
The Unmarked Federal Agents Occupying Washington, D.C - Kapura
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/05/protests-washington-dc-federal-agents-law-enforcement-302551
======
hprotagonist
If there is one group of people who are constitutionally (heh) ill-equipped to
monitor free citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to
petition their government for redress of grievances, it's people whose entire
job history has been the exercise of power over incarcerated federal
offenders, who do _not_ have the right to peaceably assemble.

Doubly so when they're prison riot control officers who all look like they're
clones of Byron Hadley, The Screw Everyone Hates from "Shawshank Redemption".

When a prison guard sees a crowd chanting protests, they are going to react
_very badly_.

Get them out.

And get badges on the rest of them. Then get _them_ out, too.

~~~
crocodiletears
The lack of badging is unconsciounable, that shit needs to be fixed.

But I would argue that Bureau of Prisons riot units may well be better
equipped to handle civil unrest of this sort than most conventional police
depts on the following grounds:

The US doesn't have much institutional experience dealing with rioters or
massive protests of this nature. What little there is, is in the hands of
local agencies, and hasn't necessarily spread to other departments. The
closest thing to a law enforcement agency with significant crowd control
experience is the Bureau of Prisons.

Your average beat cop is trained for day-to-day enforcement actions, and is
accustomed to a certain level of respect or deference not typically granted to
prison guards. They're also accustomed to significantly outnumbering the
belligerent actors they encounter. The stress of operating in situations where
you're significantly outnumbered by contemptuous and openly hostile people is
more than likely alien to them.

Conventional police forces - to my knowledge - do not train riot control
techniques with any regularity. Comparing livestreams of the Floyd protests
with Greek and German crowd control operations, the American police tend to be
less coordinated in their advances (more gaps in their lines, they tend to be
spread out from one another, they respond less quickly in a coordinated
manner), and are quicker to react to potentially hostile actions with
violence. Though I'll admit that this could be a difference of crowd control
philosophy, or an adaptation to America's wider streets but it does strike me
as being more likely to result in unnecessary injury to protestors, and
vulnerable to charges by rioters. I believe that the near ubiquitous misuse of
rubber bullets by LEOs during the protests are evidence of this.

The Bureau of prisons riot control units may not be accustomed to the scale of
the current protests and unrest, but I expect them to be better equipped to
coordinate police actions, and operate on the front lines than somebody that
writes tickets, and occasionally has to deal with Karen, or an angry junky.

~~~
hilbert42
_" The US doesn't have much institutional experience dealing with rioters or
massive protests of this nature."_

Surely you're joking! Grab a history book. Now where would you like to start?
I'd suggest you begin 1861 (or a little before) when US Americans went on a
four-year mad spree to kill each other which they did in such huge numbers
that the death toll tallied more than that of all other wars the US has fought
in (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc.).

(From my observation of the present troubles, it seems to me that many of the
issues that caused the 1861-65 _War Between the States_ still aren't resolved
155 years later.)

~~~
crocodiletears
A riot is not a civil war. And I doubt that any law enforcement agencies would
be able to tap a civil war veteran's experience, even if it were.

Crowd control - especially when that crowd is being adversarial - is its own
art, separate from the typical functions of law-enforcement, and one rarely
called upon. My point was that few LEOs have experienced real riots/unrest or
regularly trained for that function, because it is such a rare occurence. Most
of those who have are likely retired, and their successors largely operating
on second-hand knowledge.

------
Pfhreak
Police who refuse to identify themselves and carry no markings used against an
administration's political opponents sure sounds like something everyone
should be opposed to, no matter their political camp.

If someone thinks that's a healthy part of a democracy, I'd be real curious
about your reasoning.

~~~
madengr
I'd rather they be counterbalanced with a well-armed citizenry, such as the
"cosplaying" the article insultingly describes.

~~~
acdha
That makes things a lot more volatile: you have one side with a LOT more guns,
armored vehicles, and aircraft — all you need is one mistake for them to start
thinking force protection and a whole bunch of people are in the crossfire.
When the dust settles, a lot of people will believe this says the protests
were an Antifa army even if the first shot came from the other side.

~~~
ColanR
There have already been instances of well armed African-American people openly
carrying large guns forming parts of these protests. The effect? The police
have known better than to respond with violence.

~~~
stevula
And yet in Vallejo this week a Latino man was shot for suspicion of having a
gun in his pocket (not a crime) which turned out to be a hammer (also not a
crime).

~~~
ColanR
Not the same thing in the least. I'm talking about people openly carrying guns
as 'scary-looking' as assault rifles. I found the story you referred to. The
difference is, the victim (at best, from the perspective of the police'
defense attourney) looked to be hiding a concealable gun (not saying he was,
or that the incident wasn't an atrocity): the man looked relatively
defenseless. The people I'm talking about have the appearance of being able to
win that same shootout, and the police can see it.

------
alexandercrohde
So I guess my proposal is that any officer who carries a gun should be
required to wear a "badge number" of some form, readable from 15-feet, on
their back. The badge-number should be a ID that can be matched against a
public website to identify the individual, name, bureau, and a picture of
course. After all... If they aren't doing anything wrong they have nothing to
hide...

I'd also add that failure to do so should result in a $1,000 penalty, half of
which should go as a $500 reward to anybody who reports the case (photo would
suffice as proof). Officers should have their whereabouts tracked via there
phones for accountability purposes, which could be used to verify such reports
or identify officers.

~~~
sitkack
And body camera footage should be always streaming to a well known bucket,
encrypted of course, but with publicly verifiable keys. Anyone should be able
to "backup" body camera footage for any cop for any time range. Getting access
to the decryption keys should be a matter of filling out the proper forms.

~~~
sitkack
Body cameras should never be able to be turned off. The most that should be
done is an officer should be able to hit a button to drop a marker into the
timeline.

------
coldcode
I don't care who brought them there, prison guards have no business working in
public, they are not trained to do so, have no idea what legal protections
ordinary citizens have, and refuse to identify themselves in violation of laws
all other agents of the Federal government have to follow (though some might
flaunt that too).

I wonder if they are exempt from punishment or oversight if they screw up
(which I presume will happen).

~~~
mywittyname
There's no need to wonder: yes they are exempt from punishment and oversight.

It doesn't matter what laws they break because it's pretty clear that the
executive branch has no intent of abiding by any laws; they won't do so unless
forced and clearly no one has the power to force them to do so.

I have no idea how this will end, but I'm fairly sure it won't involve justice
for the people.

------
adamfeldman
This article uniquely gives a deep historical perspective on the story.

> What is surprising is that those two agencies now facing down Black Lives
> Matter and crowds protesting systemic racism historically have been enlisted
> by the federal government to protect blacks against white protestors.
> Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, for instance, deputized officers from
> the Border Patrol and the Bureau of Prisons to work as U.S. marshals and
> secure the University of Mississippi in 1962 to protect James Meredith as he
> enrolled at the school after desegregation. Similarly, the Border Patrol
> once watched over the Freedom Riders in Alabama and Mississippi in the
> 1960s.

------
PeterStuer
So, how are you to distiguish between one of these "Police Forces" and some
rogue vigilante militias? Is there some secret hand-signals they use to cross-
identify?

~~~
mike_d
Federal law enforcement are obligated to present printed ID cards identifying
the officer and their agency. Anyone unwilling or unable to do so is an armed
civilian in violation of DCs open carry laws, and the DC Metro Police should
be notified.

~~~
MagnumOpus
The law obligates them to present ID, but they have refused and faced no
consequences from either DC Metro Police or their own superiors.

Laws are worth zero if the law enforcers ignore them with impunity - a lesson
familiar from Caribbean and African banana republics.

~~~
yazan94
President Andrew Jackson famously shrugged off the US Supreme Court decision
in Worcester v. Georgia by (probably not) saying "John Marshall has made his
decision; now let him enforce it!". Like you said, "Laws are worth zero if the
law enforcers ignore them with impunity". This is why we need a system to
police the police. At some point, we as a society need to commit to forcing
those who swear to uphold the laws to also live by them.

------
ian0
>> There are more gun-carrying agents employed across the federal government
by inspectors general .. than there are ATF agents nationwide; the roughly
4,000 inspector general agents nationwide, in fact, is roughly equivalent to
the entire size of the DEA. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ police
department, who guard the nation’s veteran hospitals, facilities and
cemeteries, is larger than the entire U.S. Marshals Service.

Why don't security guards guard hospitals and normal investigators work in
watchdogs? Why are they all police-style groups? Is there some historical
reason?

~~~
masterofpuppets
Note: I performed security audits of VHA facilities for a couple of years.

Unlike non-federal hospital, this is due to jurisdiction. VHA Hospitals are
federal land so local police departments wouldnt have any jurisdiction, and
the federal government typically looks at its responsibility to enforce laws
within the land it owns. Also, some VHA facilities are on large campuses in
more rural/less urban areas which effects the size of the police forces there.

------
smkellat
This is an outgrowth of the excess proliferation of federal laws. Taking a
page from the UK and appointing a Law Reform Commission to simplify,
consolidate, and reduce the body of federal laws would reduce the need for so
many policing forces.

~~~
0x8BADF00D
If the court system was doing their job, they would strike down many
unconstitutional laws and decrees that enabled the growth of big government.

~~~
sitkack
Unconstitutional laws are only struck down when someone with standing
challenges it, if it is never challenged, it gets to remain even if obviously
unconstitutional.

------
zeveb
The article is a mixture of useful and distracting information. The ever-
increasing number of federal crimes really is an issue (the example of it
being a federal crime to sell jam made from more than five types of fruit is
remarkable). The growth in federal law-enforcement agencies is also something
which deserves some attention, as is using prison guards to police the
streets.

OTOH, I think that comments such as 'What is surprising is that those two
agencies now facing down Black Lives Matter and crowds protesting systemic
racism historically have been enlisted by the federal government to protect
blacks against white protesters,' 'D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser … finds herself in
the odd position of not controlling the police forces patrolling her own city'
and 'ou read that right: The former head of the Fraternal Order of Police was
considered too liberal for the GOP' stoke fire rather than illuminate. The
first sentence is unsurprising: the police are not on the streets of DC
because of _protesters_ but because of _rioters_ ; they are there to keep the
peace. The second comment, too, is unsurprising: the federal district …
belongs to the federal government. It is no more surprising that the mayor of
DC is subordinate to the federal government than it is that the mayor of
Chicago is subordinate to the state of Illinois. Nor is the third comment
particularly helpful: I imagine that the concern with the nominee could very
well be that a former police chief is too _authoritarian_ to helm an agency
which has been accused of some pretty serious mis-steps since the Bush years.

I'm not taking any position here on the goodness of any of this, just noting
that the author is not making the most of his opportunity to discuss
substantive issues and make reasoned arguments.

~~~
macleginn
> the example of it being a federal crime to sell jam made from more than five
> types of fruit is remarkable

Wow! I really applied myself to looking for a motivation for regulation but
failed. Any hints?

~~~
0xffff2
~~I'm not a lawyer and the citation provided in the article is too much text
for me to try to parse, but I have to assume this is a case of unintended
consequences. I expect that each individual section of the law makes sense,
and it's only when you read them with an eye to finding gotchas that you
realize they work together to prohibit this. In other words, congress needs
better QA.~~

Edit: I take it all back. It turns out that you only have to read 21 CFR
§150.160(b)(2) to see it, and it turns out that that law is just unreasonably
prescriptivist.

>(2) The following combinations of fruit ingredients may be used:

>(i) Any combination of two, three, four, or five of such fruits in which the
weight of each is not less than one-fifth of the weight of the combination;
except that the weight of pineapple may be not less than one-tenth of the
weight of the combination.

It's against the law to make a jam with more than 5 fruits because the law
only explicitly allows jams with up to 5 fruits. Bizarre.

~~~
vharuck
My best guess: this prevents situations like selling jars of "strawberry jam"
which is only 10% strawberry.

Which is partly backed up by 21 CFR § 150.160 (e)(1):

(e)

>(1) The name of each preserve or jam for which a definition and standard of
identity is prescribed by this section is as follows:...

~~~
0xffff2
Well, no, the section you quoted is what prevents you from selling "Strawberry
jam" that has fruits other than strawberry. The section about number of fruits
seems to just be about arbitrarily restricting the amount of any fruit present
to at least one fifth of the total (except pineapple for some reason). I don't
see why that's necessary, but you could at least write the law as

>(2) The following combinations of fruit ingredients may be used:

>(i) Any combination of such fruits in which the weight of each is not less
than one-fifth of the weight of the combination, or in which the weight of
each part is no less than half the weight of any other part; except that the
weight of pineapple may be not less than one-tenth of the weight of the
combination.

I'm not quite sure what the right legal wording is for or such that you can
comply with whichever half works for you is, but that would both allow for
everything the existing law allows and allow for arbitrary numbers of fruit
without requiring that they be mixed in exactly equal ratios.

------
balletto
I'm guessing the actual reason why the guys in question are dressed in mixed
uniforms is that someone in the department of justice hit the "send everyone"
button, which included investigators typically not kitted out for field duty.

------
euroderf
What's the chance the DC police chief would ask for volunteers to go surround
these "officers" and demand identification ?

~~~
jki275
It is unlikely that the DC police Chief is a moron, so probably zero.

------
gadders
Looks like Government bloat and unconstrained regulation growth applies to law
enforcement as well.

~~~
mywittyname
It applies almost entirely to law enforcement and military, where budget cuts
are rare and accountability is negligible. There's an entire cottage industry
devoted to exposing wasteful government spending and they'll expose $600k
going to some research scientist at a university, but ignore police
departments wasting 100x that amount on equipment that can never really be
used.

------
Ansil849
What I am confused about is why does no one who is in the area follow (at a
safe distance) some of these unidentified agents to see where they go after
they are done with their patrol?

------
carolina_33
Interesting story, but I don’t know why the writer had to put so much emphasis
on the race of the officers, activists, etc.

~~~
Pfhreak
Maybe you aren't from the US -- there's a long history of systemic racism
here, The protests that are happening across our nation are in response to
those systemic issues, particularly how policing and race interact. Race,
therefore, is a core part of the conversation going on in our country right
now.

------
madengr
Searching the FBO.gov you can find interesting solicitations, like the
Department of Education needing 125 shotguns.

------
coronadisaster
fascism is getting closer everyday

------
solotronics
Is this relevant to hacker news?

~~~
Kapura
From the Hacker News Guidelines[1]:

>What to Submit

>On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I found the story intellectually stimulating, and thought others might too.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
throw55432
And yet posts on Kobe Bryant’s death were all flagged.

~~~
mywittyname
Perhaps individuals should have contributed posts that discuss interesting and
lesser known aspects of the man's life and accomplishments.

60 posts of "Extremely Famous Person Dies in Accident" is boring. But learning
that said person had a little-know passion for bird conservation or something
is interesting.

------
hilbert42
In armed conflict/warfare, if one deliberately hides or removes one's uniform,
or pretends to be a combatant of an force other than one's original
allegiance—and if caught by one's enemy—then one is deemed to be a spy and the
usual penalty is death.

If one substitutes one's original uniform for the enemy's (or another) to
pretend to be other than what one is then the Geneva protocols don't apply—in
essence, you're shot rather than be taken prisoner or war.

What these guys are doing is similar. When a State resorts to such
action/deception then it's hard to see how the rule of law can apply.
Essentially, anarchy has broken out.

From an outsider's perspective, it seems to me that the US is now so polarized
that it's almost become ungovernable.

Heaven help the the rest of the free world let alone the poor unfortunate law-
abiding US citizens who cannot help but be caught up in this damned mess.

~~~
jki275
All of your premises are incorrect.

The law of war doesn’t work the way you claim. At all. The Geneva convention
specifically addresses non uniformed combatants and people wearing the wrong
uniform, and does not permit them to be shot rather than taken prisoner.

