7 ms·
Why? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
by bediger4000 9mo ago
Why? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
- Sparkle-san 9mo agoBecause too many people dismissed the claims that electing Trump would lead to a fascist administration as alarmist. Turns out he meant every word he said during his campaign.
- PrettiGoodDead 9mo ago[flagged]
- spankalee 9mo agoYes - very, very dumb people did vote for him.
- hackyhacky 9mo agoWhen has the constitution mattered to this administration?
- randallsquared 9mo agoConspiracy to commit a crime is typically not included in protected speech. Whether you think that's happening here will depend mostly on what side you take, I suspect.
- JKCalhoun 9mo agoInteresting that there would be people on a "side" that think there was a conspiracy to commit a crime. What crime?
- PrettiGoodDead 9mo ago[flagged]
- mrtesthah 9mo agoWe already know that "doxxing" on its own is not a crime, and moreover that [non-undercover] federal agents are not entitled to keep their identities secret. We also know that legal observation and making noise does not constitute interference. So those may be their stated reasons, but they will not hold up in court.
- direwolf20 9mo agoInterference with a law enforcement investigation?
- mycodendral 9mo ago18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
- baerrie 9mo agoThis refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech. If all info could be interpreted as impediments to federal officers then phones, the internet, the human voice, etc would be illegal
- zahlman 9mo ago> This refers to physical impediments. Spreading legal information is not an impediment, it is free speech. Yes, but physical impediments are physical impediments. The protesters have been repeatedly seen to impede, or attempt to impede, ICE physically.
- baerrie 9mo agoNo, they are organizing legally, of course there will be bad actors, but blocking an agent out of bad faith is certainly less of a crime than a bad faith ICE agent killing someone for their assumptions
- mycodendral 9mo agoIn this case conspiracy is using communication to coordinate illegal impediment.
- baerrie 9mo agoCommunicating to protest in a legal way is a civil right
- rexpop 9mo agoIt's a crime. What do you have against crime? Nonviolent political action is often criminalized.
- mindslight 9mo agoIn the fascist's mind, anything that isn't supporting Dear Leader's vision of "greatness" is a crime.
- neogodless 9mo agohttps://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/ Are you pro or against this?
- mycodendral 9mo ago18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer Freedom of expression does not include freedom from prosecution for real crimes.
- nkohari 9mo agoYou keep commenting to cite this statute when you clearly have not actually read what it says. Peaceful protest is explicitly protected by the first amendment.
- mycodendral 9mo agoThe statute defines a crime that is distinguishable from peaceful protest/1A. You are free to interpret that however you like in relation to what is occurring.
- germinalphrase 9mo ago“ If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both”
- direwolf20 9mo ago
- therobots927 9mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 9mo agoNo, they haven’t. This kind of advocacy crosses from lazy nihilism to negligence.
- therobots927 9mo agoI should’ve clarified. They won the 2024 election. And the democrats are controlled opposition who take money from fascists. For all intents and purposes they have won. That may not be a permanent state of affairs.
- JohnFen 9mo agoI don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers before the battle is anywhere close to being over.
- dragonwriter 9mo ago> I don't think it makes sense to call winners and losers before the battle is anywhere close to being over. I don't think it makes sense to reject an explanation of current events grounded in a battle that is clearly over having been won and the victor using the ground they’ve gained to produce the events being discussed merelt because the broader war isn’t over and that victor may potentially lose some subsequent battle.
- s1artibartfast 9mo agoYes, won that battle but not the war. I think the dissent is about the latter. It's not over yet, so people should not give up. The root comment clearly has ambiguity that people take both ways.
- ActorNightly 9mo ago
- PrettiGoodDead 9mo ago[flagged]
- tptacek 9mo agoThey're "investigating", presumably with data gleaned from arrests and CIs; you have a right to speech, and a right not to be prosecuted for speech, but a much, much narrower right not to be "investigated", collapsing to ~epsilon when the investigation involves data the FBI already has.
- andreygrehov 9mo agoNo. According to the latest reports, while searching for ICE vehicles, the protesters are unlawfully scanning license plates, which strongly suggests they are receiving insider help.
- janalsncm 9mo agoCan you rule out the much less technically advanced explanation that this information was crowdsourced? And people are simply observing the license plates that are plainly displayed? Frankly I don’t think it should have to come to license plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need secret police.
- andreygrehov 9mo agoNo, I cannot. One of the undercover journalists was in their group for days. > Frankly I don’t think it should have to come to license plate numbers. In a free society law enforcement should clearly identify themselves as such. We should not need secret police. None of that matters _today_, because _today_ the law is different.
- janalsncm 9mo agoWhat the law is, is a question for lawyers. What the law should be is a question for the people. For example, a lot of people thought it was wrong that federal agents could cover their faces. Sacramento agreed. Now there is a law preventing it.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- poplarsol 9mo agoCoordinating roadblocks, "dearrests", warning the subjects of law enforcement operations, and intentionally causing the maximum amount of noise in neighborhoods neighborhood are not things you will be able to get a federal judge to characterize as "constitutionally protected speech".
- OhMeadhbh 9mo agoActually... making noise in a neighborhood is constitutionally protected speech (as I have learned when my neighbors crank the sub-par disco up to 11.)
- poplarsol 9mo agohttps://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.72 https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/609.72
- 8note 9mo agothis is to say that ICE is breaking MN law no?
- poplarsol 9mo agohttps://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause
- OhMeadhbh 9mo agoAlso, it turns out the law is interpreted by judges who often (but not always) have careers as attorneys. It is not, thankfully, interpreted by people dropping into the internet comments section. That the law is written in a way that an individual rate-payer may believe they understand its application is irrelevant to the way it actually is. "The Law" is not necessarily the written corpus of enumerated regulations, but also the judicary's day-to-day interpretation of the written text, tempered by exhortations from (hopefully) decent legal minds arguing before the court. That's the theory, anyway.
- afavour 9mo agoTo intimidate. They're probably quite aware they'll lose in court. But in the mean time they might discourage some folks from turning out on the street.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- mycodendral 9mo agoFederal felony, not free speech. 18 U.S.C. § 372 - Conspiring to impede or interfere with a federal officer
- derbOac 9mo agoThere's been lots of legal writing pointing out these statutes basically refer to impeding an officer by threat or physical force, which that statute you cite states. It doesn't refer to anything about providing food to someone who is fearing for their lives and won't leave the home, or communicating about the publicly observed whereabouts of law enforcement.
- mycodendral 9mo ago"molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties" The explicit coordination of things like: vehicle blocking, personnel blocking, personnel removal, disruptive distraction could clearly qualify. How the courts choose to interpret & prosecute is up to them.
- janalsncm 9mo ago“Free speech” is a concept not a law. The first amendment protects certain types of speech. Whether something is free speech or not does not depend on the US government’s opinion or the Chinese government or your mother in law. Publishing locations alone is not conspiracy to commit a crime. If ICE is impeded as a result of this information, that’s not enough. Conspiracy requires the government to prove that multiple people intended to impede them.
- spiderice 9mo agoWhich is probably the easiest thing ever to prove, since people are openly trying to impede them
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- JoshTriplett 9mo agoAre you under the impression that the current administration cares about what the law says? "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect"