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FBI warns of plans for nationwide armed protests next week

309 points by ali92hm 6y ago

etrabroline 6y ago
I've never seen a post with so many upvotes and no comments on hackernews before. EDIT: This post went from 51 to 65 upvotes in the time it took me to write this comment. I'm really surprised such a popular post about a hot topic wouldn't attract any comments. EDIT: Now 77 lol EDIT: 51 accounts upvoted this without a single person commenting. then the next 50 upvotes brought all the comments. I guess no one browsing new bothers to comment?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  It's pretty common for people to upvote, then read, then comment.
  - etrabroline 6y ago
    this was posted over an hour ago and I was the first to comment
    - pbourke 6y ago
      It may have just popped onto the front page
      - etrabroline 6y ago
        Thats correct. Im surprised 50 people upvoted it to the front page without anyone commenting. Maybe that happens a lot I haven't checked. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest Nothing else in new has more than 10 upvotes. This thing must have really shot up out of no where.
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  There've been a few before, but it isn't too common. It usually indicates either a post that hits a popular topic ("Show HN: Reddit-clone supporting org-mode comments written in Rust with Haskell user scripts and a Rust-implementation of Erlang's OTP for distribution across nodes") or one that's genuinely interesting, but usually more intellectual (not a pop tech/sci post) and people are reading it.
- viro 6y ago
  I mean what am I supposed to say? Half the country is bitching about censorship while that half is also trying to overthrow the government to keep Trump it power.... FFS is God gas lighting me?! Or am ... its 2020 part 2
  - floxy 6y ago
    Half? Or 0.00001%? Is there any polling data available?
    - viro 6y ago
      I mean the comment should have clearly been hyperbole. But I guess with how things are going I should have known better.
      - floxy 6y ago
        No, I'm not trying to call you out, I'm actually interested in what the answers might actually be. And how we might actually measure them.
    - etrabroline 6y ago
      Here is some kind of internet poll: >one in five voters (21%) say they support the goings-on at the Capitol So much closer in magnitude to half than to 0.00001%. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... >Republicans (45%) actively support the actions of those at the Capitol 43% (of Republicans) are opposed. >survey was conducted on January 6, 2021 between 5:17 p.m. and 5:42 p.m
- golemiprague 6y ago
  This post is pure politics like a reddit cesspool, I enjoy splashing in the mud like anybody else but prefer keeping HN more technology oriented or at least has some connection to technology, there are other places for political discussion (yeah i can see the irony now that everything is censored...)
ogre_codes 6y ago
With 2 cops dead after the mob at the Capitol building, maybe the police will take mobs of armed "Protestors" a little more seriously here than they seem to have in the past.
- seiferteric 6y ago
  Most if not all armed protests before happen in states with legal open carry laws. If this is true, and armed people show up in 50 states, many of which this would be illegal, it will be a totally different ballgame.
  - stonecraftwolf 6y ago
    I said as much below, and got downvoted for it. Open carry states are in a different position entirely, though I’m not sure any state police department wants to deal with mass arrests of armed criminals. If they show up in Albany armed, for example, they’re already breaking the law. This could get very ugly.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      > breaking the law Which law? The one that says “shall not be infringed?”
      - technothrasher 6y ago
        NYS Penal Law 400, but of course you were being facetious.
        kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        Those laws are unconstitutional. Open carry in particular is not concealment. I'm not fond of people bringing guns to non-2A protests but there is a document limiting the government's power and every state ratified it.
stonecraftwolf 6y ago
Open carry states might have a rough time. ETA: maybe a better way to phrase this would be to contrast between open carry states and restricted carry states. IANAL, but in NYS, for example, my understanding is that these people would be breaking the law the second they marched on Albany openly carrying firearms. ETA2: Downvotes for pointing out reality?
- mod 6y ago
  Breaking the law is a storied tradition for protesters. Not historically open-carry laws, granted. Anyway I'm not sure why that means the state will have a rough time. It may mean they'll have an easier time, as they have a readily-available reason to arrest the protesters.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    “Breaking the law nonviolently is a storied tradition for protestors. AKA civil disobedience.” There, fixed that for ya :);)
    - loopz 6y ago
      Proper civil disobedience is about non-violence. Illegally carrying guns seems to be acting in bad faith.
- matwood 6y ago
  Maybe you were originally misunderstood? I agree with your point. Getting a mob whipped up into riot level excitement is a completely different situation if the mob all has guns holstered and shouldered.
  - claar 6y ago
    Likely the downvotes were from people who either open carry themselves or know many other level-headed and law-abiding people who also legally open carry. As a community, I would argue that those who regularly open carry are much less likely to incite or join a violent protest than those who do not open carry. But perhaps I've spent too much time in the Bible belt.
coffeemaniac 6y ago
This is only going to get worse until there are consequences for doing this. And with a significant portion of the nation's law enforcement sympathetic to right-wing causes I feel this will continue to escalate for some time.
jorblumesea 6y ago
Hardly surprising, if you legitimately believe the "election was stolen" why would you stop now? If you were willing to storm the capitol building, you're probably going to storm many more buildings. Did people really think that they were going to say, "well we stormed the capitol building and it didn't work, let's just give up?" The violence we saw is just the start, some parts of the MAGA crowd have been radicalized.
- DeafSquid 6y ago
  It's the same type of thing as abortion protesters. They believe the doctors and patients are committing murder. Why wouldn't they do anything in their power to stop a genocide. And of course there's a lot of overlap with trump supporters and anti-abortionists
- malcolmgreaves 6y ago
  > The violence we saw is just the start, some parts of the MAGA crowd have been radicalized. What parts aren't radicalized?
  - jorblumesea 6y ago
    I don't think the entire movement is showing up to storm government buildings. Clearly this is a small minority of supporters. The riot at the capitol was maybe a few thousand people.
    - matwood 6y ago
      I guess we would need to define radicalized. I have know people who say, 'Trump was sent by God to save the USA'. These people didn't storm the capital, but they are certainly radicalized. I might agree if you said the whole GOP isn't radicalized, but it seems like all of MAGA has reached that level. As an aside, I couldn't imagine supporting any politician to that level.
    - burkaman 6y ago
      45% of registered Republicans support the storming of the Capitol. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...
lettergram 6y ago
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You don’t want all these people to feel like they don’t have a voice. Trump, for better or worse, was the voice of half the country. Now, lots of people feel they have taxation without representation. Worse, they’re feeling as if they’re being persecuted. IMO they should let him have Twitter back. If need be, have them approve his tweets pre viewing. This would lower tensions. It won’t fix the underlying issues, but you want the leader to empathize then disarm. I also have to say, I haven’t seen where this is being planned. Facebook, Twitter... parler (lol)? I’d like to see evidence of it, not trust the FBI here.
- asiando 6y ago
  I don’t know what to think. Per-tweet moderation would be seen as censorship just as well, and would be a pretty interesting exception on Twitter. But also I don’t blame Twitter for finally putting an end to the misery he caused. I blame them for not doing it sooner, if anything.
- cauthon 6y ago
  They have a voice. They have a congressional representative, two senators, and a vote in the presidential election. What they do not have, and will never have in the USA, is the right to overturn an election they lost with violent force.
  - Nuzzerino 6y ago
    Where was their voice in court when the courts refused to hear the election case at all on its merits?
    - unethical_ban 6y ago
      You don't get to sue claiming fraud, then say "Well I don't know, check on it". What are you going on about?
      - Nuzzerino 6y ago
Tarsul 6y ago
and here we are arguing of the slippery road of pulling down posts because it's against freedom of speech. As if the risk to democracy and its people is not higher due to letting all this happen. If the republicans do not come around in the next few years, I fear for America.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Democracy requires freedom of speech, and to abridge that freedom is to destroy Democracy. A building does not a government make. Whatever people harmed, windows broken, our government is not any worse off functionally than it was the day before. Yet this will be used to pass harmful laws, and like 9/11 it will do infinitely more damage to Democracy than whatever the original attackers did.
  - malcolmgreaves 6y ago
    Your post reads as if it's downplaying the significance of Wednesday's failed coup attempt, and the incredible ramifications of it.
    - ordinaryradical 6y ago
      It is downplaying. What happened was unprecedented political violence and the only reason to make an argument like the parent is because you cannot admit it deserves a serious, judicial response.
      - cgriswald 6y ago
        > What happened was unprecedented political violence... Well, there were the little matters of the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. And a few others of varying scope in this incomplete list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_Unit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%93Baxter_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%93Baxter_War (This isn't to disagree with you; or to downplay the seriousness or support the events of the sixth.) Edit: List formatting
mrslave 6y ago
Considering how Trump is never there for his supporters, I'm surprised he has any left. I'm skeptical that there will be any more significant protests anywhere in the country. The Capitol mob was a portion of the most hard-core who travelled to D.C. this late after the election to show support for what exactly? This is wholly independent of the issue of persistently casting doubt on the quality of the election since before the election, which obviously isn't right. Also the double-standard with more than 100 days of BLM protests -- that were often protests but also were often riots -- is kinda funny. Trump is involved so suddenly it's domestic terrorism even though very little property was damaged, certainly not buildings burnt to the ground and people murdered in the street like we saw before. The hyperbole on both sides really needs to be dialed down to 1. Noone has behaved themselves well throughout this presidency.
- brighton36 6y ago
  You should consider asking them why.
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    When I ask that, the only answer I get is "My information bubble tells me everyone loves Trump, so any situation where he genuinely loses is inconceivable."
    - mrslave 6y ago
      A bit unfair considering the exact same could be said for another large bubble with 's/loses/wins/'. To GP, you could add more than snark. The most strongly proclaimed message is that there's a stolen election to be stopped. This is a very bold claim, and while I'm don't disbelieve that there could be election fraud, (1) it's not a square function: the magnitude of the fraud would need to be considered; and (2) some evidence for such a strong claim is needed. Trump has had 3 years of actual governing to address things like stale voter registries where dead people, say for example, come out and vote in the order of 50,000 (a claim I have heard but can't comment on it's strength). To use that now is disingenuous. But then we're just here guessing what Stop The Steal even means because noone is explaining it sufficiently.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
I don't like the national patriots blood drive.
gridder 6y ago
Could this be a diversion for keeping forces away from DC?
Bakary 6y ago
Are there any in-depth, not too speculative studies on the interrelationship between the right-wing and law enforcement in the United States?
- OnlyOneCannolo 6y ago
  https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-police-aggression-is-far-more-pronounced-against-left-leaning-protesters/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-police-aggression-is-...
- pmiller2 6y ago
  https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd...
- samizdis 6y ago
  I read this article in fivethirtyeight from Jan 7, which addressed that subject, and it cited a few pieces of research. However, I didn't follow the links to said research articles so I have no idea how speculative or otherwise they are. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  "The FBI warned for years that police are cozy with the far right. Is no one listening?"[1] "A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans"[2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/28/fbi-far-right-white-supremacists-police https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/28/fbi-fa... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-w...
thepasswordis 6y ago
The people who stormed into the capitol believe that they were doing so as a part of a fight against fascism, and I am now starting to think that a lot of my left wing friends simply don't understand what these people think. If you want to familiarize yourself with their thinking, I would recommend reading The Gulag Archipeligo. That's the world they think they are working to prevent: Here are some things that they think 1) Several states changed election process via policy instead of via legislative process. This is illegal, and should be heard by a court. Maybe you think it was! But they don't. They believe in free and fair elections, and believe in the constitutionally layed out process for selecting government officials, as well as a system of arbitration if grievances arise during this process. 2) There is a left-wing authoritarian movement to delegitimize their political philosophy of limited government as racist. It is not racist, and they are not racist, and this is being used as a psychological tool against them. 3) There are powerful forces within the government who will use their power to suppress typical democratic processes to enact their will; usually in the service of overseas wars or profiteering. Okay. Imagine being in the mindset of these people. You fear authoritarianism, you fear the suspension of democracy, you fear the suspension of constitutional freedoms. In the last couple of days you have seen: 1) The president of the united states effectively silenced. 2) Calls for the imprisonment of you and your family for thoughtcrime. 3) Calls of the forced removal of what you believe to be a duly elected president. 4) Unbounded joy at the idea of parler being hacked, and your personal details being leaked and used to threaten you. What these people think they're asking for are democratic elections and a return to American democratic norms. Again, you can think that they're wrong or crazy, but that is what they think. It is with pure terror that I keep seeing what is happening with all of this. At every single turn it seems like everybody keeps making the worst possible decisions. Politicians for supporting violent rioters and arsonists all summer, the mob storming into the capitol on Wednesday, people being put onto terrorism watch lists and banned from travel within their own country, powerful tech oligopolies silencing any form of dissenting opinion (NOT just violent opinions). I saw a video of a guy being removed from a flight earlier today (posted on twitter of course with a snarky/giddy comment). He was in his 50s it looked like, and crying because he said they called him a terrorist and now he isn't allowed to travel. Banning that guy from travel will NOT calm him, and it will NOT calm the people in his social and familial circle. It will radicalize them. Cutting off their access to places like twitter will not calm their insanity. It will fuel it when the ONLY voices they are now hearing are the most radical ones. Completely insane people like Lin Wood are now where these people will be getting their information. I wish people would slow down, step back for a moment and try to choose the paths that will result in deescalation. Not further radicalization. It's extremely frightening and depressing to watch this happen.
donaldtheduck 6y ago
"Hacker" news is becoming Politics news.
- paganel 6y ago
  Rightfully so in this context, tech is playing a very active part.
- uoaei 6y ago
  If your sensibilities are ruffled, consider how Trump "hacked" a democratic republic to engineer such circumstances.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
TameAntelope 6y ago
Man, I really hope this is a byproduct of law enforcement swinging too far in the, "take everything seriously now" direction after last Wednesday, and not actual credible threats of specific violence in every state...
- uoaei 6y ago
  The FBI has been tracking white supremacist domestic terrorism for a long while. This is just the latest iteration in a decades-long issue. It is not a kneejerk reaction, nor an assumption -- they have good intel and the fact that they are publicly announcing it a week before they expect anything to happen is staggeringly serious.
- jspash 6y ago
  Who knows what's real anymore, so take this with a grain of salt, but this is what they're worried about: https://web.archive.org/web/20210106072816/https://pafa2021.com/how%2C-when%2C-where https://web.archive.org/web/20210106072816/https://pafa2021....
  - gwright 6y ago
    I don't know how to assess the credibility of that document, but as a plan to overthrow the government that seems laughable to me except for that fact that a whole lot of people are going to get hurt as it utterly fails.
    - AniseAbyss 6y ago
      John Brown was a laughable attempt but it helped stir up sentiments in the South. People should read some books about how countries can slide into civil war.
      - gwright 6y ago
        A fair point. I think it is a lot easier to start a civil war than it is to successfully replace a government by force. I'm saddened that we are even talking about those scenarios.
brown9-2 6y ago
“Armed protests” is a funny phrase. The reason for bringing weapons is to scare people or fight.
- starlust2 6y ago
  There's a *minuscule* amount of grey area if the protest is specifically about gun rights, but otherwise you are absolutely correct. Using a gun to show how serious you are is just a different way of saying it's for intimidation.
  - zepto 6y ago
    It could be for intimidation, but it could also be to dissuade trivial intimidation or violence by police. I witnessed a peaceful demonstration in the UK, in which mounted police struck completely non-violent protesters who were sitting on the ground in the head with batons as a way to scare the crowd into moving. That wouldn’t have happened if the protesters had been armed.
hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
I'm a little perturbed by the disproportionate reaction of the media and online communities to the Capitol Hill raid event. Particularly in relation to the muted reactions in the mainstream media to an entire summer of riots and protests related to the death of George Floyd, under the collective banner of 'Black Lives Matter'. These protests left at least 19 dead[1], and could cost the American economy up to $2 billion in insurance claims alone[2]. Not to mention enormous damage to small businesses and local economies, or the knock-on 'Ferguson Effect'[3]. During these protests, amid calls to 'defund the police', actual anarchist groups took control of a small area in Seattle and declared it their own 'Autonomous Zone'. They then repelled law enforcement from the area and extorted local businesses for protection until they were disbanded[4]. Not once did I hear anyone in the mainstream media, nor on this site, refer to them as 'insurrectionists'. Even though they were insurrectionists by their own words. The amount of violence and property damage in the Capitol Hill raid event were paltry in comparison to the widespread looting and arson that occurred in BLM-related protests. [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days-of-protests-19-dead/?sh=36cca2aa4de4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days... [2]https://nypost.com/2020/09/16/riots-following-george-floyds-death-could-cost-up-to-2b/ https://nypost.com/2020/09/16/riots-following-george-floyds-... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_effect [4]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
It will be interesting if the protestors organize using end-to-end encrypted chat apps. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been pushing for curtailment of end to end encryption. This might be what gives popular support for that.
- FFRefresh 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm afraid we may see pressure to further erode civil liberties under the guise of stopping the enemy of the day. After all, this enemy is uniquely evil, and we need to stop them in any way we can or society as we know it will be destroyed. (or so goes the story that we replay over and over)
hehehaha 6y ago
People really need to understand that democracy and free world begins and ends with America. There’s no backstop. If the US falls there’s absolutely no one else out there to stop Russia and China from taking over. This is not fear mongering. It’s a simple calculus based on nuclear weapons. So while this may look like relatively harmless political games being played, it’s a lot more careless and dangerous than we are led to believe.
- dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
  It's not fear mongering, but it's probably a bit hysterical. One has to take a contrarian view of one's own anxieties: this is all good for the republic, because it snaps people out of their complacency. Complacency is what gave us Trump in the first place. The "it'll never happen" attitude pretty much guarantees that at some point someone will purposely or accidentally benefit from it. Now that the cat is out of the bag people are very focused on the issue at hand, which is good. To believe America will "fall" you have to believe that there is, or there soon could be, a majority of people who believe in dismantling democracy and abandoning the constitution. If that is the case then America has already fallen.
  - chii 6y ago
    > Complacency is what gave us Trump in the first place. no, it's not just complacency. In the 2016 vote, he did get a lot of the popular votes (even tho hilary got more). That's a sign that a lot of people in the US do agree with his world view - whether they understand that it's just retoric trump is throwing to get votes, or they do truly feel it, is moot. Trump _only_ got into power because there's enough people in the USA to get him into power. This isn't a case of a one time bad president - it's the psyche of a nation.
  - WannaFly 6y ago
    Democracy is why America has already fallen. "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government". When people asked, "What have you given as Mr.Franklin?" He said, "A REPUBLIC. IF YOU CAN KEEP IT". What if, I am and my friend will decide to beat you up and steal your stuff? It's bad, isn't it? But what if we outvote you and send a senator to steal your stuff, why is this ok? The wealthiest country in the world was built by freedom and supremacy of people's rights (Life, Liberty, Property, Pursuit of Happiness). None of that exists anymore, America has Democrats(Left) and Republicans(they actually Democrats, today JFK would be Republican).
mikedilger 6y ago
I just checked fbi.gov and there is no press release announcing this. If this is truly information from the FBI, why do they not communicate it through official trusted channels?
- brundolf 6y ago
  The article says it was an anonymous leak of information that's normally only distributed among law enforcement
  - mikedilger 6y ago
    Well there are a lot of possibilites: 1) The story is true but not meant for our eyes, 2) The story is true and meant for our eyes, but they can't officially say so or haven't yet prepared their statement, 3) The story is false and meant for our eyes as a form of propaganda, 4) ... other options I think the best course of action is to treat the story as if it never happened. I'm utterly exhausted by what appears to be repeated propaganda via the US news media, covering their asses with this very tired "anonymous source" trick. If the source is anonymous it garners zero trust, and you just fool yourself if you think otherwise and choose to believe it because it is exciting/scary/wishful/etc... unless you trust these particular media sources (I don't). I'm fairly sure that most of the anonymous leaks during the Russia Collusion investigation turned out to be false propaganda. If the government wants to warn us of something, they have to actually do that -- they can't play these games and presume we are going to react (if option 2) because we are exhausted by manipulation. I will take it seriously as soon as (and only if) the FBI takes communicating it seriously.
    - brundolf 6y ago
      > The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Anonymous to readers != anonymous to the journalist. The journalist can verify the source, and also guard his or her anonymity for their safety. This is common practice in journalism.
      - 6y ago
8bitsrule 6y ago
If you show up at a protest with a gun, you're not protesting, you're intimidating.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
belky3000 6y ago
MANY red flags with the Patriot Plan For America (PAFA2021). PAFA2021 went online on 12/15/2020. Significant events concerning Pres Trump and the election that day. The site is registered anon but IP activated connects to Amazon Corporate in Virginia and a small town in Virginia just 30 minutes outside of DC. The site has been taken down but there are mirror sites in Japan and China. One of the mirror sites clearly states that foreign orgs are involved with PAFA2021. A second site affiliated with PAFA2021 is military.me. Also taken down. Also anon but it's registrant is located in Taiwan. PAFA2021 in a nutshell says Democrats are corrupt and their ideology must be "exterminated". 8 named groups who the media labels as Q or Trump supporters are allegedly making a step by step, state by state plan, to occupy DC on Jan 16-17 with 15,000 citizen militants. They want Pres Trump to declare martial law and hold criminal trials against both the Dems and the complicit media. If Trump does not act, the org said that their own Militia Union may be forced to act. All this and more explaines in detail on the sites. One of the named groups issued a public statement that they are NOT involved, disavow PAFA2021, and feel this site is attacking their good name and reputation. They asked their name to be removed. This site is clearly election interference and psych warfare. It is instigating widespread backlash vs Pres Trump and supporters, even though it's authenticity has not been vetted. It is also eerily similar to the war game exercises used in the Democrat's TIP Project - that predicted a threat if Trump contested the election results (see #4).

309 points by ali92hm 6y ago

I've never seen a post with so many upvotes and no comments on hackernews before. EDIT: This post went from 51 to 65 upvotes in the time it took me to write this comment. I'm really surprised such a popular post about a hot topic wouldn't attract any comments. EDIT: Now 77 lol EDIT: 51 accounts upvoted this without a single person commenting. then the next 50 upvotes brought all the comments. I guess no one browsing new bothers to comment?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
InitialLastName 6y ago
It's pretty common for people to upvote, then read, then comment.
- etrabroline 6y ago
  this was posted over an hour ago and I was the first to comment
  - pbourke 6y ago
    It may have just popped onto the front page
    - etrabroline 6y ago
      Thats correct. Im surprised 50 people upvoted it to the front page without anyone commenting. Maybe that happens a lot I haven't checked. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest Nothing else in new has more than 10 upvotes. This thing must have really shot up out of no where.
Jtsummers 6y ago
There've been a few before, but it isn't too common. It usually indicates either a post that hits a popular topic ("Show HN: Reddit-clone supporting org-mode comments written in Rust with Haskell user scripts and a Rust-implementation of Erlang's OTP for distribution across nodes") or one that's genuinely interesting, but usually more intellectual (not a pop tech/sci post) and people are reading it.
viro 6y ago
I mean what am I supposed to say? Half the country is bitching about censorship while that half is also trying to overthrow the government to keep Trump it power.... FFS is God gas lighting me?! Or am ... its 2020 part 2
- floxy 6y ago
  Half? Or 0.00001%? Is there any polling data available?
  - viro 6y ago
    I mean the comment should have clearly been hyperbole. But I guess with how things are going I should have known better.
    - floxy 6y ago
      No, I'm not trying to call you out, I'm actually interested in what the answers might actually be. And how we might actually measure them.
  - etrabroline 6y ago
    Here is some kind of internet poll: >one in five voters (21%) say they support the goings-on at the Capitol So much closer in magnitude to half than to 0.00001%. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20... >Republicans (45%) actively support the actions of those at the Capitol 43% (of Republicans) are opposed. >survey was conducted on January 6, 2021 between 5:17 p.m. and 5:42 p.m
golemiprague 6y ago
This post is pure politics like a reddit cesspool, I enjoy splashing in the mud like anybody else but prefer keeping HN more technology oriented or at least has some connection to technology, there are other places for political discussion (yeah i can see the irony now that everything is censored...)

ogre_codes 6y ago

With 2 cops dead after the mob at the Capitol building, maybe the police will take mobs of armed "Protestors" a little more seriously here than they seem to have in the past.

seiferteric 6y ago
Most if not all armed protests before happen in states with legal open carry laws. If this is true, and armed people show up in 50 states, many of which this would be illegal, it will be a totally different ballgame.
- stonecraftwolf 6y ago
  I said as much below, and got downvoted for it. Open carry states are in a different position entirely, though I’m not sure any state police department wants to deal with mass arrests of armed criminals. If they show up in Albany armed, for example, they’re already breaking the law. This could get very ugly.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    > breaking the law Which law? The one that says “shall not be infringed?”
    - technothrasher 6y ago
      NYS Penal Law 400, but of course you were being facetious.
      - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        Those laws are unconstitutional. Open carry in particular is not concealment. I'm not fond of people bringing guns to non-2A protests but there is a document limiting the government's power and every state ratified it.

stonecraftwolf 6y ago

Open carry states might have a rough time. ETA: maybe a better way to phrase this would be to contrast between open carry states and restricted carry states. IANAL, but in NYS, for example, my understanding is that these people would be breaking the law the second they marched on Albany openly carrying firearms. ETA2: Downvotes for pointing out reality?

mod 6y ago
Breaking the law is a storied tradition for protesters. Not historically open-carry laws, granted. Anyway I'm not sure why that means the state will have a rough time. It may mean they'll have an easier time, as they have a readily-available reason to arrest the protesters.
- adamsea 6y ago
  “Breaking the law nonviolently is a storied tradition for protestors. AKA civil disobedience.” There, fixed that for ya :);)
  - loopz 6y ago
    Proper civil disobedience is about non-violence. Illegally carrying guns seems to be acting in bad faith.
matwood 6y ago
Maybe you were originally misunderstood? I agree with your point. Getting a mob whipped up into riot level excitement is a completely different situation if the mob all has guns holstered and shouldered.
- claar 6y ago
  Likely the downvotes were from people who either open carry themselves or know many other level-headed and law-abiding people who also legally open carry. As a community, I would argue that those who regularly open carry are much less likely to incite or join a violent protest than those who do not open carry. But perhaps I've spent too much time in the Bible belt.

coffeemaniac 6y ago

This is only going to get worse until there are consequences for doing this. And with a significant portion of the nation's law enforcement sympathetic to right-wing causes I feel this will continue to escalate for some time.

jorblumesea 6y ago

Hardly surprising, if you legitimately believe the "election was stolen" why would you stop now? If you were willing to storm the capitol building, you're probably going to storm many more buildings. Did people really think that they were going to say, "well we stormed the capitol building and it didn't work, let's just give up?" The violence we saw is just the start, some parts of the MAGA crowd have been radicalized.

DeafSquid 6y ago
It's the same type of thing as abortion protesters. They believe the doctors and patients are committing murder. Why wouldn't they do anything in their power to stop a genocide. And of course there's a lot of overlap with trump supporters and anti-abortionists
malcolmgreaves 6y ago
> The violence we saw is just the start, some parts of the MAGA crowd have been radicalized. What parts aren't radicalized?
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  I don't think the entire movement is showing up to storm government buildings. Clearly this is a small minority of supporters. The riot at the capitol was maybe a few thousand people.
  - matwood 6y ago
    I guess we would need to define radicalized. I have know people who say, 'Trump was sent by God to save the USA'. These people didn't storm the capital, but they are certainly radicalized. I might agree if you said the whole GOP isn't radicalized, but it seems like all of MAGA has reached that level. As an aside, I couldn't imagine supporting any politician to that level.
  - burkaman 6y ago
    45% of registered Republicans support the storming of the Capitol. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/06/US-capitol-trump-poll https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

lettergram 6y ago

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You don’t want all these people to feel like they don’t have a voice. Trump, for better or worse, was the voice of half the country. Now, lots of people feel they have taxation without representation. Worse, they’re feeling as if they’re being persecuted. IMO they should let him have Twitter back. If need be, have them approve his tweets pre viewing. This would lower tensions. It won’t fix the underlying issues, but you want the leader to empathize then disarm. I also have to say, I haven’t seen where this is being planned. Facebook, Twitter... parler (lol)? I’d like to see evidence of it, not trust the FBI here.

asiando 6y ago
I don’t know what to think. Per-tweet moderation would be seen as censorship just as well, and would be a pretty interesting exception on Twitter. But also I don’t blame Twitter for finally putting an end to the misery he caused. I blame them for not doing it sooner, if anything.
cauthon 6y ago
They have a voice. They have a congressional representative, two senators, and a vote in the presidential election. What they do not have, and will never have in the USA, is the right to overturn an election they lost with violent force.
- Nuzzerino 6y ago
  Where was their voice in court when the courts refused to hear the election case at all on its merits?
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    You don't get to sue claiming fraud, then say "Well I don't know, check on it". What are you going on about?
    - Nuzzerino 6y ago

Tarsul 6y ago

and here we are arguing of the slippery road of pulling down posts because it's against freedom of speech. As if the risk to democracy and its people is not higher due to letting all this happen. If the republicans do not come around in the next few years, I fear for America.

vorpalhex 6y ago
Democracy requires freedom of speech, and to abridge that freedom is to destroy Democracy. A building does not a government make. Whatever people harmed, windows broken, our government is not any worse off functionally than it was the day before. Yet this will be used to pass harmful laws, and like 9/11 it will do infinitely more damage to Democracy than whatever the original attackers did.
- malcolmgreaves 6y ago
  Your post reads as if it's downplaying the significance of Wednesday's failed coup attempt, and the incredible ramifications of it.
  - ordinaryradical 6y ago
    It is downplaying. What happened was unprecedented political violence and the only reason to make an argument like the parent is because you cannot admit it deserves a serious, judicial response.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      > What happened was unprecedented political violence... Well, there were the little matters of the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. And a few others of varying scope in this incomplete list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_Unit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_Conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%93Baxter_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%93Baxter_War (This isn't to disagree with you; or to downplay the seriousness or support the events of the sixth.) Edit: List formatting

mrslave 6y ago

Considering how Trump is never there for his supporters, I'm surprised he has any left. I'm skeptical that there will be any more significant protests anywhere in the country. The Capitol mob was a portion of the most hard-core who travelled to D.C. this late after the election to show support for what exactly? This is wholly independent of the issue of persistently casting doubt on the quality of the election since before the election, which obviously isn't right. Also the double-standard with more than 100 days of BLM protests -- that were often protests but also were often riots -- is kinda funny. Trump is involved so suddenly it's domestic terrorism even though very little property was damaged, certainly not buildings burnt to the ground and people murdered in the street like we saw before. The hyperbole on both sides really needs to be dialed down to 1. Noone has behaved themselves well throughout this presidency.

brighton36 6y ago
You should consider asking them why.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  When I ask that, the only answer I get is "My information bubble tells me everyone loves Trump, so any situation where he genuinely loses is inconceivable."
  - mrslave 6y ago
    A bit unfair considering the exact same could be said for another large bubble with 's/loses/wins/'. To GP, you could add more than snark. The most strongly proclaimed message is that there's a stolen election to be stopped. This is a very bold claim, and while I'm don't disbelieve that there could be election fraud, (1) it's not a square function: the magnitude of the fraud would need to be considered; and (2) some evidence for such a strong claim is needed. Trump has had 3 years of actual governing to address things like stale voter registries where dead people, say for example, come out and vote in the order of 50,000 (a claim I have heard but can't comment on it's strength). To use that now is disingenuous. But then we're just here guessing what Stop The Steal even means because noone is explaining it sufficiently.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

I don't like the national patriots blood drive.

gridder 6y ago

Could this be a diversion for keeping forces away from DC?

Bakary 6y ago

Are there any in-depth, not too speculative studies on the interrelationship between the right-wing and law enforcement in the United States?

OnlyOneCannolo 6y ago
https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-police-aggression-is-far-more-pronounced-against-left-leaning-protesters/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/why-police-aggression-is-...
pmiller2 6y ago
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd...
samizdis 6y ago
I read this article in fivethirtyeight from Jan 7, which addressed that subject, and it cited a few pieces of research. However, I didn't follow the links to said research articles so I have no idea how speculative or otherwise they are. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-response-to-the-capitol-breach-wasnt-an-aberration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polices-tepid-respo...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
heavyset_go 6y ago
"The FBI warned for years that police are cozy with the far right. Is no one listening?"[1] "A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans"[2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/28/fbi-far-right-white-supremacists-police https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/28/fbi-fa... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-w...

thepasswordis 6y ago

The people who stormed into the capitol believe that they were doing so as a part of a fight against fascism, and I am now starting to think that a lot of my left wing friends simply don't understand what these people think. If you want to familiarize yourself with their thinking, I would recommend reading The Gulag Archipeligo. That's the world they think they are working to prevent: Here are some things that they think 1) Several states changed election process via policy instead of via legislative process. This is illegal, and should be heard by a court. Maybe you think it was! But they don't. They believe in free and fair elections, and believe in the constitutionally layed out process for selecting government officials, as well as a system of arbitration if grievances arise during this process. 2) There is a left-wing authoritarian movement to delegitimize their political philosophy of limited government as racist. It is not racist, and they are not racist, and this is being used as a psychological tool against them. 3) There are powerful forces within the government who will use their power to suppress typical democratic processes to enact their will; usually in the service of overseas wars or profiteering. Okay. Imagine being in the mindset of these people. You fear authoritarianism, you fear the suspension of democracy, you fear the suspension of constitutional freedoms. In the last couple of days you have seen: 1) The president of the united states effectively silenced. 2) Calls for the imprisonment of you and your family for thoughtcrime. 3) Calls of the forced removal of what you believe to be a duly elected president. 4) Unbounded joy at the idea of parler being hacked, and your personal details being leaked and used to threaten you. What these people think they're asking for are democratic elections and a return to American democratic norms. Again, you can think that they're wrong or crazy, but that is what they think. It is with pure terror that I keep seeing what is happening with all of this. At every single turn it seems like everybody keeps making the worst possible decisions. Politicians for supporting violent rioters and arsonists all summer, the mob storming into the capitol on Wednesday, people being put onto terrorism watch lists and banned from travel within their own country, powerful tech oligopolies silencing any form of dissenting opinion (NOT just violent opinions). I saw a video of a guy being removed from a flight earlier today (posted on twitter of course with a snarky/giddy comment). He was in his 50s it looked like, and crying because he said they called him a terrorist and now he isn't allowed to travel. Banning that guy from travel will NOT calm him, and it will NOT calm the people in his social and familial circle. It will radicalize them. Cutting off their access to places like twitter will not calm their insanity. It will fuel it when the ONLY voices they are now hearing are the most radical ones. Completely insane people like Lin Wood are now where these people will be getting their information. I wish people would slow down, step back for a moment and try to choose the paths that will result in deescalation. Not further radicalization. It's extremely frightening and depressing to watch this happen.

donaldtheduck 6y ago

"Hacker" news is becoming Politics news.

paganel 6y ago
Rightfully so in this context, tech is playing a very active part.
uoaei 6y ago
If your sensibilities are ruffled, consider how Trump "hacked" a democratic republic to engineer such circumstances.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

TameAntelope 6y ago

Man, I really hope this is a byproduct of law enforcement swinging too far in the, "take everything seriously now" direction after last Wednesday, and not actual credible threats of specific violence in every state...

uoaei 6y ago
The FBI has been tracking white supremacist domestic terrorism for a long while. This is just the latest iteration in a decades-long issue. It is not a kneejerk reaction, nor an assumption -- they have good intel and the fact that they are publicly announcing it a week before they expect anything to happen is staggeringly serious.
jspash 6y ago
Who knows what's real anymore, so take this with a grain of salt, but this is what they're worried about: https://web.archive.org/web/20210106072816/https://pafa2021.com/how%2C-when%2C-where https://web.archive.org/web/20210106072816/https://pafa2021....
- gwright 6y ago
  I don't know how to assess the credibility of that document, but as a plan to overthrow the government that seems laughable to me except for that fact that a whole lot of people are going to get hurt as it utterly fails.
  - AniseAbyss 6y ago
    John Brown was a laughable attempt but it helped stir up sentiments in the South. People should read some books about how countries can slide into civil war.
    - gwright 6y ago
      A fair point. I think it is a lot easier to start a civil war than it is to successfully replace a government by force. I'm saddened that we are even talking about those scenarios.

brown9-2 6y ago

“Armed protests” is a funny phrase. The reason for bringing weapons is to scare people or fight.

starlust2 6y ago
There's a *minuscule* amount of grey area if the protest is specifically about gun rights, but otherwise you are absolutely correct. Using a gun to show how serious you are is just a different way of saying it's for intimidation.
- zepto 6y ago
  It could be for intimidation, but it could also be to dissuade trivial intimidation or violence by police. I witnessed a peaceful demonstration in the UK, in which mounted police struck completely non-violent protesters who were sitting on the ground in the head with batons as a way to scare the crowd into moving. That wouldn’t have happened if the protesters had been armed.

hurt_and_afraid 6y ago

I'm a little perturbed by the disproportionate reaction of the media and online communities to the Capitol Hill raid event. Particularly in relation to the muted reactions in the mainstream media to an entire summer of riots and protests related to the death of George Floyd, under the collective banner of 'Black Lives Matter'. These protests left at least 19 dead[1], and could cost the American economy up to $2 billion in insurance claims alone[2]. Not to mention enormous damage to small businesses and local economies, or the knock-on 'Ferguson Effect'[3]. During these protests, amid calls to 'defund the police', actual anarchist groups took control of a small area in Seattle and declared it their own 'Autonomous Zone'. They then repelled law enforcement from the area and extorted local businesses for protection until they were disbanded[4]. Not once did I hear anyone in the mainstream media, nor on this site, refer to them as 'insurrectionists'. Even though they were insurrectionists by their own words. The amount of violence and property damage in the Capitol Hill raid event were paltry in comparison to the widespread looting and arson that occurred in BLM-related protests. [1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days-of-protests-19-dead/?sh=36cca2aa4de4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days... [2]https://nypost.com/2020/09/16/riots-following-george-floyds-death-could-cost-up-to-2b/ https://nypost.com/2020/09/16/riots-following-george-floyds-... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_effect [4]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/defund-police-seattle-...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

It will be interesting if the protestors organize using end-to-end encrypted chat apps. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have been pushing for curtailment of end to end encryption. This might be what gives popular support for that.

FFRefresh 6y ago
Yeah, I'm afraid we may see pressure to further erode civil liberties under the guise of stopping the enemy of the day. After all, this enemy is uniquely evil, and we need to stop them in any way we can or society as we know it will be destroyed. (or so goes the story that we replay over and over)

hehehaha 6y ago

People really need to understand that democracy and free world begins and ends with America. There’s no backstop. If the US falls there’s absolutely no one else out there to stop Russia and China from taking over. This is not fear mongering. It’s a simple calculus based on nuclear weapons. So while this may look like relatively harmless political games being played, it’s a lot more careless and dangerous than we are led to believe.

dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
It's not fear mongering, but it's probably a bit hysterical. One has to take a contrarian view of one's own anxieties: this is all good for the republic, because it snaps people out of their complacency. Complacency is what gave us Trump in the first place. The "it'll never happen" attitude pretty much guarantees that at some point someone will purposely or accidentally benefit from it. Now that the cat is out of the bag people are very focused on the issue at hand, which is good. To believe America will "fall" you have to believe that there is, or there soon could be, a majority of people who believe in dismantling democracy and abandoning the constitution. If that is the case then America has already fallen.
- chii 6y ago
  > Complacency is what gave us Trump in the first place. no, it's not just complacency. In the 2016 vote, he did get a lot of the popular votes (even tho hilary got more). That's a sign that a lot of people in the US do agree with his world view - whether they understand that it's just retoric trump is throwing to get votes, or they do truly feel it, is moot. Trump _only_ got into power because there's enough people in the USA to get him into power. This isn't a case of a one time bad president - it's the psyche of a nation.
- WannaFly 6y ago
  Democracy is why America has already fallen. "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government". When people asked, "What have you given as Mr.Franklin?" He said, "A REPUBLIC. IF YOU CAN KEEP IT". What if, I am and my friend will decide to beat you up and steal your stuff? It's bad, isn't it? But what if we outvote you and send a senator to steal your stuff, why is this ok? The wealthiest country in the world was built by freedom and supremacy of people's rights (Life, Liberty, Property, Pursuit of Happiness). None of that exists anymore, America has Democrats(Left) and Republicans(they actually Democrats, today JFK would be Republican).

mikedilger 6y ago

I just checked fbi.gov and there is no press release announcing this. If this is truly information from the FBI, why do they not communicate it through official trusted channels?

brundolf 6y ago
The article says it was an anonymous leak of information that's normally only distributed among law enforcement
- mikedilger 6y ago
  Well there are a lot of possibilites: 1) The story is true but not meant for our eyes, 2) The story is true and meant for our eyes, but they can't officially say so or haven't yet prepared their statement, 3) The story is false and meant for our eyes as a form of propaganda, 4) ... other options I think the best course of action is to treat the story as if it never happened. I'm utterly exhausted by what appears to be repeated propaganda via the US news media, covering their asses with this very tired "anonymous source" trick. If the source is anonymous it garners zero trust, and you just fool yourself if you think otherwise and choose to believe it because it is exciting/scary/wishful/etc... unless you trust these particular media sources (I don't). I'm fairly sure that most of the anonymous leaks during the Russia Collusion investigation turned out to be false propaganda. If the government wants to warn us of something, they have to actually do that -- they can't play these games and presume we are going to react (if option 2) because we are exhausted by manipulation. I will take it seriously as soon as (and only if) the FBI takes communicating it seriously.
  - brundolf 6y ago
    > The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Anonymous to readers != anonymous to the journalist. The journalist can verify the source, and also guard his or her anonymity for their safety. This is common practice in journalism.
    - 6y ago

8bitsrule 6y ago

If you show up at a protest with a gun, you're not protesting, you're intimidating.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

belky3000 6y ago

MANY red flags with the Patriot Plan For America (PAFA2021). PAFA2021 went online on 12/15/2020. Significant events concerning Pres Trump and the election that day. The site is registered anon but IP activated connects to Amazon Corporate in Virginia and a small town in Virginia just 30 minutes outside of DC. The site has been taken down but there are mirror sites in Japan and China. One of the mirror sites clearly states that foreign orgs are involved with PAFA2021. A second site affiliated with PAFA2021 is military.me. Also taken down. Also anon but it's registrant is located in Taiwan. PAFA2021 in a nutshell says Democrats are corrupt and their ideology must be "exterminated". 8 named groups who the media labels as Q or Trump supporters are allegedly making a step by step, state by state plan, to occupy DC on Jan 16-17 with 15,000 citizen militants. They want Pres Trump to declare martial law and hold criminal trials against both the Dems and the complicit media. If Trump does not act, the org said that their own Militia Union may be forced to act. All this and more explaines in detail on the sites. One of the named groups issued a public statement that they are NOT involved, disavow PAFA2021, and feel this site is attacking their good name and reputation. They asked their name to be removed. This site is clearly election interference and psych warfare. It is instigating widespread backlash vs Pres Trump and supporters, even though it's authenticity has not been vetted. It is also eerily similar to the war game exercises used in the Democrat's TIP Project - that predicted a threat if Trump contested the election results (see #4).