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Related to these mysterious federal agents in unmarked cars, I've often wondered how private citizens are supposed to protect themselves against someone imperso

• btmiller 6y ago
  I never thought I’d be advocating for the 2A, but...
  • kebman 6y ago
    It's what it's for.
    • KozmoNau7 6y ago
      Unfortunately a lot of 2A enthusiasts seem to be perfectly fine with the militarization of police and harassment of minorities and protestors, because to them it's the "right people" getting the short end of the stick.
      • 1123581321 6y ago
        This is just a frequently repeated meme. There is no evidence for it.
        • orf 6y ago
          I’m looking for a statement by the NRA condemning what’s happening, reminding people that this kind of government oppression is what the 2A is all about and that regardless of your political views we should stand united in our willingness to bear arms against this incursion into our freedoms. I haven’t found it yet. Lots of stuff about demonic Democrats stripping freedoms though. Strange.
          • 1123581321 6y ago
            I understood the OP to be talking about individual enthusiasts of the constitutional amendment, not the republican lobbying organization—my apologies if I had that wrong.
            • krapp 6y ago
              The vast majority of 2nd Amendment supporters (vocal enough to be advocates) are also staunch supporters of the NRA and its rhetoric. This is the reason the Second Amendment and gun rights are almost exclusively associated with The NRA and Republicans in the US, and why gun sales in the US always peak during Democratic administrations. Also, there is a long and established relationship between militia movements in the US and right-wing/white supremacist ideology, which serves to create sympathy among gun rights advocates with authoritarianism which just happens to target leftists, immigrants and minorities.
              • 1123581321 6y ago
                I think you’re attributing too much weight to a narrow overlap between constitutionalists and white supremacists. But I appreciate that you have reasoned through that meme and I am sorry I accused you of posting it thoughtlessly.
              • formerly_proven 6y ago
                I thought 2A supporters aren't fans of the NRA, because the NRA is "complicit in legislating the right to [some] guns away"?
    • dragonwriter 6y ago
      Not in the way most gun-rights advocates portray it; the 2A grew out of a vision that a particular danger to freedom was a standing army, largely because it became a separate subculture and would inevitably be used for internal oppression as well as external defense (modern police forces—standing paramilitary forces devoted exclusively to internal use would be a more extreme example than they had considered) and protecting the RKBA was designed to preserve a model where such forces were unnecessary as the states, individually and collectively, would rely on mobilizing the general militia for security (internal and external), rather than standing professional forces, not as a tool for individuals to resist such forces.
      • defnotashton2 6y ago
        This is false and is a modern political narrative. It came from the British Bill of rights which explicitly states otherwise... In most if not all of history the police force was the same as the military.
        • dllthomas 6y ago
          Could you elaborate, because I am having trouble finding support for your position. If, by "British Bill of rights" you mean https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp then it seems to be clearly concerned that a standing army in peace time is a concern, and places a limit on it (specifically, that it require consent of Parliament). It doesn't strike me as remotely contradictory to think that those drafting the 2nd Amendment might have thought that did not go quite far enough, and have chosen a slightly different tack in addressing the same concern. This certainly leaves room for other evidence to decide the question in either direction, but (assuming I correctly interpreted your reference) the thing that you presented as evidence for your position doesn't seem to be.
• danielschonfeld 6y ago
  > Is America really such a police state now that you are just supposed to submit to anyone in a uniform? Yes. It has been since Sept 11th 2001. (And every single day since, that we stand idly as a nation and refuse to look further into that day) To make it worse, your only tool for fighting it is the court system, which for every day infractions committed by the system, is usually not financially (yes i am using this word) viable.
  • digikazi 6y ago
    > Is America really such a police state now that you are just supposed to submit to anyone in a uniform? I guess what really surprises me every time I see it is... how can I put it? The level of militarisation of said police; I mean these federal agents look like they're on their way to storm Faluja, in full battle dress, and that makes me really, really, really uncomfortable. Its not quite the same here in the UK, although I believe we're getting there, albeit slower. But yeah, seeing those dudes dressed in battle rig with no visible badges of rank/name etc gives me the creeps.
    • formerly_proven 6y ago
      > Its not quite the same here in the UK, although I believe we're getting there, albeit slower. But yeah, seeing those dudes dressed in battle rig with no visible badges of rank/name etc gives me the creeps. Soldiers carry visible identification (mostly) because they are subject to the Geneva convention, but police isn't and thus doesn't, since there is no legal obligation by the state in many countries. Even in Germany, a somewhat civil country, police generally wear their rank and name openly, except when they are deployed in Hundertschaften, where they carry no identification apart from the unit number. Obviously this makes it very difficult for people to report officers, since "that guy in dark blue riot gear with a BY 84-V on his back hit me for no reason" applies to literally a hundred people who were in roughly the same area doing roughly the same thing.
    • buran77 6y ago
      People put up with it for the same reason they always put up with this kind of stuff: they're given a bigger enemy to focus on, one that is or much worse and people are never let to forget that. Of course by comparison it looks like you actually have it good. And you slowly forget, or ignore, that you have it "good by comparison" but you also have it worse year after year. The other thing is that not everyone gets to suffer. Under any form of government the ones that are on the leadership's "good side" will benefit or simply not suffer obviously. The others get to suffer. In democracy this might be the "dictatorship of the majority", and if that majority doesn't care enough to vote for fixing the country's problems instead of their individual problems, or is complacent with the current situation based on the above "doesn't suffer obviously" then by the time they do somebody already consolidated power or subverted that democratic process. Or perhaps some of the people just shifted to the minority and get to see that side. It's hard for people to see the real problems as long as their interests temporarily align with their leadership's. Just like the famous "First they came ..." quote. The person who uttered it got to live through this transition from being on the good side of the leadership, seeing his own interest, to the less pleasant side seeing too late what it was for the others.
• bmarquez 6y ago
  Regarding impersonation, I think a parallel can be drawn to plainclothes police arrests. If a plainclothes police officer arrests you, do you comply or do you shoot? Breonna Taylor was killed by plainclothes officers when her boyfriend shot believing their apartment was being robbed. At least these federal agents have uniforms and police insignia. I guess the American way is to comply, then sue them later.
  • vsskanth 6y ago
    Qualified immunity severely limits this.
    • sitkack 6y ago
      If you just bleed on them out of protest, they will get you. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-caught-in-a-bloody-lie https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-day-ferguson-cops-were-cau... > Police in Ferguson, Missouri, once charged a man with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms while four of them allegedly beat him.
  • tandr 6y ago
    > plainclothes police officer arrests you Don't they have to show you a proof of being a police officer anyway?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• chrisseaton 6y ago
  In the UK you can phone the police on a known-good number and ask them to verify a badge number. I guess you can probably do that in the US as well?
  • salusinarduis 6y ago
    Call the police while they shove you in a corner, cuff you, drag you into a car.
    • jbay808 6y ago
      Good thing they won't dare take your phone away!
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    In the US, pulling out a phone during a police interaction has been known to get people shot dead, so it's not a great solution, even ignoring how non-police impersonating police might respond.
  • vsskanth 6y ago
    It's not that simple. Unlike the UK, beat cops in the US carry guns. The moment you put your hand in your pocket you will get shot because the cop is allowed to suspect you have a gun and shoot in fear of his life. Google "Daniel Shaver" for a real-world example of this.
    • vinay427 6y ago
      There is a third option, because cops in nearly every European country carry guns [1], either in their vehicle or actually on them. Even still, few get shot in this type of situation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_firearm_use_by_country
      • chrisseaton 6y ago
        I have no idea why so many countries think it's normal for their community police to carry something so extreme as firearms. Really boggles my mind. They should be reserved for extreme emergency situations, used by very specialist officers. There should be absolutely no need for an officer responding to routine tasks to be carrying military-grade weapons.
• salawat 6y ago
  The idea was that impersonating a federal agent or law enforcement official was a felony, which among other things, even if you did your jail time, would result in you being in the system, on speed dial for actual law enforcement, and bereft of certain fundamental civil rights. Of course, there is still the issue that all that serves to do is keep honest people honest, and doesn't do much to deter a determined criminal who is certain they'll get away with it, criminals who don't care and just want to do as much damage as they can before being stopped, etc... In truth, you can't do much about it short of public access to operational details of Law enforcement agencies, which arguably comes with it's own set of problems. Hence, now the country being in the midst of a crisis of faith, all thanks to the absolutely jaw dropping incompetence and unprofessionalism perpetrated by the Administration, the Legislature's complete ineffectiveness and incapability to follow any other strategy than "pitch impossibility and deadlock", and the Media not even being able to be relied upon to show some decency in terms of holding the bar of ethical journalism high enough that enough people can trust them without having to cross-reference to next Sunday to get a reasonably accurate rendition of what actually happened. While others may advise the 2nd Amendment, which I wholeheartedly support, it doesn't solve the immediate need of satisfying due process without escalating to violence in the event of a lawful arrest. Of course, if you're a protestor,even a lawful arrest may not carry that much weight for you, and at the end of the day there is something extremely uncomfortable about a state of affairs where you end up either arresting unarmed Protestors, and shooting/ignoring the armed ones. Can't deny that fundamentally speaking though, individual to individual: only you can ultimately be responsible for keeping yourself alive, breathing, and free. Act accordingly. If you accept that puts you on the wrong side of the law, then that's that, and maybe one day that can stop being the case, and the struggle continues. If it puts you on the side of enforcing the will of the People you deem to be legitimate, that's that; the struggle continues. If you just want others to leave you be, to live and let live, you need to be prepared to fend off getting wrangled in by either of the aforementioned groups, and just as above the struggle continues.
• willhslade 6y ago
  My understanding is that this is already happening in Arizona with cartel members impersonating police for kidnappings. Don't expect this to get better.
• heavyset_go 6y ago
  > "Can I see your badge?" doesn't seem very effective, given that a badge can easily be faked, but more importantly you'd probably, for good reason, be too afraid to even ask There are thousands of videos on the internet of Americans being harassed, beaten or arrested, sometimes illegally, by cops who refuse to identify themselves when asked. Even if they carried a badge, what reason would a jackbooted thug have to reveal their identity to their victims? The government already gave them carte blanche to shoot, maim and abduct citizens for exercising constitutional rights to assembly and speech.
  • josteink 6y ago
    > The government already gave them carte blanche to shoot, maim and abduct citizens for exercising constitutional rights to assembly and speech. Don’t be hyperbolic. They may have the ability to abuse their position as police officers to do all that, but the government and the law has certainly not given them permission. Any officer caught breaking the law like this, does run the risk of himself getting arrested and losing his job (even though the risk may be smaller than we’d like it to be).
    • mindslight 6y ago
      I don't see the need to bicker over formalisms. For example, Breonna Taylor's murderers have yet to be charged. It makes sense to say that the law has been corrupted to protect them. And it also makes sense to say that the existing laws are adequate and the prosecutor is corrupt. It does not make sense to argue over which one of these is more correct - addressing either area of corruption could yield progress.
• Freak_NL 6y ago
  In the Netherlands a police raid lead to the discovery of a soundproofed shipping container in a warehouse equipped as a torture chamber, complete with a creepy old barber's chair replete with leather straps, handcuffs suspended from the ceiling, and an assortment of pliers and other tools. They prevented the crime syndicate behind it from executing a carefully orchestrated plan were a team posing as a police tactical unit would 'arrest' a competing drug lord and take him to their newly prepared torture chamber. They had the van and the appropriate uniforms all ready for use. The idea that the police squad busting down your door might not be the actual police is downright scary. Of course this is an extreme case, and involving something most of us are not involved in, but it does make you wonder what recourse the drug lord would have had (except for the obvious 'don't be a drug lord, dummy' solution of course). I doubt 'can I just check your badge for a moment?' would work even if the actual police showed up.
  • jbay808 6y ago
    Good point. You also don't need to be a drug lord to have ruthless enemies. Even Gandhi and MLK got assassinated.
    • vikramkr 6y ago
      You say "even" as if two powerful leaders that helped catalyze enormous changes in society resulting in a fundamental shift in who has power and autonomy would somehow be less likely to have ruthless enemies. Those are the folks who if anything are more at risk of being killed by powerful enemies than a druglord since MLK, Gandhi, Lincoln etc had enemies motivated by pure ideology (white supremacy, hindu supremacy, white supremacy) while drug lords'enemies are motivated by money. I'd be a lot more worried about the former.
      • jbay808 6y ago
        Right, what I meant is that it's easy for someone to dismiss a drug lord being assassinated as "just deserves" or "live by the sword die by the sword" or "tut tut, that's why you shouldn't be a drug lord". I just mean to show that even upstanding citizens and role models and inspirational figures could have enemies ruthless enough to drag them into an unmarked van. "That's why you shouldn't become an upstanding moral figure" is what they'll say.
• awinder 6y ago
  If you live in baltimore or philadelphia you call 911 (if necessary) so that these “law enforcers” can spend some time in jail until after November when this ridiculous problem goes away. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-stay-out-of-our-cities/2020/07/23/f67a8512-cd1a-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-stay-ou...
  • defnotashton2 6y ago
    Blaming one man and party for this problem ignores all the many steps and people that brought us here.
  • gruez 6y ago
    I'm not sure how much use that is. AFAIK the police unions are very much on the side of the feds.
  • loopz 6y ago
    There's no reason to believe current admin won't keep creating new enemies to avoid that fate no matter what voters do.
• CyberDildonics 6y ago
  These aren't even uniforms, they are fatigues. Camouflage is meant to hide you. Police don't wear clothes to hide themselves, that is something soldiers do.
• coliveira 6y ago
  People in America don't understand that they gave up their civil rights when the "patriot act" and similar laws were approved after 9/11. The federal government has the right given by congress to spy, detain, and imprison outside the standard rule of law, under the pretense of "attempted domestic terrorism". This is essentially minority report-style laws applied to the US, since they can do what they want on the excuse of crimes that would possibly happen in the future.
  • illumin8 6y ago
    > The federal government has the right given by congress to spy, detain, and imprison outside the standard rule of law, under the pretense of "attempted domestic terrorism". No unconstitutional act of congress can take away rights enshrined in the constitution.
    • mindslight 6y ago
      While you are right in a sense, if you don't make a constructive point with your assertion it's just pointless arguing.
• johnnyb9 6y ago
  Perhaps you can contextualize the situation you are in. Were you detained rioting next to a federal courthouse? Maybe then you can assume it's a federal agent. Were you walking down the street in a suburb? Maybe not.
  • vsskanth 6y ago
    What if you were detained while walking next to a federal courthouse ?
    • tlear 6y ago
      During a riot that has been going on for a month+ probably cops/agents.
• mindslight 6y ago
  This is precisely why the uniform, badge, marked cars, being deliberate, and following procedures are so important to policing. And why impersonating law enforcement is strictly punished. The lack of these things is why the answer here is to defend yourself by any means possible, including lethal force. Realistically though most people would just get kidnapped - we don't all walk around prepared to fight, because we rely on society being calm enough that this is not necessary. These goon squads are not upholding law and order, but rather creating confusion and disorder. The cities that are directing their local police to arrest these dangerous criminals have the right idea, although we'll see how it plays out.
• wickedwiesel 6y ago
  This might be interesting: how about a hundred years ago, a German Carpenter dressed up as a Prussian officer and got the local guards to hand over the town treasury. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23950138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23950138
• openasocket 6y ago
  > Is America really such a police state now that you are just supposed to submit to anyone in a uniform? And does this not seem ripe for abuse to everyone else? The snarky answer is: if people with guns come up to you and tell you to come with them, you should probably comply, especially if they aren't cops. But really you raise a good point, one that the ACLU's lawsuit explicitly brings up. I recall a case (I think in Myrtle Beach) where some police officers broke conducted a no-knock warrant to arrest someone, but they did so in plain clothes and did not announce that they were officers and that the person was under arrest. The person, fearing for his safety, came out of his bedroom with a gun and the officers shot him multiple times. He later sued. I remember the opinion from the judges was absolutely scathing. They held that the officers would be personally liable for damages (i.e. the would have to pay this guy out of their own pockets, not just the city). I recall listening to oral arguments and at one point the defense rhetorically said something to the effect of "he had a gun, were the officers supposed to just stand there and get shot?" And the judges essentially responded "yes". Now part of that conclusion rested on the fact that he has a right to defend his home, and there's some specific case law there ( I believe Heller calls out defending your home specifically). But I wouldn't be surprised if it was perfectly legal to refuse to go with someone who does not identify themselves, and even to respond with force if they assault you. But it's probably not the wisest thing to do. Best thing to do would probably be to record them and take legal action. I think the craziest thing about this is that the people getting arrested by these weird federal agents are all being released within hours without charges, because these arrests violate all normal procedures. Actually I kind of wish they would try to prosecute these protesters. Because you have the right to face your accuser, and during discovery all of the information about who these people are and who ordered them to do what would come to light.
  • regularfry 6y ago
    If I were a malicious government I might start off by grabbing people off the street then releasing them, to get people used to the idea that "it's not so bad" and "don't struggle, they'll let you go without charge". After that narrative has had time to sink in (days? weeks?), I'd redirect the people I'd grabbed somewhere they weren't going to be released from instead. Not all at once, mind, because if most, or at least some, or maybe one or two are still getting released like before, there'll be confusion about what's actually going on and violent resistance won't crystalise. Especially if it's random, and there's no way to tell if someone's lost and hasn't turned up after release, or if they've been vanished.
• cmurf 6y ago
  Yes and yes. This is what happens with corruption. The degradation of trust and civility is the point. The more it happens, the more civil disobedience happens, that too is inevitable. And this is known in advance, and will be what results in a demand for the police to use even more force to restore order. Order is code for two things: compliance and nostalgia. Not trust or civility.