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by kuyan 1974 days ago
> For the past year we have had not-always-fully-peaceful riots with many deaths and tremendous amount of property loss. Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors- not even those who could have been actually committing a crime.

I don't think this claim is accurate. Federal, state, and local law enforcement have always been happy to investigate and suppress nonviolent protest activity (much of it from the left).

Other commenters have pointed out the FBI's involvement. Other state overreactions that immediately come to mind:

- Oil companies and the North Dakota AG working with private military contractors to "defeat" peaceful protests oil pipelines https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-...

- Military surveillance technology used against peaceful graduate student protests at UC Santa Cruz https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kppna/california-police-use...

- 'The Drug Enforcement Administration has been granted sweeping new authority to “conduct covert surveillance” and collect intelligence on people participating in protests over the police killing of George Floyd, according to a two-page memorandum obtained by BuzzFeed News.' https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/george-flo...

Among others.

eta: more good reading here -- https://theintercept.com/2019/10/22/terrorism-fbi-political-...

2 comments

> Through all this, the FBI never breathed down the neck of the protestors

Someone should remind him of vietnam war protests I guess...

Surveillance in 2021 is way different than it was in the 60s.
So are police methods and brutality.

In the 60s they would just brutally beat and imprison everyone at the protests directly.

They did not need to track protesters afterwards, they were already in jail or hospital.

Even Russia cannot detain everyone at a protest. Most typically the leadership is followed and under covers trail them at protests and they get bagged.
The acting police chief of Seattle (acting because the black female chief resigned rather face a punitive pay decrease among other things) said today that they will start arresting rioters who destroy property or assault people.

He said the SPD has the support of the city attorney. The Seattle city attorney, Pete Holmes, is mostly famous for not prosecuting anyone.

The chief said it had nothing to do with who occupies the whitehouse.