4 ms·

While this is concerning, it's hardly surprising. After all, if I were a gov't in power I'd want to keep track on groups that could be a potential threat.

ajross 7y ago
The outrage is precisely that the government in power considers non violent protest movements "potential threats", yeah. I mean, obviously if you don't agree with them you'd tend to view them in a less generous light (e.g. "Some of those hippies are loons, and all it takes is one with a weapon...") and view this decision as reasonable. The problem with that thinking is that mere political disagreement is never a justification for "threat" in a democracy, by defintion. People disagree, that's the whole point. You need a history of violence, some rhetoric, something. But protesting ICE by itself isn't enough.
- treis 7y ago
  >The outrage is precisely that the government in power considers non violent protest movements "potential threats", yeah. And how is the military supposed to know if these non violent protest movements are non violent without looking at them?
  - bildung 7y ago
    I don't know about the U.S. specifically, but usually the military in a democratic country is not allowed to care. That's the job of the police.
    - treis 7y ago
      Every military, democratic or otherwise, is going to care about potential threats to their bases or ongoing operations. The army isn't out there knocking on doors to investigate. They are getting information from other agencies and publicly available sources to present to the chain of command.
- caseysoftware 7y ago
  For the last few years, we've been assured that words themselves - regardless of what they are - are violence and just as damaging as physical violence. If that is true, this makes perfect sense and just another step towards the logical conclusion. It's bad but shouldn't be surprising.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Words can be violent, sure. Violent rhetoric is for sure reason to surveil a group. What words specifically did these groups engage in that worries you?
paganel 7y ago
I find it highly surprising that this task is carried by the US Military on US soil. Afaik dirty jobs like this one were in FBI's court, at least in so doing there was still a semblance of protecting the US Constitution. Granted, I'm not a US citizen so I may be be a little off about this, but from what I read about the subject (mostly from "The Federalist Papers") the non-involvement of the US Military on US soil is pretty much at the basis of the United States as a commonwealth.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  Surprising in what way? That the US military is patrolling the border of the US, as opposed to the border of a country on the other side of the planet? I assume you’re referring to Posse Comitatus, which is a seriously misunderstood law. Patrolling the border and ensuring territorial sovereignty is well within the purview of the US Military.
  - paganel 7y ago
    > Patrolling the border and ensuring territorial sovereignty is well within the purview of the US Military I still think it is against the very spirit of the US Constitution and in this particular case I don't see against whom are these soldiers "ensuring territorial sovereignty"? There is no enemy military force on the opposing side of the border. I actually grew up in a Eastern-European dictatorship but even they didn't use the Military to "protect" the country's borders, the dedicated border patrol forces were doing just a fine of a job of making sure nobody was escaping the country (because that was their job). The last time when we actually had soldiers "protecting" our borders was in the late '40s-early '50s on the Yugoslav border, when there were exchanges of live ammunition between Romanian and Yugoslav soldiers each stationed on their side of the border [1]. I can't see why the already de-facto militarized Homeland Security people aren't allowed to handle this, after all this is their main job. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split
    - icegreentea2 7y ago
      I believe that US military personnel are not empowered to apprehend any one in their current capacity. They are providing technical and logistical support to DHS personnel who are actually apprehending and enforcing the law. I feel like it's a little of a non-sequiter to try to compare the distribution of work amongst two militarized wings of a government in two different systems across decades. If we're going for spirit of US Constitution, we're already pretty far away - maintaining the world's strongest standing military is hardly in the spirit of the Constitution. I think there are parts of the constituion where it's still valid to seek the spirit of as a form of guidance, but it's been decades and decades since America the nation has shed that part of the constitutional spirit.

ajross 7y ago

The outrage is precisely that the government in power considers non violent protest movements "potential threats", yeah. I mean, obviously if you don't agree with them you'd tend to view them in a less generous light (e.g. "Some of those hippies are loons, and all it takes is one with a weapon...") and view this decision as reasonable. The problem with that thinking is that mere political disagreement is never a justification for "threat" in a democracy, by defintion. People disagree, that's the whole point. You need a history of violence, some rhetoric, something. But protesting ICE by itself isn't enough.

treis 7y ago
>The outrage is precisely that the government in power considers non violent protest movements "potential threats", yeah. And how is the military supposed to know if these non violent protest movements are non violent without looking at them?
- bildung 7y ago
  I don't know about the U.S. specifically, but usually the military in a democratic country is not allowed to care. That's the job of the police.
  - treis 7y ago
    Every military, democratic or otherwise, is going to care about potential threats to their bases or ongoing operations. The army isn't out there knocking on doors to investigate. They are getting information from other agencies and publicly available sources to present to the chain of command.
caseysoftware 7y ago
For the last few years, we've been assured that words themselves - regardless of what they are - are violence and just as damaging as physical violence. If that is true, this makes perfect sense and just another step towards the logical conclusion. It's bad but shouldn't be surprising.
- ajross 7y ago
  Words can be violent, sure. Violent rhetoric is for sure reason to surveil a group. What words specifically did these groups engage in that worries you?

paganel 7y ago

I find it highly surprising that this task is carried by the US Military on US soil. Afaik dirty jobs like this one were in FBI's court, at least in so doing there was still a semblance of protecting the US Constitution. Granted, I'm not a US citizen so I may be be a little off about this, but from what I read about the subject (mostly from "The Federalist Papers") the non-involvement of the US Military on US soil is pretty much at the basis of the United States as a commonwealth.

remarkEon 7y ago
Surprising in what way? That the US military is patrolling the border of the US, as opposed to the border of a country on the other side of the planet? I assume you’re referring to Posse Comitatus, which is a seriously misunderstood law. Patrolling the border and ensuring territorial sovereignty is well within the purview of the US Military.
- paganel 7y ago
  > Patrolling the border and ensuring territorial sovereignty is well within the purview of the US Military I still think it is against the very spirit of the US Constitution and in this particular case I don't see against whom are these soldiers "ensuring territorial sovereignty"? There is no enemy military force on the opposing side of the border. I actually grew up in a Eastern-European dictatorship but even they didn't use the Military to "protect" the country's borders, the dedicated border patrol forces were doing just a fine of a job of making sure nobody was escaping the country (because that was their job). The last time when we actually had soldiers "protecting" our borders was in the late '40s-early '50s on the Yugoslav border, when there were exchanges of live ammunition between Romanian and Yugoslav soldiers each stationed on their side of the border [1]. I can't see why the already de-facto militarized Homeland Security people aren't allowed to handle this, after all this is their main job. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split
  - icegreentea2 7y ago
    I believe that US military personnel are not empowered to apprehend any one in their current capacity. They are providing technical and logistical support to DHS personnel who are actually apprehending and enforcing the law. I feel like it's a little of a non-sequiter to try to compare the distribution of work amongst two militarized wings of a government in two different systems across decades. If we're going for spirit of US Constitution, we're already pretty far away - maintaining the world's strongest standing military is hardly in the spirit of the Constitution. I think there are parts of the constituion where it's still valid to seek the spirit of as a form of guidance, but it's been decades and decades since America the nation has shed that part of the constitutional spirit.