[ghba66]

>Keighley made no mention of Balogun’s specific actions at the rally, but noted the marchers’ anti-police statements, such as “oink oink bang bang” and “the only good pig is a pig that’s dead”. The agent also mentioned Balogun’s Facebook posts calling a murder suspect in a police officer’s death a “hero” and expressing “solidarity” with the man who killed officers in Texas when he posted: “They deserve what they got.”

Yeah he obviously does not know why they were paying attention to him!

[kbenson]

Keighley, however, later admitted the FBI had no evidence of Balogun making any specific threats about harming police.

That's the next sentence. It's not about why they were looking at him, it's about why they arrested him, and kept him detained.

“Sometimes when you couldn’t prove somebody was a terrorist, it’s because they weren’t a terrorist,” he said, adding that prosecutors’ argument that Balogun was too dangerous to be released on bail was “astonishing”.

“It seems this effort was designed to punish him for his political activity rather than actually solve any sort of security issue.”

I'm not sure how this wasn't dismissed fairly quickly as an infringement of his first amendment rights.

[logfromblammo]

"You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."

This was extrajudicial punishment for expressing anti-police sentiments. They were able to take away his freedom, job, home, vehicle, and family, without even going to trial. By the time the prosecution was forced to drop the case for lack of evidence, their mission had already been accomplished.

They abused the justice system to punish prior to conviction, all based on their perception of his unforgivable blackness.

[jadedhacker]

Dude was posting on FB. In the absence of a specific threat, he's like a million other people every day saying stuff on social media. I'm sure plenty of police officers posted horrific jokes in public and private channels and they are authorized to use deadly force and are totally unaccountable.

The cops here are the brave thin blue line going after an internet poster because their posts hurt their feelings.

[ghba66]

That's what they nailed him for. I'm 100% sure this isn't the only thing he did to be investigated. You don't end up in jail for saying "fuck the cops", otherwise half the US would be in jail for that.

[kbenson]

> I'm 100% sure this isn't the only thing he did to be investigated. You don't end up in jail for saying "fuck the cops", otherwise half the US would be in jail for that.

So you assertion is that if this happened once, it must be happening everywhere?

For that to be true, it would mean there is absolutely no change in any of these systems, otherwise there could never be a first time.

It also means that all laws have to be applied correctly and evenly across the united states, and that exceptions can't happen, and law enforcement can't make a mistake

Because if laws are applied unevenly in some locations, or in some circumstances, or are applied incorrectly, or if this is the first (or the first of a few to get widely publicized), then it's very easy for this to be entirely about his publicized views combined with something above (or something else not covered).

I see no reason why this can't be a localized overreach, or the beginning of a new trend. I'm not sure it is, but I'm definitely not 100% sure it's not.