4 ms·

I don’t understand the issue. Protesting is legal. Are we advocating for illegal activity?

by liontwist 2y ago

Almondsetat 2y ago
>Protesting is legal first of all, where? secondly, what has legality of protest got to do with privacy?
- liontwist 2y ago
  The concern of your phone being taken by authorities or capturing incriminating evidence
  - Almondsetat 2y ago
    Are you making the "if you've got nothing to hide" argument?
    - liontwist 2y ago
      That would be sharing your phone and password with the police because there is nothing to hide. I’m asking why you’re expecting to be booked by authorities and your phone confiscated for attending a “protest”.
      - Almondsetat 2y ago
        1. because the U.S. is not the only country on Earth 2. because even in nations with strong constitutional protections, law enforcement likes to play dirty
MengerSponge 2y ago
1) Protesting is illegal in many parts of the world. 2) Authoritarians have been known to act illegally to solidify their power.
- liontwist 2y ago
  Are we imagining only “good guys” will be the ones breaking the law?
  - MengerSponge 2y ago
    No, basically by definition. What's your point?
philwelch 2y ago
There’s some strategic ambiguity going on here. If you’re going to a protest that looks like the Women’s March on Inauguration Day of 2017, you don’t have to worry about this kind of thing. If you’re starting fires or breaking into the Capitol building, you definitely do have to worry about this sort of thing. And just to make things even muddier, the exact same protest can radically change from one to the other based on specifics of time and place. In the summer of 2020, Seattle and Portland had mostly peaceful and uneventful protests by day in the exact same places where shootings and arsons would break out after dark, while on January 6th, just as some of the rioters were trying to force their way through the windows on one side of the Capitol building and clashing with Capitol Police, on the other side of the Capitol they were peacefully walking through wide open gates and doorways and milling around in the hallways as the Capitol Police looked on. And yeah, the peaceful ones get prosecuted sometimes too.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- georgeecollins 2y ago
  I think the "strategic ambiguity" here is ethics. Civil rights protestors were clearly breaking the law when they sat at diners that wouldn't serve black people. But who today thinks they were wrong? When I was a kid, students protested at Universities to divest from Apartheid era South Africa. People can agree on what the law is, but they don't always agree on what is right. Sometimes a democratic government will zealously defend a law, war or principal that later generations of the same government will disavow.
  - weakfish 2y ago
    Yeah, I think a key point here is recognizing that the law isn’t always aligned with morality, depending on the issue you’re protesting for/against.
    - liontwist 2y ago
      How would you feel if your political opponents made similar justifications? Are they laws for the thee and not for me?
pjc50 2y ago
That depends on whether the police like your protest.
dpc050505 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests Mostly legal protests that got violently repressed by enforcement of unconstitutional laws in Quebec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protes... Same thing in Toronto. Canada rates very high on democracy indexes. Even if you beat the charge in court you can still get arrested on bullshit in every country.
georgeecollins 2y ago
In the US, free speech is legal. You also have a right to congregate but lots of institutions find ways to subvert that, often by creating private spaces that seem public (and effectively are public but I am not a lawyer). The whole concept of civil disobedience in the US goes back to the Mexican American war, which many Americans felt was an opportunity to expand slavery to new states. Another example is the civil rights movement, where people thought it was acceptable to sit in the wrong part of the bus, even though it was against the law. I am not advocating for breaking the law. You have to understand that if a police person or a security guard violates your rights of free expression you may not get bailed out by the ACLU.
slowloraorwhat 2y ago
[flagged]

I don’t understand the issue. Protesting is legal. Are we advocating for illegal activity?

Almondsetat 2y ago

>Protesting is legal first of all, where? secondly, what has legality of protest got to do with privacy?

liontwist 2y ago
The concern of your phone being taken by authorities or capturing incriminating evidence
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  Are you making the "if you've got nothing to hide" argument?
  - liontwist 2y ago
    That would be sharing your phone and password with the police because there is nothing to hide. I’m asking why you’re expecting to be booked by authorities and your phone confiscated for attending a “protest”.
    - Almondsetat 2y ago
      1. because the U.S. is not the only country on Earth 2. because even in nations with strong constitutional protections, law enforcement likes to play dirty

MengerSponge 2y ago

1) Protesting is illegal in many parts of the world. 2) Authoritarians have been known to act illegally to solidify their power.

liontwist 2y ago
Are we imagining only “good guys” will be the ones breaking the law?
- MengerSponge 2y ago
  No, basically by definition. What's your point?

philwelch 2y ago

There’s some strategic ambiguity going on here. If you’re going to a protest that looks like the Women’s March on Inauguration Day of 2017, you don’t have to worry about this kind of thing. If you’re starting fires or breaking into the Capitol building, you definitely do have to worry about this sort of thing. And just to make things even muddier, the exact same protest can radically change from one to the other based on specifics of time and place. In the summer of 2020, Seattle and Portland had mostly peaceful and uneventful protests by day in the exact same places where shootings and arsons would break out after dark, while on January 6th, just as some of the rioters were trying to force their way through the windows on one side of the Capitol building and clashing with Capitol Police, on the other side of the Capitol they were peacefully walking through wide open gates and doorways and milling around in the hallways as the Capitol Police looked on. And yeah, the peaceful ones get prosecuted sometimes too.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
georgeecollins 2y ago
I think the "strategic ambiguity" here is ethics. Civil rights protestors were clearly breaking the law when they sat at diners that wouldn't serve black people. But who today thinks they were wrong? When I was a kid, students protested at Universities to divest from Apartheid era South Africa. People can agree on what the law is, but they don't always agree on what is right. Sometimes a democratic government will zealously defend a law, war or principal that later generations of the same government will disavow.
- weakfish 2y ago
  Yeah, I think a key point here is recognizing that the law isn’t always aligned with morality, depending on the issue you’re protesting for/against.
  - liontwist 2y ago
    How would you feel if your political opponents made similar justifications? Are they laws for the thee and not for me?

pjc50 2y ago

That depends on whether the police like your protest.

dpc050505 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests Mostly legal protests that got violently repressed by enforcement of unconstitutional laws in Quebec. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protes... Same thing in Toronto. Canada rates very high on democracy indexes. Even if you beat the charge in court you can still get arrested on bullshit in every country.

georgeecollins 2y ago

In the US, free speech is legal. You also have a right to congregate but lots of institutions find ways to subvert that, often by creating private spaces that seem public (and effectively are public but I am not a lawyer). The whole concept of civil disobedience in the US goes back to the Mexican American war, which many Americans felt was an opportunity to expand slavery to new states. Another example is the civil rights movement, where people thought it was acceptable to sit in the wrong part of the bus, even though it was against the law. I am not advocating for breaking the law. You have to understand that if a police person or a security guard violates your rights of free expression you may not get bailed out by the ACLU.

slowloraorwhat 2y ago

[flagged]