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> Nor can the government decide it doesn't want me as CEO of my company anymore. You sure about that? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/0

> Nor can the government decide it doesn't want me as CEO of my company anymore. You sure about that? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30/a-ceo-who-resisted-nsa-spying-is-out-of-prison-and-he-feels-vindicated-by-snowden-leaks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...

dylan604 6y ago
I was going to comment on just the recent use of unmarked federal agents in Portland. I never thought that within the single term of US president things could swing so far. I used to question how it happened in WWI/II, but now I see it first hand.
- zo1 6y ago
  I'm on the other side of that. Something needs to be done about the violent protests as it's gone way passed "free speech". At some point we have to agree that people are not really trying to enact change, but are just angry and acting out violently (or not peacefully). If it means having to send in "unmarked federal agents" to detain them because the local politicians are abdicating their duty to keeping civility within their territory, then so be it. It really is a far cry from what is happening in China.
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    First they came for the communists...
    - djohnston 6y ago
      On the preceding I think it would be: "First they came for the rioters.", although I disagree with OPs sentiment.
      - Cyph0n 6y ago
        How exactly do you know that only violent rioters are being forcibly taken? And my comment was not about who they're targeting first, but about how that kind of logic is a slippery slope. The reality is that most people lack empathy for those they do not know, and only become engaged when it affects them personally. It’s good to keep that in mind when taking dangerous stances like the above.
        lazyasciiart 6y ago
        On the contrary, we know definitively that people who are not violent rioters have been kidnapped this way. And people who just don't want to care will still ignore it, because it's easier for them to assume that everyone being arrested is Bad and just lying about it.
        Cyph0n 6y ago
        A part of the HN crowd seems to have a strong opinion about this, it seems. You’d think that educated and technical folk would mostly understand why arbitrary arrests by federal agents is never a good thing...
        sosborn 6y ago
        > educated and technical folk I see the come up all the time and I can think is, maybe the HN crowd isn't as special an intelligent as it thinks it is. I enjoy it here, but let's not get too full of ourselves.
  - CapitalistCartr 6y ago
    These are minor riots. Criminal acts do not give these Feds the right to suspend The Constitution.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      The crimes are not minor and nobody has suspended the constitution.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - anon120393 6y ago
    And I'm on the other side of that. Why are you focusing on the protestors acting out angrily and violently but not focusing on the abundant evidence showing police doing the same? What was the root cause of the protests? Have the people responsible for those root causes attempted to alleviate the root cause, or attempted to heap on more of the same? Also: those are still Americans you're talking about, whether or not you agree with them. The whole point of our government is that those in power should be held to a higher standard, so the "so be it" argument is pretty stupid. Why don't the people in power do better? And for all this heat being thrown at the local politicians, aren't they the ones with their finger most on the pulse of their constituencies? Have you considered the protestors aren't behaving as badly as they're made out to be? Logic like yours makes me sick. You probably would have been OK with crucifying Jesus... "He should have followed the law!"
  - rabidrat 6y ago
    Sorry, no. Regardless of whether "something" needs to be done, that something cannot be "abduction by mute unmarked federal agents". I'm amazed that you accept and apparently condone this end-justifies-the-means thinking! The USG has its entire legal and military force at its disposal, and it has to resort to extrajudicial violence? This is abominable and inexcusable behavior.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      Sorry, no. Anarchists trying to burn down our communities get arrested and go to jail. That’s the social contract. No extrajudicial violence. Rioting is abominable and inexcusable behavior. I’m amazed you’re surprised by this.
      - rabidrat 6y ago
        I live in Seattle and I don't see anyone trying to burn down our communities. Someone threw a candle at a cop. That's not a riot and you're being fed crap by whatever media you're watching.
        lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        You’re obviously not paying attention or being intentionally dishonest. https://komonews.com/news/local/demonstrators-gather-in-downtown-seattle https://komonews.com/news/local/demonstrators-gather-in-down...
        rabidrat 6y ago
        Do you live here in Seattle, Larry? Some smashed windows and graffiti are not "trying to burn down the community". 12 officers got some bruises on their knuckles as they punched someone, and the media runs with it. Meanwhile hundreds of people have been beaten or gassed or hit with "non-lethal" weapons over the past few weeks. KOMO news won't spend time reporting on that because it doesn't fit their narrative.
  - e5india 6y ago
    You have a really low bar for freedom if the destruction of property is all it takes for you to start justifying unmarked federal agents grabbing people off the street. Further the leadership in these states already have sufficient resources available to handle these protests if they decide it's gotten out of hand. People not from these neighborhoods are proclaiming these protests out of hand summarily. The people protesting have been exceeding clear about what they are arguing for precisely. Holding police accountable is not some fringe political opinion and in fact the right, according to its own professed beliefs, should be natural allies in this movement. The further this continues the more evidence we have that these concerns about police in the United States acting with impunity are legitimate. What is clear however, is that a significant portion of the people who have claimed themselves champions of freedom and states' rights always held the caveat that it be in the service of a particular group of people. It is interesting how people who in every other circumstance hold individual liberty as central to their beliefs now place law and order at the center of their arguments at the expense of individual liberty. Where in the Constitution are our rights subject to conditions on behavior? Fucking nowhere. The second amendment itself grants the people the right to violence against a tyrannical government so why then would "not destroying statues" in any way be considered some kind of pre-requisite for legitimite protest?
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      >The second amendment itself grants the people the right to violence against a tyrannical government Who believes this? Some people believe in a separate and pre-existing right to rebel, and some may not, at least legally, but I'm not aware that anyone believes the 2nd amendment grants the right. People commonly claim that the motivation for the 2nd amendment is to make rebellion possible, but that's not the same thing as granting the right.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > The second amendment itself grants the people the right to violence against a tyrannical government No, it grants them the right to keep and bear arms, it does not grant them the right to use them against the federal or state government, and in fact the Constitution specifically empowers the federal government to act against any who would do so. Now, the Declaration of Independence appeals to a separate and independent of any human law right to rebel uncertain conditions, but the Second Amendment does not.
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    I don't want federal agents abducting people but I want a strict law enforcement that allows peaceful assembly enmasse but fines/detains and prosecutes people that destroy property. BLM is a scape goat. The real issue is that poor are struggling in portland to feed themselves and COVID has caused them to not be able to afford rent, food and shelter. This is a civil unrest, BLM is an excuse. What we should do is support these people financially, provide them shelter, get them gov jobs, and keep societal order. At this rate, cities are getting destroyed and we are just on the sidelines debating about BLM/police.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - snypher 6y ago
    Maybe the people being protested could respond to the issues being protested.
  - mundo 6y ago
    I empathize, but you've been misled about the nature and extent of size of the protests. It so happens that I live two blocks away from where the feds were arresting people two nights ago. If the police were overwhelmed or were overlooking serious crime, I'd be right there with you.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    I disagree with just about every claim you've made a) the protests have gone beyond the realm of free speech b) people who are violently angry cannot also be trying to enact change c) something needs to be done d) local politicians are abdicating their duty d) if something needs to be done then anything is acceptable, including whatever unconstitutional fascism the admin wants to come up with I will give you that China is still a lot worse. But that's like praising someone for not being Ted Bundy.
- Natsu 6y ago
  Your comment has me confused, because the previous comment seems to have argued that there wasn't a change--2013 was under the prior administration. As for Portland, that appears to be an unusual use of Federal authority, but as far as I can tell, they actually do have relatively sweeping legal authority, even if it's not often exercised (see the lawfare blog for some analysis thereof) and everyone is being processed in the regular court system. So it's not exactly the case of being "disappeared" that some reports claimed.
  - toast0 6y ago
    > everyone is being processed in the regular court system. So it's not exactly the case of being "disappeared" that some reports claimed. One article had an account of someone abducted, searched, and released, and then the authorities said they did not have records of arresting him. If there's no records, it's not the regular court system, even if it happened in the court building.
    - Natsu 6y ago
      From what I've read, the Oregon AG alleged that they were released by the prison they were taken to without charges, so apparently they refused to book them for whatever they were accused of in the first place. It's not clear to me what other records they would have in that case and again, this isn't exactly being "disappeared" given that they were turned over to the police for processing and then released without charges. Sounds more to me like some cops were lazy with the paperwork when they were going to release them anyhow. The feds have wide-ranging authority to arrest people and always have, though: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforcement-officers-doing-portland https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforc...
      - donavanm 6y ago
        Re: records it depends on the state DOJ. California will have a separate line item for each arrest, booking, arraignment, and release. I believe they also keep “administrative records” for each stop, but you dont get to see those when you request your own records. And yes, its possible to be arrested but then released when the duty sergeant/lieutenant refuses to book based on nonsense charges.
- hi5eyes 6y ago
  are we still under the assumption that ~~TRUMP~~ is the first president to use...... unmarked federal agents.... after ww2
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mlindner 6y ago
    They weren't unmarked federal agents, they all had badges.
- pdfernhout 6y ago
  Regarding your point that "I used to question how it happened in WWI/II, but now I see it first hand", not to say it is identical, but consider from: "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45" by Milton Mayer https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html ""What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with... And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing. "What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. ... "This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. ... "To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no [patriotic citizen] could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice — ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might. ... And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident ... collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in — your nation, your people — is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way." ..." One antidote to hate and fear is laughter and play; see for example Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga, author of "Homo Ludens" (who was eventually held in detention by the Nazis): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens And playfulness and laughter can be regained: https://myshrink.com/dont-laugh-anymore/ https://myshrink.com/dont-laugh-anymore/ "If your nervous system activation increases over your lifetime, chances are you'll lose your capacity for spontaneous laughter. Those folks who notice the difference in themselves might say they are "tapped out" or "I don't feel like myself". Indeed, there's some folks who've never had the ability for a good laugh to begin with. Don't despair. Just because you don't laugh anymore doesn't mean that can't be changed - it's temporary - unless you decide to do nothing about it." I've started watching the original "The Prisoner" series again ( https://archive.org/details/The_Prisoner https://archive.org/details/The_Prisoner ) and reading comments on it. It is becoming clearer that ultimately, fifty years after that series first aired, we are all part of a global village now... For good or bad, we are part of that system -- and there is essentially no possibility of "escape" because that system in some form is everywhere. And seeing the Prisoner series again decades later -- informed by some comments -- it is also clearer the series does not take an absolutist stand on one side or the other of the free-seeming individual or the structured-seeming community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner "A major theme of the series is individualism, as represented by Number Six, versus collectivism, as represented by Number Two and the others in the Village. McGoohan stated that the series aimed to demonstrate a balance between the two points." From the second Prisoner episode, "The Chimes of Big Ben" which I re-watched today: https://subslikescript.com/series/The_Prisoner-61287/season-1/episode-1-The_Chimes_of_Big_Ben https://subslikescript.com/series/The_Prisoner-61287/season-... Number Six: You're just as much a prisoner as I am. Number Two: Of course, I know too much - we're both lifers. I am an optimist. It doesn't matter who Number One is. It doesn't matter which side runs the Village. It's run by one side. But both sides are becoming identical. What has been created is an international community, a blueprint for world order. When both sides realise they're the same, they'll see this is the pattern for the future. Number Six: The whole earth as the Village? Number Two: That is my hope. What's yours? Number Size: To be the first man on the moon. As parts of that now essentially inescapable Global Village system built by all sides over the last half century, we can do what we can when we can to make it better somehow. As in the coincidentally written ~1932-1933 prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other." For example, the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek is essentially a surveillance state where the computer knows everything everyone is doing all the time -- but somehow we don't see the series through that surveillance state lens. Perhaps that is in part because of the amazing opportunities that cheap energy, matter replicators, space travel, holographic simulations, and so on make possible through widespread abundance for all Federation citizens in that (still) fictional universe? Or perhaps also it is because the surveillance is somehow behind some sort of assumed legitimate authority of access and (virtual) privacy? See also on the issue of surveillance and power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society "The Transparent Society (1998) is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts social transparency and some degree of erosion of privacy, as it is overtaken by low-cost surveillance, communication and database technology, and proposes new institutions and practices that he believes would provide benefits that would more than compensate for lost privacy." The recent unrest in the USA is emerging not from surveillance by the police of the citizenry but (via cell phones) from surveillance by the citizenry of the police (and what some specific police officers did to George Floyd). A related touchstone by Manuel De Landa: "Meshworks, Hierachies, and Interfaces": http://netbase.org/delanda/meshwork.htm http://netbase.org/delanda/meshwork.htm "To make things worse, the solution to this is not simply to begin adding meshwork components to the mix. Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation. Certain standardizations, say, of electric outlet designs or of data-structures traveling through the Internet, may actually turn out to promote heterogenization at another level, in terms of the appliances that may be designed around the standard outlet, or of the services that a common data-structure may make possible. On the other hand, the mere presence of increased heterogeneity is no guarantee that a better state for society has been achieved. After all, the territory occupied by former Yugoslavia is more heterogeneous now than it was ten years ago, but the lack of uniformity at one level simply hides an increase of homogeneity at the level of the warring ethnic communities. But even if we managed to promote not only heterogeneity, but diversity articulated into a meshwork, that still would not be a perfect solution. After all, meshworks grow by drift and they may drift to places where we do not want to go. The goal-directedness of hierarchies is the kind of property that we may desire to keep at least for certain institutions. Hence, demonizing centralization and glorifying decentralization as the solution to all our problems would be wrong. An open and experimental attitude towards the question of different hybrids and mixtures is what the complexity of reality itself seems to call for. To paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari, never believe that a meshwork will suffice to save us." Theodore Sturgeon's 1956 short story "The Skills of Xanadu"(which inspired Ted Nelson to work on hypertext, and in a way eventually led to the World Wide Web) also has an interesting take on privacy in a world where people are surrounded with networked technology. Audio: https://archive.org/details/pra-BB3830.08 https://archive.org/details/pra-BB3830.08 Text: https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1956-07/Galaxy_1956_07 https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1956-07/Galaxy_195...
- mlindner 6y ago
  They were not unmarked federal agents, they were all wearing badges. The cars themselves were unmarked, but the people were fully marked and wearing badges. Please read the article before commenting.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  This has to be a joke. Rioters were setting fire to federal buildings. Federal agents arrested them. That’s how things work. You really need a sobering look at history if you think this is anything close to the atrocities of WW2.
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Nacchio was convicted by a jury of insider trading. I dont see how the NSA could have arranged that. And he did not deny making the trades. I'm not saying yout wrong, just that Nacchio is not a good example.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Nacchio was convicted by a jury of insider trading. I dont see how the NSA could have arranged that. I'm not sure what part of identifying the jurors, finding pressure points, and covertly applying pressure you think would be beyond the capabilities of the NSA if they wanted to do it. Or doing the same to Nacchio and/or is counsel, to affect the case that got to the jury. Not (even a little bit) suggesting that is what happened, just that suggesting it is plausible for the NSA to be able to influence that kind of outcome is not even a tiny stretch.
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    It is not impossible, you are right. But he admitted to placing the trades. How do you explain?

dylan604 6y ago

I was going to comment on just the recent use of unmarked federal agents in Portland. I never thought that within the single term of US president things could swing so far. I used to question how it happened in WWI/II, but now I see it first hand.

zo1 6y ago
I'm on the other side of that. Something needs to be done about the violent protests as it's gone way passed "free speech". At some point we have to agree that people are not really trying to enact change, but are just angry and acting out violently (or not peacefully). If it means having to send in "unmarked federal agents" to detain them because the local politicians are abdicating their duty to keeping civility within their territory, then so be it. It really is a far cry from what is happening in China.
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  First they came for the communists...
  - djohnston 6y ago
    On the preceding I think it would be: "First they came for the rioters.", although I disagree with OPs sentiment.
    - Cyph0n 6y ago
      How exactly do you know that only violent rioters are being forcibly taken? And my comment was not about who they're targeting first, but about how that kind of logic is a slippery slope. The reality is that most people lack empathy for those they do not know, and only become engaged when it affects them personally. It’s good to keep that in mind when taking dangerous stances like the above.
      - lazyasciiart 6y ago
        On the contrary, we know definitively that people who are not violent rioters have been kidnapped this way. And people who just don't want to care will still ignore it, because it's easier for them to assume that everyone being arrested is Bad and just lying about it.
        Cyph0n 6y ago
        A part of the HN crowd seems to have a strong opinion about this, it seems. You’d think that educated and technical folk would mostly understand why arbitrary arrests by federal agents is never a good thing...
        sosborn 6y ago
        > educated and technical folk I see the come up all the time and I can think is, maybe the HN crowd isn't as special an intelligent as it thinks it is. I enjoy it here, but let's not get too full of ourselves.
- CapitalistCartr 6y ago
  These are minor riots. Criminal acts do not give these Feds the right to suspend The Constitution.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    The crimes are not minor and nobody has suspended the constitution.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- anon120393 6y ago
  And I'm on the other side of that. Why are you focusing on the protestors acting out angrily and violently but not focusing on the abundant evidence showing police doing the same? What was the root cause of the protests? Have the people responsible for those root causes attempted to alleviate the root cause, or attempted to heap on more of the same? Also: those are still Americans you're talking about, whether or not you agree with them. The whole point of our government is that those in power should be held to a higher standard, so the "so be it" argument is pretty stupid. Why don't the people in power do better? And for all this heat being thrown at the local politicians, aren't they the ones with their finger most on the pulse of their constituencies? Have you considered the protestors aren't behaving as badly as they're made out to be? Logic like yours makes me sick. You probably would have been OK with crucifying Jesus... "He should have followed the law!"
- rabidrat 6y ago
  Sorry, no. Regardless of whether "something" needs to be done, that something cannot be "abduction by mute unmarked federal agents". I'm amazed that you accept and apparently condone this end-justifies-the-means thinking! The USG has its entire legal and military force at its disposal, and it has to resort to extrajudicial violence? This is abominable and inexcusable behavior.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Sorry, no. Anarchists trying to burn down our communities get arrested and go to jail. That’s the social contract. No extrajudicial violence. Rioting is abominable and inexcusable behavior. I’m amazed you’re surprised by this.
    - rabidrat 6y ago
      I live in Seattle and I don't see anyone trying to burn down our communities. Someone threw a candle at a cop. That's not a riot and you're being fed crap by whatever media you're watching.
      - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        You’re obviously not paying attention or being intentionally dishonest. https://komonews.com/news/local/demonstrators-gather-in-downtown-seattle https://komonews.com/news/local/demonstrators-gather-in-down...
        rabidrat 6y ago
        Do you live here in Seattle, Larry? Some smashed windows and graffiti are not "trying to burn down the community". 12 officers got some bruises on their knuckles as they punched someone, and the media runs with it. Meanwhile hundreds of people have been beaten or gassed or hit with "non-lethal" weapons over the past few weeks. KOMO news won't spend time reporting on that because it doesn't fit their narrative.
- e5india 6y ago
  You have a really low bar for freedom if the destruction of property is all it takes for you to start justifying unmarked federal agents grabbing people off the street. Further the leadership in these states already have sufficient resources available to handle these protests if they decide it's gotten out of hand. People not from these neighborhoods are proclaiming these protests out of hand summarily. The people protesting have been exceeding clear about what they are arguing for precisely. Holding police accountable is not some fringe political opinion and in fact the right, according to its own professed beliefs, should be natural allies in this movement. The further this continues the more evidence we have that these concerns about police in the United States acting with impunity are legitimate. What is clear however, is that a significant portion of the people who have claimed themselves champions of freedom and states' rights always held the caveat that it be in the service of a particular group of people. It is interesting how people who in every other circumstance hold individual liberty as central to their beliefs now place law and order at the center of their arguments at the expense of individual liberty. Where in the Constitution are our rights subject to conditions on behavior? Fucking nowhere. The second amendment itself grants the people the right to violence against a tyrannical government so why then would "not destroying statues" in any way be considered some kind of pre-requisite for legitimite protest?
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    >The second amendment itself grants the people the right to violence against a tyrannical government Who believes this? Some people believe in a separate and pre-existing right to rebel, and some may not, at least legally, but I'm not aware that anyone believes the 2nd amendment grants the right. People commonly claim that the motivation for the 2nd amendment is to make rebellion possible, but that's not the same thing as granting the right.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The second amendment itself grants the people the right to violence against a tyrannical government No, it grants them the right to keep and bear arms, it does not grant them the right to use them against the federal or state government, and in fact the Constitution specifically empowers the federal government to act against any who would do so. Now, the Declaration of Independence appeals to a separate and independent of any human law right to rebel uncertain conditions, but the Second Amendment does not.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  I don't want federal agents abducting people but I want a strict law enforcement that allows peaceful assembly enmasse but fines/detains and prosecutes people that destroy property. BLM is a scape goat. The real issue is that poor are struggling in portland to feed themselves and COVID has caused them to not be able to afford rent, food and shelter. This is a civil unrest, BLM is an excuse. What we should do is support these people financially, provide them shelter, get them gov jobs, and keep societal order. At this rate, cities are getting destroyed and we are just on the sidelines debating about BLM/police.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- snypher 6y ago
  Maybe the people being protested could respond to the issues being protested.
- mundo 6y ago
  I empathize, but you've been misled about the nature and extent of size of the protests. It so happens that I live two blocks away from where the feds were arresting people two nights ago. If the police were overwhelmed or were overlooking serious crime, I'd be right there with you.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  I disagree with just about every claim you've made a) the protests have gone beyond the realm of free speech b) people who are violently angry cannot also be trying to enact change c) something needs to be done d) local politicians are abdicating their duty d) if something needs to be done then anything is acceptable, including whatever unconstitutional fascism the admin wants to come up with I will give you that China is still a lot worse. But that's like praising someone for not being Ted Bundy.
Natsu 6y ago
Your comment has me confused, because the previous comment seems to have argued that there wasn't a change--2013 was under the prior administration. As for Portland, that appears to be an unusual use of Federal authority, but as far as I can tell, they actually do have relatively sweeping legal authority, even if it's not often exercised (see the lawfare blog for some analysis thereof) and everyone is being processed in the regular court system. So it's not exactly the case of being "disappeared" that some reports claimed.
- toast0 6y ago
  > everyone is being processed in the regular court system. So it's not exactly the case of being "disappeared" that some reports claimed. One article had an account of someone abducted, searched, and released, and then the authorities said they did not have records of arresting him. If there's no records, it's not the regular court system, even if it happened in the court building.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    From what I've read, the Oregon AG alleged that they were released by the prison they were taken to without charges, so apparently they refused to book them for whatever they were accused of in the first place. It's not clear to me what other records they would have in that case and again, this isn't exactly being "disappeared" given that they were turned over to the police for processing and then released without charges. Sounds more to me like some cops were lazy with the paperwork when they were going to release them anyhow. The feds have wide-ranging authority to arrest people and always have, though: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforcement-officers-doing-portland https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforc...
    - donavanm 6y ago
      Re: records it depends on the state DOJ. California will have a separate line item for each arrest, booking, arraignment, and release. I believe they also keep “administrative records” for each stop, but you dont get to see those when you request your own records. And yes, its possible to be arrested but then released when the duty sergeant/lieutenant refuses to book based on nonsense charges.
hi5eyes 6y ago
are we still under the assumption that ~~TRUMP~~ is the first president to use...... unmarked federal agents.... after ww2
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mlindner 6y ago
  They weren't unmarked federal agents, they all had badges.
pdfernhout 6y ago
Regarding your point that "I used to question how it happened in WWI/II, but now I see it first hand", not to say it is identical, but consider from: "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45" by Milton Mayer https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html ""What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with... And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing. "What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. ... "This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. ... "To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no [patriotic citizen] could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head. How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice — ‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might. ... And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident ... collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in — your nation, your people — is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way." ..." One antidote to hate and fear is laughter and play; see for example Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga, author of "Homo Ludens" (who was eventually held in detention by the Nazis): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens And playfulness and laughter can be regained: https://myshrink.com/dont-laugh-anymore/ https://myshrink.com/dont-laugh-anymore/ "If your nervous system activation increases over your lifetime, chances are you'll lose your capacity for spontaneous laughter. Those folks who notice the difference in themselves might say they are "tapped out" or "I don't feel like myself". Indeed, there's some folks who've never had the ability for a good laugh to begin with. Don't despair. Just because you don't laugh anymore doesn't mean that can't be changed - it's temporary - unless you decide to do nothing about it." I've started watching the original "The Prisoner" series again ( https://archive.org/details/The_Prisoner https://archive.org/details/The_Prisoner ) and reading comments on it. It is becoming clearer that ultimately, fifty years after that series first aired, we are all part of a global village now... For good or bad, we are part of that system -- and there is essentially no possibility of "escape" because that system in some form is everywhere. And seeing the Prisoner series again decades later -- informed by some comments -- it is also clearer the series does not take an absolutist stand on one side or the other of the free-seeming individual or the structured-seeming community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner "A major theme of the series is individualism, as represented by Number Six, versus collectivism, as represented by Number Two and the others in the Village. McGoohan stated that the series aimed to demonstrate a balance between the two points." From the second Prisoner episode, "The Chimes of Big Ben" which I re-watched today: https://subslikescript.com/series/The_Prisoner-61287/season-1/episode-1-The_Chimes_of_Big_Ben https://subslikescript.com/series/The_Prisoner-61287/season-... Number Six: You're just as much a prisoner as I am. Number Two: Of course, I know too much - we're both lifers. I am an optimist. It doesn't matter who Number One is. It doesn't matter which side runs the Village. It's run by one side. But both sides are becoming identical. What has been created is an international community, a blueprint for world order. When both sides realise they're the same, they'll see this is the pattern for the future. Number Six: The whole earth as the Village? Number Two: That is my hope. What's yours? Number Size: To be the first man on the moon. As parts of that now essentially inescapable Global Village system built by all sides over the last half century, we can do what we can when we can to make it better somehow. As in the coincidentally written ~1932-1933 prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other." For example, the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek is essentially a surveillance state where the computer knows everything everyone is doing all the time -- but somehow we don't see the series through that surveillance state lens. Perhaps that is in part because of the amazing opportunities that cheap energy, matter replicators, space travel, holographic simulations, and so on make possible through widespread abundance for all Federation citizens in that (still) fictional universe? Or perhaps also it is because the surveillance is somehow behind some sort of assumed legitimate authority of access and (virtual) privacy? See also on the issue of surveillance and power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society "The Transparent Society (1998) is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts social transparency and some degree of erosion of privacy, as it is overtaken by low-cost surveillance, communication and database technology, and proposes new institutions and practices that he believes would provide benefits that would more than compensate for lost privacy." The recent unrest in the USA is emerging not from surveillance by the police of the citizenry but (via cell phones) from surveillance by the citizenry of the police (and what some specific police officers did to George Floyd). A related touchstone by Manuel De Landa: "Meshworks, Hierachies, and Interfaces": http://netbase.org/delanda/meshwork.htm http://netbase.org/delanda/meshwork.htm "To make things worse, the solution to this is not simply to begin adding meshwork components to the mix. Indeed, one must resist the temptation to make hierarchies into villains and meshworks into heroes, not only because, as I said, they are constantly turning into one another, but because in real life we find only mixtures and hybrids, and the properties of these cannot be established through theory alone but demand concrete experimentation. Certain standardizations, say, of electric outlet designs or of data-structures traveling through the Internet, may actually turn out to promote heterogenization at another level, in terms of the appliances that may be designed around the standard outlet, or of the services that a common data-structure may make possible. On the other hand, the mere presence of increased heterogeneity is no guarantee that a better state for society has been achieved. After all, the territory occupied by former Yugoslavia is more heterogeneous now than it was ten years ago, but the lack of uniformity at one level simply hides an increase of homogeneity at the level of the warring ethnic communities. But even if we managed to promote not only heterogeneity, but diversity articulated into a meshwork, that still would not be a perfect solution. After all, meshworks grow by drift and they may drift to places where we do not want to go. The goal-directedness of hierarchies is the kind of property that we may desire to keep at least for certain institutions. Hence, demonizing centralization and glorifying decentralization as the solution to all our problems would be wrong. An open and experimental attitude towards the question of different hybrids and mixtures is what the complexity of reality itself seems to call for. To paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari, never believe that a meshwork will suffice to save us." Theodore Sturgeon's 1956 short story "The Skills of Xanadu"(which inspired Ted Nelson to work on hypertext, and in a way eventually led to the World Wide Web) also has an interesting take on privacy in a world where people are surrounded with networked technology. Audio: https://archive.org/details/pra-BB3830.08 https://archive.org/details/pra-BB3830.08 Text: https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1956-07/Galaxy_1956_07 https://archive.org/stream/galaxymagazine-1956-07/Galaxy_195...
mlindner 6y ago
They were not unmarked federal agents, they were all wearing badges. The cars themselves were unmarked, but the people were fully marked and wearing badges. Please read the article before commenting.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
This has to be a joke. Rioters were setting fire to federal buildings. Federal agents arrested them. That’s how things work. You really need a sobering look at history if you think this is anything close to the atrocities of WW2.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

Nacchio was convicted by a jury of insider trading. I dont see how the NSA could have arranged that. And he did not deny making the trades. I'm not saying yout wrong, just that Nacchio is not a good example.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Nacchio was convicted by a jury of insider trading. I dont see how the NSA could have arranged that. I'm not sure what part of identifying the jurors, finding pressure points, and covertly applying pressure you think would be beyond the capabilities of the NSA if they wanted to do it. Or doing the same to Nacchio and/or is counsel, to affect the case that got to the jury. Not (even a little bit) suggesting that is what happened, just that suggesting it is plausible for the NSA to be able to influence that kind of outcome is not even a tiny stretch.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  It is not impossible, you are right. But he admitted to placing the trades. How do you explain?