless looks like. ICE is also enforcing existing laws that simply haven't been enforced in recent years. Whatever you think about those laws, they are the laws. Many people agree those laws need to be reformed, but elect people who are willing to change the laws. Unfortunately congress has trouble passing laws around some of these more controversial issues, so it'll probably stay this way for many more decades.
It's not just the what, it's the how.
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And you have it completely upside down. The federal government serves the people, the people do not serve the feds. If, while attempting to enforce federal law through ICE, the feds break the Bill of Rights, they are doing more harm than good. We can live with a few illegals. We cannot leave the house if we expect to be murdered in cold blood on the street by the federal government. The instigating event of the American Revolution was the Boston Massacre, where protesters were shot and killed by British soldiers. Sound familiar?
The people voted for mass deportation of the tens of millions of illegals that were let into the country and lawlessly given "sanctuary." The federal government is attempting to enforce the laws on the books, laws that were voted into statute by the democratically elected representatives of the people. No one is going to be murdered in cold blood on the street simply for leaving the house, but they could be if they brandish a weapon while seeking out officers and attempting to prevent them from enforcing the law.
It feels very strange to read someone describe these events as ‘LARPing as martyrs’ when there have been multiple tragic deaths.
Boot leather can't taste this good.
Civil disobedience exists and does not deserve a death sentence.
At least, while decrying civil disobedience, you differ from the administration in one important aspect: You think there should be accountability for police shootings. That's different than the ICE leader, the DHS leader, the FBI director and the Vice President.
From a sort of naive perspective it doesn't matter whether it's police or not. If you kill someone illegally, you should be held accountable for it. In many cases, whether it's illegal depends on how reasonable it was to do so. This is where it being law enforcement starts to matter even more.
Law enforcement face a lot of violent resistance, so it can be very reasonable for them to see an uncooperative person as a serious threat to their life. If they kill someone, because they believe them to be a lethal threat even if that was not the reality, their perspective absolutely matters to the outcome.
Civil disobedience is basically understood to be breaking the law in a civil manner. What I'm seeing in a lot of videos is not civil disobedience. One expected attribute of civil disobedience is non-evasion, but resisting arrest is essentially attempted evasion.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/
Again, I don't think anyone should have died, but to my eye I can tell the people who are unreasonable and lacking in critical thinking, because they have already prejudged and sentenced people as if they've already sat through the entire court case and had their own hands on the gavel as it went down.
Social media, videos, news, activists and more are incentivized to rile people up. Let it be investigated.
Yeah, the victim is investigated. Kill anyone evading arrest. Bring in the tanks.
That's not how the law works. In a case like this, all the events that led up to the moment he was killed are relevant as per the supreme court. They'll have to investigate both the officer and the activist and see how the law applies to it.
Yeah, sure, they'll "investigate" it. For some definition of investigate.
I'm not sure if you've been paying attention at all lately, but saying "let's investigate" with the current administration is farcical at best.
I don't know what you're referring to, but toss me some links and I'll look into it.
At the same time, you can't trust local Minneapolis justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFPi3EigjFA
They demonstrated a level of incompetence that's almost unprecedented in the entire US, so it seems likely DHS will be able to do a better job if that's who's doing the investigation.
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This wasn't civil disobedience. It was stalking law enforcement and then aggressively interfering. Not a capital crime, but still a recipe fir suicide by cop.
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This is what collaboration looks like
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> Don't let your compassion be weaponized.
It's telling on yourself that you think compassion for other people, the core idea that other peoples needs might be more important that your own, is objectively a weapon. You're not wrong that there's a lot of disinformation about, but from a purely historical view, the one position that has never been right is fence-sitting.
What you are basically saying is that justice is unjust and vigilantes are the solution, because the legal system operates under the principle that you are innocent until proven guilty.
You don't want to live in a world where you are guilty until proven innocent, because you might like it when you're the one wagging the finger, but you'll be crying for the old ways once it's turned on you.
You're not arguing in good faith, which is clear from your other replies, but I'm not saying vigilantes are the solution, just that compassion is not a weapon.
But also, just within your moral framework, I think it's really important to understand that the systems of justice have been compromised and we are, right now, seeing people treated as guilty until proven innocent. It's just not happening to you. It *is* happening to people like me.
Let me say that again: I'm not saying that vigilante justice is better, only that the legal system has become vigilante justice. People who share my moral values are being gunned down right now. And people like you are spreading excuses about how its shades of grey.
Well, if he's innocent until proven guilty and you agree with that, why do you need someone to prejudge their guilt and tell them they are on the wrong side of history by not prejudging? That really does come across as promoting vigilantism.
You've clarified that you don't support vigilantism...so, what benefit do you get from someone deciding guilt beforehand?
Why is it your position that people should not wait until investigations are done and it has been combed through in court? What purpose does that serve if not for vigilantism?
It sounds like you are aiming primarily for a political benefit or a sort of emotional moral validation through cultural acceptance of your view. This is why we have courts, because people can become very emotional and invested in an outcome. It can become a critical part of your identity and world view that someone be guilty. Those are generally presented as cautionary tales in history books, not the example to live by.
No, of course not. I don’t think it’s a crime to be punished.
I’m just saying I think you’re helping an authoritarian regime, and I think that’s bad.
I’m saying it because I think you should feel shame, not to suggest you should be punished beyond those basic social consequences.
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> Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat.
Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
> People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on.
No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill. The only Trump Derangement Syndrome is the people thinking he's fit to be in any kind of leadership position.
The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution. And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base. People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
> Let me stop you right there. It's not a both sides issue, is it? It's one side forcing gridlock? A party of obstruction, even.
There are still things they agree on and pass legislation for, but on many other issues they both obstruct each other. The actual details of that aren't as relevant as the fact that they have trouble passing legislation and can't be relied on for many important issues at present.
> No, and it's very important to you that you think that's true, because then people who disagree aren't just wrong, they're mentally ill.
If he was an authoritarian dictator king tyrant master emperor, I would care, but he's not, so I don't care. The evidence does not support that position. There's a lot of rhetoric, propaganda, sound bites, teases and more, but those do not produce reality. They produce perspective.
> The problem is that we're seeing people treat Trump like a king to a worrying degree, and he has gotten several of the traditional rights of kings that made people depose kings, like immunity to prosecution.
This is false. The supreme court decision did not fundamentally say that he was immune to prosecution. That is what was spread about it to foment anger, but I read the actual language of the decision and it's just a lie.
> And we're seeing things that were formerly thought to be absolute red lines like rounding up citizens and deporting them to Venezuelan prisons will absolutely be tolerated by his base.
Unless you're talking about something I haven't heard about yet, they were not legal US citizens and they were not sent to Venezuelan prisons. There was someone who had some kind of temporary legal status and so there were complexities around it, but they weren't a US citizen.
> People like you constantly assure us that there are red lines he won't be allowed to cross, and then defend him when he does cross them and deny ever saying that thing would be wrong.
I don't know anyone like me. It's common for people to be unable to navigate the gray area. It's either black or white. You are either "with us or against us". That's just purely juvenile. Does Trump have some moral failings? Sure. Is he some kind of arrogant character? Sure. I think on one side, some people will get so stirred up into such a moral panic that they'll believe any false thing about him. On the other, some people get so caught up in his reality distortion field that they'll believe anything he says. If you fully give up and end up settling into one of those grooves, you lose all sense.
"Congress has been in a state of relative gridlock for many years, across multiple administrations whether republican or democrat. As a result, presidents have increasingly been leading by executive order rather than legislation. That is not Trump's fault, that is just the state of the country."
"People thinking that Trump is a king or dictator are delusional, because the US doesn't work that way. If Trump rounded up thousands of US citizens and simply burned them alive, he would be arrested by the military and impeached by congress, because there are red lines that basically everyone agrees on."
So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king?
Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
"Talk about taking over Canada or Greenland is just rhetoric to get better deals and improve ally strength, because this is what Donald Trump has been doing since the 1980s. Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
Just trying to understand.
"Doing something with Venezuela is part of basic US national strategy, not simply a spontaneous whim of Donald Trump."
Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
If it's just part of our national strategy, why'd the rational change so frequently and why does no one seem to have heard that before Trump decided to start focusing on it and amassing weapons off their coast?
"This doesn't mean you have to like a current president personally or morally, or even agree with everything they are doing, but at least you can gain more perspective around what is real and what is not."
Primo ending though.
> So presidents are acting more like kings, but Trump... isn't?
No US president is a king, because the US doesn't have kings. The country isn't structured that way. Most countries legitimately do not understand this, because almost no countries are structured the way the US is.
> Does pardoning people who commit acts of violence in your name not sound like a king? Or what about pardoning people who donate do your campaigns?
A king is a very specific thing and you don't need to be a king to have a power which has been delegated to you.
> You think Donald Trump has been _strengthening_ our relationships with allies? In what manner has he done that in your mind? Is it the tariffs, the denigration, or the threats that are helping? And how does Canada talking about moving away from the US at Davos, then confirming it again later play into that? Is our allies cutting off signal intelligence actually a sign that our bonds with them is getting stronger?
When people watch news or listen to world leaders talk, it comes with a sense of authority. Many people are predisposed to automatically think that is the end of it, that they've found the truth. Like clockwork, Trump says some big bold thing that gets people talking and he does this to produce the kinds of results he's after that other people have trouble getting. It gets him a lot of criticism and hate, but he's been doing this since the 80s or even earlier.
He creates a "monument", because he says that nobody cares about deals that aren't monumental. The small uninteresting deals don't get much attention. People don't invest in it. As a result, he thinks small deals are actually harder to do than big deals. So he makes everything a big deal. He's a big deal. Ukraine is a big deal. Gaza is a big deal. Canada is a big deal. Greenland is a big deal.
Now, in order to be credible, he has to be known as a person who does get some big things done. So what you do is you see what can you actually do, and you do the biggest thing you can get done. Now you have credibility. You use that credibility as leverage to make larger claims and people will take your larger claims seriously, even if people who are anchored in reality may have the sense to know that larger claim is a bluff. He bluffs so much. If you remember that old youtube video of trading up from a paperclip to trade all the way until you get a car, it's like that.
So much talk about threatening to leave NATO, or destroying NATO by invading Greenland or any of that nonsense only makes NATO stronger. It makes them say, "hey, we need to be more independent. maybe we can't fully rely on the US if they're talking like this. let's invest more." When they invest more in their military, now the whole alliance is a little stronger. This is important, because World War 3 may be coming and we either need our allies to join us in some way in South East Asia, or we'll need them to be able to hold their own in Europe.
It amazes me the stuff he gets away with, but he's not any kind of threat to democracy.
> Which part of US national strategy is that exactly? Sure Maduro is pretty universally condemned by anyone paying attention, but so are plenty of other authoritarian regimes? Is part of the national strategy leaving the ruling class exactly the same as the one the apparently corrupt dictator we deposed had and then extorting it for millions of barrels of oil? Does the richest country in the world, which also is the largest oil producer and has plenty of access to a very stable world oil market need to resort to extorting barrels of oil from foreign dictators as part of national strategy?
We were already in Venezuela in the 1900s. It is estimated to have upwards of 300 billion to over a trillion barrels of oil. That dwarfs basically every other country. Oil is important for global stability and we still haven't discovered any energy solutions that fully erase dependence on oil. So long as it is needed, it has to come from somewhere. If Russia and China control it, that risks oil being traded primarily in some currency other than USD, even propping up some reserve currency. Venezuela also had Russian and Chinese military hardware, with Russia recently agreeing to send them missiles. That allows for comparisons with the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were also a stopping point for the shadow fleets which were breaking international law and helping fund Russia's war in Ukraine. Iranian terrorist groups were also operating in Venezuela. It was also at risk of becoming the next North Korea, but with both nukes and oil. It would've been a nightmare for freedom, democracy and global security.
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Sounds good, until you realize that they've now murdered two peaceful protesters, who they post facto smear as terrorists to justify their murder.
Driving your car at someone, whether or not you are trying to hit them or putting them at risk by trying to dodge them, isn't peaceful. I'm shocked that this needs to be explained to people. Tribalism is one helluva drug.
That's not what happened. Watch the video. What you'll see is an undertrained bully with no accountability who was looking for an excuse to use violence. That's why the victim was shot from the side, and why the administration refuses to allow a serious investigation.
putting them at risk by trying to dodge them? What?
"fucking bitch" right?
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How is a history of constitutional violations not on topic?
He just misspoke slightly. What he meant to say:
"What we will defend: using chaos, riots, and volatility as cover to escalate violence against peaceful protesters."
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good.
I suspect they're going to find it challenging to turn protected speech into something prosecutable like obstruction - assuming activists exercise even a modicum of care in their wording. Seems like just another intimidation tactic but in doing that, they've also given a heads-up to their targets.
For all the complaints about the previous DOJ, one thing nobody ever argued was that they weren't intending to get convictions. They only brought cases they thought they could win.
To see DOJ use its power the way we've seen (and I know the original story here is only with FBI at this point), it makes me think there should be some equivalent of anti-SLAPP laws but aimed at federal prosecutions. Some way to fast track baseless charges that will obviously never result in anything and that are just meant to either (a) punish someone into paying a ton of lawyer fees, (b) to intimidate others, or (c) grab some short-term headlines.
Considering ICE is executing people in the streets and were already breaking laws before this something little like free speech won’t help
'executing people in the streets' is such disingenuous phrasing. How about improperly trained ICE agents responding horrifically to stressful and dangerous altercations caused by citizens impeding lawful investigations?
Your causality is reversed.
The dude was literally just standing there on a public sidewalk with his hands up. He never initiated the altercation or otherwise impeded any lawful investigation.
The agent chose to initiate the altercation during which the victim was pepper sprayed, pinned to the ground by six people, disarmed, and then shot ten times.
> The dude was literally just standing there on a public sidewalk with his hands up
He was in the street the entire time and attempted to interpose himself between an officer and a woman that the officer was presumably intending to place under arrest.
Either you are MAGA or fed.
First was literally woman dropping her kid to school. ICE stopped her car, told her to both get out of the car and drive away. ICE pig deliberately stepped in front of her car, she turned the wheel away from all ICE pigs and started to move away and he shot her dead.
Second was ICE pigs pushing two women for at least 10 meters. They pushed these women until they hit a man who was literally just filming. He helped the women stay up. ICE pigs pepper sprayed all three and while he was on his knees with hand in the air, other supporting himself against the ground he was shot in the back of the head.
In both cases ICE created and escalated the situation against peaceful and completely innocent citizens. Neither situation was stressful nor an altercation and neither of these innocent people were impeding any investigation. And calling ICE agents actions “lawful” is laughable, let’s start from them illegally wearing masks, not wearing their badges which is also illegal, and not identifying themselves which surprise surprise is also against the law
> First was literally woman dropping her kid to school.
This was an early rumour that turned out false.
> ICE stopped her car
Video confirms that the SUV was parked perpendicular to the street for several minutes before any ICE agents approached her.
> told her to both get out of the car and drive away
She was initially told by Ross to drive away. She refused, and he then began to circle the vehicle and film everything, during which process he was accosted and antagonized by Good's partner. Then, many seconds later, a different officer ordered her out of the car, presumably to arrest her for refusing the previous order (and generally for obstruction).
> ICE pig deliberately stepped in front of her car
This is refuted by noticing that Good was making a two-point turn; as she reversed, the angle of the SUV substantially changed, putting Ross in front of the car. He simply could not have covered that much ground by "stepping in front".
But even if he had "deliberately stepped in front", he had every right to do so, and Good had no right to flee the scene. It comes across that you are alleging some 5d-chess plan to deliberately endanger his own life in order to create an excuse for lethal force, based on a simple desire to execute a citizen.
This narrative can only possibly make sense if one completely disregards Occam's razor and also fundamentally disregards the legitimacy of immigration law. Of course ICE agents don't actually want to kill US citizens. As demonstrated by the fact that the only such deaths have been in this one specific sanctuary city in a sanctuary state — where protestors routinely physically obstruct the agents, state officials encourage the protest, local police won't even protect ICE from crimes committed against them, and a literal "anti-ICE autonomous zone" has been set up.
> let’s start from them illegally wearing masks
The illegality of this has not been established, and nobody complaining about it here has provided a concrete reason as to why it should be prohibited.
If you're thinking of the VISIBLE act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/221...), it has not gone anywhere in the House or Senate.
> not wearing their badges which is also illegal
I haven't seen any evidence of that happening; but if the law you're referring to is https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/723 , note that an exception is specifically provided in the relevant law:
> (b) EXCEPTION.—The requirement under subsection (a) shall not apply to individuals referred to in such subsection who — (1) do not wear a uniform or other distinguishing clothing or equipment in the regular performance of their official duties; or (2) are engaged in undercover operations in the regular performance of their official duties.
> and not identifying themselves
Again, I have no idea what you're referring to. They're out there in very recognizable uniforms.
Three letter agencies do three letter agency things
Yep
People need to investigate the FBI. They would be shocked at their crimes. The recent Epstein news comes to mind but that is only the smallest tip of it.
Always use encryption for anything. Encrypted messengers are great, but I would never trust Signal. It requires phone numbers to register among other issues, has intelligence funding from places such as the OTF, and their dev asset Rosenfeld is a whole other issue.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nbc-news/
and what is NBC "news"'s motive/agenda for framing this info the way they are?
"LEFT-CENTER BIAS These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation
NBC News is what some call a mainstream media source. They typically publish/report factual news that uses moderately loaded words in headlines such as this: 'Trump threatens border security shutdown, GOP cool to idea.'
Story selection tends to favor the left through both wording and bias by omission, where they underreport some news stories that are favorable to the right. NBC always sources its information to credible sources that are either low biased or high for factual reporting.
A 2014 Pew Research Survey found that 42% of NBC News’ audience is consistently or primarily liberal, 39% Mixed, and 19% consistently or mostly conservative. A more liberal audience prefers NBC. Further, a Reuters institute survey found that 46% of respondents trust their news coverage and 35% do not, ranking them #5 in trust of the major USA news providers."
What are you getting at? The idea of any of the major news outlets in the US being left-leaning is risible nowadays.
How do you reconcile, for example, the search results for https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Acnn.com+fascist with a claim that it's "risible" that CNN is "left-leaning"?
Or do you dispute that CNN is a "major news outlet in the US"?
And surely you'd agree that MSNBC is to CNN's left?
Hmm? These are mostly news reports of one person calling another person a fascist. Notably, one of the people doing the calling is Donald Trump!
>Last week, after being found guilty of falsifying business records, former President Donald Trump said Americans today live in a “fascist state,” building on his unfounded conspiracy theory that somehow President Joe Biden is behind his prosecution in Manhattan.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/06/politics/fascism-trump-bi...