[glaugh]

Do you mean just technically trivial? I agree with that.

If you mean more broadly trivial, I see that quite differently. An administration that has repeatedly abused its power in order to intimidate and punish political opponents is opening an investigation into grassroots political opponents. That feels worth being concerned about.

[fc417fc802]

The FBI infiltrating political groups of all stripes is to be assumed by default at this point. A particularly high profile example would be the plot to kidnap a state governor a few years ago.

As to actually acting on what they learn, within this context yeah that would be troubling.

[boppo1]

>particularly high profile example would be the plot to kidnap a state governor a few years ago.

iirc that was something more than infiltration. The FBI found an extremist loser who lived in a basement, egged him on, helped him network & gave him resources. Without them, he probably would have been thinking really hard about it, not much more.

[MSFT_Edging]

That's basically the FBI's MO.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terro...

[bell-cot]

Munger's Law - Agents know they'll never get recognition or promotions by rounding up hothead wannabes.

[pydry]

They've been doing it from day 1.

It's how they found about Martin Luther King's affairs and what led them to write him a letter telling him to kill himself.

[paulddraper]

I’m not sure how that’s in any way the same thing.

[0928374082]

> The FBI infiltrating political groups of all stripes is to be assumed by default at this point.

That (US domestic political groups, anyway) is their job, after all?

[bartread]

> As to actually acting on what they learn, within this context yeah that would be troubling.

Given FBI Director Kash Patel is a Trump appointee, and I might even go so far as to say a Trump stooge, I think we have to assume that that is exactly what will happen.

[nailer]

> grassroots political opponents

Organised criminal activity.

Edit: I’m not complaining about moderation but it would be fascinating to know what part of this others believe is incorrect:

- Do you think the Anti ICE groups are not organised?

- Do you think obstructing federal officers is not criminal?

- Something else.

[rickydroll]

Organized as in they have meetings, serve cookies, and coffee? Most likely not. These anti-ice groups seem to be extemporaneous meetups.

Define obstruction. Everything reported, blowing whistles, encouraging businesses not provide service to ICE agents, and recording from a distance is not obstruction. It's a First Amendment right to keep government forces in check.

[mangodrunk]

There are many anti ICE activists that are organized. ACLU and Indivisible are two such groups. There are many instances of people obstructing federal agents by anti ICE activists and protesters.

[TheCoelacanth]

You claimed organized crimes; not simply organized resistance. What crimes are they organizing?

Resistance itself is not criminal, especially when many of the actions they are resisting are themselves illegal. In fact, it is our civic duty to resist illegal or immoral actions by the government.

[mangodrunk]

Obstructing a federal agent and resisting arrest are crimes.

[egberts1]

It becomes organized crime if they got paid for their actions.

[TheCoelacanth]

Nice non-sequitur. I asked what crime they allegedly committed, not whether it was organized.

Surely organizing and paying people to do things by itself is not a crime.

[QuercusMax]

Preventing out-of-control federal officers from committing crimes is NOT criminal. Especially when you don't even know if they ARE federal officers, and won't show their faces, badges, or warrants.

[nailer]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46798601

[QuercusMax]

Do you agree with the ICE agent who said "You raise your voice, we erase your voice?" Is that an acceptable thing for federal officers to do, or is that unconstitutional, criminal violation of civil rights?

[zahlman]

> the ICE agent who said "You raise your voice, we erase your voice?"

What are you even talking about?

[QuercusMax]

Watch it yourself: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vCdS_c7y6V8

[Aushin]

I care more about reining in the overweight GEDstapo agents murdering people in the street than people blowing whistles at them.

[brightball]

I don’t like political power being used to go after an intimidate opponents at all, but we can’t pretend that it wasn’t a constant during the previous admin.

If I recall correctly, they actually set the precedent here by adding civil war era conspiracy charges to put an additional 10 years on women who protested in front of an abortion clinic.

AI summary…

> Six of the protesters (including Heather Idoni) were convicted in January 2024 of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in prison—and felony conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241, which carries a maximum of 10 years. The conspiracy charge stemmed from evidence that the group planned and coordinated the blockade in advance to interfere with clinic operations.

[florkbork]

Here's one the members of that group: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/tennessee-woman-sentenc...

> As a Health Center staff member ('Victim-1') attempted to open the door for the volunteer, WILLIAMS purposefully leaned against the door, crushing Victim-1’s hand. Victim-1 yelled, "She’s crushing my hand," but WILLIAMS remained against the door, trapping Victim-1’s hand and injuring it.

> On the livestream on June 19, 2020, WILLIAMS stood within inches of the Health Center’s chief administrative officer and threatened to “terrorize this place” and warned that “we’re gonna terrorize you so good, your business is gonna be over mama.” Similarly, WILLIAMS stood within inches of a Health Center security officer and threatened “war.” WILLIAMS also stated that she would act by “any means necessary.”

The reason they could prosecute to this degree? https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/18/anti-abortion-surgi-clinic...

A member of the conspiracy admitted to the planning; they have text messages and detail of deciding who will risk arrest, after going over the fact they'd be trespassing and violating the FACE act.

Do you think the administrative and medical staff present in 2020 would agree with you? That the group that blockaded, threatened and assaulted in one instance access to health services are in fact the victims here of government overreach?

[brightball]

Replied on another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46798663

[idiotsecant]

'protested' by forcibly precenting individual civilians access to medical care? Sure, this seems the same.

[brightball]

It is deliberately obtuse to pretend that a group 60 year old women were "forcibly" preventing anyone from doing anything. They stood in a hallway and sang hymns.

Is it a violation of the FACE act? Absolutely.

Conspiracy? If that's a conspiracy then virtually any protest that involves any planning whatsoever could also be twisted into a conspiracy.

[grayhatter]

> Conspiracy? If that's a conspiracy then virtually any protest that involves any planning whatsoever could also be twisted into a conspiracy.

Yes, that's what a conspiracy is. In other news, the sky is blue.

Conspiracy, to conspire.

Conspire, to make plans, usually in secret.

The reason conspiracy is a more serious crime is because it's worse; it's one thing to go to a protest with a bunch of friends, and then decide in the heat of the moment, when everyone's emotions are raging, I don't wanna leave yet. It's completely different crime to decide before the protest starts, in a secret group with a bunch a friends. There's nothing they can do to make you leave. And when the cops show up, and when they say you have to leave you're gonna throw a frozen water bottle at them.

In this case, they planned to actively stop someone from receiving the medical care. Do you feel that's reasonable? Should I get to decide what medical care I think you should have? Only on days I'm free to go out and protest, obviously.

Somewhat related, after reading florkbork's post, I'm excited to hear your reply about if you think crushing someone's hand in the door counts as protesting?

[brightball]

I think that counts as assault and the individual should have been charged and that's exactly the point about the precedent.

Compare it to the situation in Minnesota. Protester bites of the finger of an agent. Is that protesting? Groups of people follow agents around blowing whistles while they're trying to do their job. Can protesters show up at an someone else's workplace and start blowing whistles at everyone? Diners? Medical offices?

https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/officer-will-lose-fin...

Now a situation has been created where everyone involved in those Signal chats could be...charged with conspiracy. The door is opened for that argument to be made and until the charge was thrown onto those women after the abortion protest, nothing like that had been done before.

FACE Act and Assault charges, plus damages were absolutely warranted. Conspiracy charges were political punishment.

[zahlman]

Given that GP refers to the act of throwing a frozen water bottle, I think you two are on the same side.

[grayhatter]

> Now a situation has been created where everyone involved in those Signal chats could be...charged with conspiracy.

That's factually incorrect. You you're welcome to conspire all you want. It doesn't become a chargeable offence until you, or someone else who has contributed to the planning, commits some overt or articulable action towards that end.

It's not illegal to be present in a signal chat. It's not even illegal to hypothesize violent resistance/protest. It *is* illegal to make plans to violently protest, and then pack your car full of weapons.

Conspiracy is notably different from solicitation; because it's also illegal to encourage someone to commit a crime, even if you don't yourself plan to participate.

> Conspiracy charges were political punishment.

Nah, I do agree it probably gives the appearance of it being politically motivated. But regardless of how you feel when "your side" is "attacked". That's kinda how the legal system works. If you don't charge them with conspiracy, all the evidence you've collected where they admit they know what they're doing is illegal runs the risk of being thrown out, or otherwise challenged. If you want to charge someone for assault or battery, and you have text messages where someone claims they don't care if someone gets hut. If you exclusively charge them with the assault or the battery. And they put forward the affirmative defense of, yeah it happened, but they pushed me first. You've just opened the door to an acquittal because the video someone got starts halfway through.

Being careless enough to allow that to happen might even be prosecutorial malpractice.

> Compare it to the situation in Minnesota.

I try to avoid whataboutism.

> Can protesters show up at an someone else's workplace and start blowing whistles at everyone? Diners? Medical offices?

Yes? I've heard of protests almost every where, haven't you?

Follow up question, are Diner servers/cooks or physicians/nurses empowered to legally abduct people by force, and then protected from liability for any crimes or needless harm by qualified immunity?

If not, I think it's fair to apply different standards to different cases, and asinine to say, well what about [completely different group, with a completely different set of objectives, and completely different set of restrictions, doing a completely different thing]

[whatsupdog]

> "An administration that has repeatedly abused its power in order to intimidate and punish political opponents"

Are you referring to how a Democratic party AG's entire campaign was to "pursue Donald Trump". And then she found a victimless "crime", that every real estate developer is guilty of, in which nobody was harmed, and the banks were equally guilty, for which the statute of limitations has expired, to get her 34 felonies just to throw the ex president in jail and to stop him from running again?

[aaronmdjones]

> just to throw the ex president in jail and to stop him from running again?

Being convicted of a crime does not stop you from running for president. Being in prison also does not stop you from running for president -- one person has. The only qualifications necessary to run for president are to be a natural born citizen, have spent the last 14 years living in the country, and be at least 35 years of age.

Also, the criminal trial against him started after he assumed office for the second time. EDIT: Got my years mixed up. Ignore that last bit.

[whatsupdog]

> Also, the criminal trial against him started after he assumed office for the second time

Nope. He was convicted even before the election started.

[infinitezest]

Maybe that was also bad. And maybe the current admin is still more brazen, less accountable, more selfish and more vindictive. Why even bring this up? Should we not care about this because other people did bad stuff?

[whatsupdog]

When you let the cat out of the box yourself, don't blame when it starts scratching the couch. Never in history was ever an American ex-president targeted and hounded like Trump was. Democratic party brought the 3rd world style politics of "go after your opponents when you come to power" to the USA.

[infinitezest]

> When you let the cat out of the box yourself...

I could say the same thing to you. Go back a few more years to his first term, to his campaign. He is absolutely the main architect of the chaos that has ensued. You don't get to start fights and then get mad when people fight back. The selective outrage you're demonstrating here is baffling.

[AuthAuth]

That is more proof that the democratic party isnt corrupt and do care about fair elections(in the eyes of the public). He SHOULD have been thrown in jail and he IS a criminal.