How can you have the right of habeaus corpus when nobody knows which agency seized your corpus?
We urgently need a federal statute to require that armed federal agents wear prominent identification. Even just a number that we can lookup for the details.
Cops with no accountability are how we got in this mess and this anonymity amounts to more of the same.
The article says which agency it was (CPB), and quotes the CPB as saying that the agents identified themselves as CPB agents.
It also says that they weren't individually identifiable, which is an issue, but a different issue.
I don't see the CPB supposedly identifying their agency as alleviating the first issue your parent mentioned: habeas corpus. The litmus test is: can a family/friend/attorney reasonably find the arrested/detained person within a few hours?
Yup. What I would like to see: Normally, to act as a law enforcement official you must have clearly displayed identity. Without this identity you are not considered to be an agent of the state and have no powers a passerby would not have.
The identity may be pseudoanonymous but the agency must be able to link it back to the individuals.
I would make exceptions for undercover officers who are discovered or who choose to break cover, and I would make exceptions for circumstances beyond their control. (You don't cease to be a cop because someone destroyed your identification in the incident etc.)
Likewise, I would like to see their powers go away if they aren't filming, likewise with an exception for something that happened during the incident. (But turning off one's camera is voluntary, it doesn't count unless you did it under duress.)
What good are laws when the government doesn't obey them anyway? They will just find some way to side step it, Like "This a national security matter" and that will be that.
This is one of the classic pillars of fascist politics. Justify atrocious, anti-democratic actions by citing widely shared ideals.
Implement Jim Crow laws and prevent Black people from voting under the guise of "states' rights".
Invade a nation that does not threaten us in order to "liberate their people" and "spread democracy".
Encourage paramilitaries to intimidate peaceful protesters with weapons of war to "protect property and the rule of law".
And now send heavily armed mercenaries or federal agents into cities, with no identification and no accountability, against the will of local leaders, to kidnap citizens from the streets to "protect federal property".
Justifying things you do - atrocious and anti-democratic or not - by citing widely shared ideals is a pillar of any kind of politics. To claim that sending feds into cities is like Jim Crow in a meaningful sense because it was also justified with widely shared ideals is ridiculous.
The difference is that in fascist politics, the justifications are lies.
The US didn't invade Iraq to "liberate its people", and federal thugs aren't abducting people from the streets to "protect federal property".
Those are lies and transparent pretexts.
In non-fascist politics, the justifications aren't dishonest pretexts. For example, when non-fascist Roosevelt established Social Security, the stated reason was to safeguard "against the hazards and vicissitudes of life".
That was not a lie or a pretext. It was true, and that's the difference.
Or just straight up ignore it completely like the president has done with some laws. Sometimes the courts catch up to him, sometimes the senate doesn't give a shit
Something that an observer said when Trump was elected has really struct with me : "the next 4 years are going to be a stress test for the checks and balances of the US political system".
I could not have been truer and damn ... the system is not faring well.
"Statutes" have no power when nobody wants to enforce them. I think the generic uniform trick is a way to hire random folks to deal with protests. DHS probably doesn't want to risk its own personnel, so they hire "disposable" folks from the streets and give them generic uniform to hide what they are doing.
The John Yoo interpretations of existing law during the early Bush 43 administration already did that. NDAA and subsequent updates weren't required, but I wouldn't doubt if they solidified some of the weaknesses of just having White House / NSC council interpretations.
Also, in practice, law is very subjective and frequently doesn't supply any prior constraint against government actors, only recourse after-the-fact.
It is nice to see this finally getting the attention of national media. It was a week or so ago I saw videos of some guy get shot in the face while holding up a sign and another being kidnapped and dragged in to an unmarked car by unidentified individuals for an unexplained reason.
For everyone wondering what's happening, here's my theory. They're likely using CCTV footage, either drone or fixed, to identify people in the crowd. Most likely these are instigators that are inciting violence or destroying property. They're waiting until the people are separated from the crowd, to make sure that things don't escalate, then arresting them.
We need to follow up with the arrests and make sure due process is being followed. If you're inciting violence or destroying property, you need to face justice. If you're assembling peacefully, we need to monitore for/end the abuse of power.
Nice theory, except they are not being arrested. They are being detained, and then released with no charges, and no apparent record of having been captured.
You'd get shot back, and you very well might lose the civil suit:
In every video I've seen, there's a big POLICE patch on their plate carriers.
That doesn't make what's happening super awesome, but OTOH it's not like these are like the Russian Little Green Men in Ukraine, operating without any visible affiliation whatsoever.
> You'd get shot back, and you very well might lose the civil suit: In every video I've seen, there's a big POLICE patch on their plate carriers.
If having a POLICE patch is a license to commit violence without the target having a right to self-defense, that’s...a problem.
> OTOH it's not like these are like the Russian Little Green Men in Ukraine, operating without any visible affiliation whatsoever.
It's exactly like that: LGM were armed troops that wore generic military-style fatigues with no identification with a specific accountable organization, though behavior and common sense linked them on some level to the Russian governmwnr. These armed troops wear generic law-enforcement style gear with no identification with a specific accountable organization, though behavior and common sense link them to the US federal government. It's exactly the same thing, except that it's internal unaccountable repression and not an external not-quite-plausibly-deniable invasion.
> If having a POLICE patch is a license to commit violence without the target having a right to self-defense, that’s...a problem.
I suppose so, but it's currently within the law to do so. In fact, the police don't always have to identify themselves as the police in certain exigent circumstances (!). It's also a common myth that universally the police must identify themselves personally and give a badge number. That's up to department policy.
I support reform in these cases, at the least requiring officers to wear patches that uniquely identifies them ("X25" or something) for later use in court. That said, what we are seeing is within the bounds of the law today.
>It's exactly the same thing
No, it really isn't. Men in civilian clothing or blank fatigues blowing things up with zero identification is indeed distinguishable from men in uniform with American flag and POLICE patches.
> No, it really isn't. Men in civilian clothing or blank fatigues blowing things up with zero identification is indeed distinguishable from men in uniform with American flag and POLICE patches.
A reasonable observer could conclude that they are almost certainly American law enforcement. Is is difficult to tell that these German fellows are police officers?
The LGM had no patches, no flags, nothing to indicate to a reasonable observer where they were from or what authority they might have. This was more pronounced with LGM in civilian clothing:
I'm not a giant fan of the cammies. I think a solid color would suffice for all but snipers and it looks less militaristic. But that doesn't negate the fact that all of the videos show men with POLICE patches in the middle of their plate carriers and American flags on their uniforms.
> A reasonable observer could conclude that they are almost certainly American law enforcement. Is is difficult to tell that these German fellows are police officers?
>https://i.redd.it/b6xjl7nugoq41.jpg
Based on the comments here, it is difficult for these people. Perhaps they are not reasonable observers?
You'd think so, but yet I see the same people who are ardent defenders of the Second Amendment and supposedly hate government tyranny come out to defend what is essentially unnamed federal officers in unmarked vehicles grabbing people off the streets.
You'd think that the same people that are incredibly pro-freedom would see this as a massive assault on someone's rights and yet, well.
It's tyranny when the people being arrested have not committed any crimes. Half the country has forgotten that peacefully protests aren't just legal, but protected by the first amendment.
I know the knee-jerk reaction to this statement is that rioting isn't peaceful protest, and you'd be absolutely right.
But the media (especially on the right) has blown the number and severity of riots completely out of proportion, because riots are sensational. They're exciting and get a lot of eyeballs watching their broadcasts and reading their articles. They've successfully convinced half the country that the riots significantly outnumber the peaceful protests.
This focus has made it impossible for any change to occur, because they defend the unjust actions of the police. You can point to this massive list of over 200 videos showing police brutality during the protests [0], and they will respond with "BUT THE RIOTS!", as if that excuses any of it.
>It's tyranny when the people being arrested have not committed any crimes.
Why would you assume they haven't committed a crime? The camouflaged cops are clearly targeting individuals, not kettling up whole groups of peaceful protesters. Also, police brutality doesn't excuse serious crimes. We can do something about both at the same time.
I don't presume guilt (this is America, after all), but I rather suspect the Federales have some reason to arrest some but not others, and that reason might be things like arson, assault, or other serious crimes.
I'm not arguing that the media have pumped some things up to get ratings, but it's undeniable there have been criminal acts in and around legitimate protesters, perpetrated by bad actors, and it's not unreasonable to think perhaps the Feds have some evidence of wrongdoing by virtue of the targeted nature of the arrests.
> I don't presume guilt (this is America, after all), but I rather suspect the Federales have some reason to arrest some but not others, and that reason might be things like arson, assault, or other serious crimes.
The first 4 words of this statement don't work with the rest of the sentence. You claim to not presume guilt, then essentially claim that they must be guilty or else why would they be arrested?
Despite how much unwarranted police brutality is going on, you're continuing to defend the authorities.
"Innocent until proven guilty" does not prevent a suspect from being arrested. Being released with no charges is not a statement of innocence or guilt, but of whether the prosecutor believes there is enough evidence to go through with prosecution.
All true, but considering the extreme abuse of authority that's been happening at the protests, I'm far more inclined to believe arrests have been unlawful.
> Why would you assume they haven't committed a crime?
> I don't presume guilt (this is America, after all)
These two lines are explicitly at odds. You said you don't presume guilt, but you presumed the people the cops are picking up have committed a crime. You have presumed guilt.
No, you just misunderstand what the presumption of innocence means. It means that people are assumed to be innocent and that it is the duty of the prosecution to show their guilt.
It doesn't mean that you can't arrest people suspected of a crime. That's how arrests work, FYI.
This has been going on for a while. It started with using unidentified units at the DC protests. Then the clearing of protestors for the photo op.
Now they're roaming the streets in unmarked rentals in Portland abducting people. This is against the wishes of the Governor and the Mayor.
The DHS secretary visited Portland yesterday, this is what he saw that has prompted him to send in these forces: pictures of graffiti [1].
For that he labeled these are violent extremists and violent anarchists. And he has labeled these unidentified units abducting people as our valiant men and women in uniform and patriots. This is war on terror language used in our country, on our streets.
On Wednesday Trump, with AG Barr next to him named other "blue cities" in addition to Portland: Seattle, Minneapolis, and Chicago.
If this chills you and you don't want to see it progress, call your representatives and ask them to intervene to stop this.
Legit curious about the down voting. If we're going to allow news like this to be posted, then what about my comment is not adding facts or to the conversation? Is it because of this line: "If this chills you and you don't want to see it progress, call your representatives and ask them to intervene to stop this."?
I upvoted to counter the downvotes, but I'd guess the downvotes were because you described what some people feel were legal arrests as "abducting people", and because you suggested the the DHS secretary sent in forces solely because of graffiti. Your point of view is legitimate, but others might legitimately disagree with it. I think just about everyone would agree with the "call your representatives" part.
I strongly suggest you don't ask these questions. I upvoted your comment because I think it's worth being upvoted, but I'm generally a downvoter when I see that someone asks, regardless of how much I might agree with the comment, and I think I'm not the only one.
I've been wondering if that's a good approach, but I mostly feel that it's a good principle to uphold the HN rules over whatever comment I might agree with, so I downvote comments that include complaints.
I tried to upvote your parent comment earlier today but the action did nothing. Your karma did not increase.
I was able to upvote it just now, though it's still in the gray.
I have noticed that a minority of comments seem to be "locked" against voting for a certain period of time. I have previously found unvotable comments like yours, spotted them again hours later, and found that voting worked again.
I haven't been able to spot any common patterns in these temporarily unvotable comments. I wonder if there is some sort of cooldown timer on voting for comments that have received heavy voting in both directions. I'm not entirely satisfied with that guess, because IIRC some unvotable comments I have encountered in the past appear to be anodyne and unlikely to have attracted prior vote controversy.
There's also a limit on how frequently your votes will affect another user, but I hadn't voted on any of your other comments in the past day.
(1) A person commits the crime of criminal impersonation of a peace officer if the person, with the intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another person, uses false law enforcement identification or wears a law enforcement uniform to give the impression that the person is a peace officer and does an act in that assumed character.
(2) Criminal impersonation of a peace officer is a Class C felony.
...
(3) As used in this section:
...
Law enforcement uniform” means clothing bearing words such as “police,” “sheriff,” “state trooper” or “law enforcement,” or clothing that is an official uniform or substantially similar to an official uniform of a law enforcement unit that would make it reasonably likely that a person would believe that the wearer is a peace officer. [1993 c.243 §2; 2005 c.259 §1]
ORS 133.005:
(3) “Peace officer” means:
(a) A member of the Oregon State Police;
(b) A sheriff, constable, marshal, municipal police officer or reserve officer or a police officer commissioned by a university under ORS 352.121 (University police departments and officers) or 353.125 (Creation of police department and commission of police officers);
(c) An investigator of a district attorney’s office if the investigator is or has been certified as a peace officer in this or any other state;
(d) An investigator of the Criminal Justice Division of the Department of Justice of the State of Oregon;
(e) A humane special agent as defined in ORS 181A.345 (Humane special agents to enforce animal welfare laws under direction of law enforcement agency);
(f) A regulatory specialist exercising authority described in ORS 471.775 (Service of subpoenas) (2);
(g) An authorized tribal police officer as defined in ORS 181A.680 (Definitions for ORS 181A.680 to 181A.692); or
(h) A judicial marshal appointed under ORS 1.177 (State plan for security, emergency preparedness and business continuity for court facilities) who is trained pursuant to ORS 181A.540 (Certification of judicial marshals).
There is a separate definition of "Federal Officer." A Federal Officer is not allowed to wear clothing bearing the word "Police", because they are not a police officer.
Impersonating a police officer is a class C felony, carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
IANAL so I don't quite understand why would be a state law (Oregon in this case) applicable to federal agents executing the federal law. Seeing that internet is full of pictures of federal agents with "police" insignia (usually together with the agency name, but not always) it appears that the federal law allows this type of identification and, because of the Supremacy Clause, the state law has no effect. Am I missing something here?
The feds have said they're there. Not what they're doing exactly but they haven't been hiding their presence. If you know they aren't local PD because you've been there long enough to know what swat-ass PPD look like the choice is vigilante cosplays or Fed, and Occam says fed.
This article offers scant evidence that this occurred.
A man claims that he was arrested "as he was walking home from a peaceful protest" and taken to the courthouse in an unmarked vehicle. This strikes me as unlikely to be the full story, but it is presented as the gospel truth. The entire thing is based on the word of this guy. What did the Washington Post do to verify the truth of this story? Anything?
The WaPo article refrences Oregon Public Broadcasting as a source, and their article[0] contains more allegations:
> Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14.
and
> Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.
Neither article links to these videos. So, in terms of supporting evidence, we're left with the word of one man and a perfectly credulous article written in a local publication.
Many of the comments note a number of highly suspicious irregularities which point towards this being some kind of asset extraction, as opposed to a genuine arrest.
This was happening in Cincinnati about 20 years ago and nobody believed me the neighborhood I lived in was so bad with gang violence anytime you called the police they showed up an unmarked clothing wearing masks in unmarked police cars white and black
I live in downtown Portland. A few bad apples breaking some windows does not justify the federal government overstepping their bounds and surprising political activism.
Things were drastically improving until the Federal government showed up in full camouflage uniforms and started antagonizing people.
Citation for protestors in Portland murdering people?
Citation for "millions of dollars in damages"? Yes there have been broken windows, and there were significant riots in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's murder. Since then (and absolute in the last 6 weeks) the protests have been peaceful with the exception of a few broken windows and some graffiti. Absolutely not millions of dollars in damage.
Keep in mind I live downtown. A 1000 sq/ft apartment costs about a million dollars in downtown Portland so let’s not let our imaginations get the best of here.
And how many people have been murdered as a result of the protests? Please stop fear mongering.
Those are a) different cities and b) basically background radiation in terms of violence. There are about 30 gun murders a day in the US having two over this many weeks in two major cities is regrettable but statistically nothing.
They were both killed as a direct result of the protests, they were ironically Black children, and they were both shot by people acting as armed "security" manning barricades. I am not sure how that doesn't answer the question about murders.
Two may not be a lot (along with those merely shot), but they are still dead.
> Two may not be a lot (along with those merely shot), but they are still dead.
It's a problem when you try to use it as an example of the protests being lawless and violent as a justification for extreme police responses and unidentified federal agencies arresting people in a different city.
It’s very unfortunate but again they didn’t happen in Portland, OR.
While there has been some property damage in Portland, OR there has been very little violence so it’s odd that the federal government is ramping up a military like response in Portland, OR.
And billions of dollars looted from the PPP and US treasury while the media conflated protesters with the bad actors running amok. If you weren't in the protests, read accounts of those who were like the recent overview in the New Yorker. When a movement that starts with taking a knee is vilified, attacked, and denied legitimacy what other options are there to make their voices heard?
Meanwhile, taxpayers have been robbed blind by the damage to our infrastructure by looters yes but also corruption, greed, and abuse of power not seen at this scale in the entire history of our democracy. Even the Secretary of Transportation and Husband, Mitch McConnell, made off with millions in loans paid for by your tax dollars. The current USPS head, who may be slowing delivery to damage the agency, may be taking direction from a guy whose old company received $700 million in bailout even though it is only worth 1/10 of that.
You and I might have seen $1200. Millionaires got $135 Billion in tax loopholes. That's more than hospitals were allocated to deal with the virus.
So do go ahead and complain about looters at protesters. It's important their bad behavior be recognized and flushed out. But don't lose sight of the larger issue, billions of taxpayer dollars going to the rich, donors to the current administration, and even directly to members of the administration and GOP party leadership. The corruption is obscene.
Why let innocence get in the way of chasing people down? That's the argument police unions have been making for years. Whenever society wants to improve and decriminalize something, it can't because the fucking cops want to have easy arrest targets. Fuck them. At least now we can stop pretending we don't live in a police state.
Please stop posting flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, it destroys what it is for, and your comments in this thread have unfortunately created the worst parts of it. We ban such accounts, so please don't do it again.
>That's what I would ask BLM protestors making people kneel on the basis of their gender, skin, or job, in the same ironic tone.
"Making"? I don't think that's true. People are doing it in respect of black lives, unlike when people are forcibly being abducted by unmarked federal police.
It's not the window breaking that justifies federal intervention, it's the local government acting as if the Rule of Law was optional that justifies federal intervention.
Do you live in or near downtown Portland? Because I do, and I can assertively state that the rule of law had not broken down prior to the arrival of federal agents.
Walking around downtown recently and finding little more than a single broken window and an "I'm hatin' it" spray-painted on a McDonald's makes this kind of fearmongering comment truly laughable.
I was told that my city of Portland Maine had riots going on by people living 300 miles away. We had a couple hundred people laying on the ground in front of a police station. The over-exaggeration of people and sources negative towards the causes of these protests is astounding
I witnessed rioters shooting mortars at PPB on the 4th of July. PPB sent teargas and flash bangs back at them. SW Broadway and Main looked like a war zone. They’ve been lighting fires around 3rd for weeks. The park around the justice center looks like a set from Escape From New York.
The Feds showing up didn’t start this. This nonsense has been going on in spurts since 2016.
The rule of law is not kept by generic authority figures in unmarked vans from a federal agency that hasn't declared itself and wasn't asked to intervene at a place and time where the issue doesn't require it and the victims are seen as the political enemies by the party whose president is in power. That's a dystopia - the opposite of rule of law.
I wonder if they're US Marshals, looks like the right uniforms based on some google image searches. I do see a patch too but it's too blurry to tell unfortunately
A 1000 ft condo costs about a million dollars in downtown Portland so let’s put that number in perspective before imagination goes to far.
The wealthy people who own those condos fund most of the local officials political campaigns so do you honestly believe local officials would be coming out against the federal government stepping in if they felt like Rule of Law had fallen apart?
"""One of the people detained, Mark Pettibone, said in an interview that an unmarked vehicle stopped right in front of him around 2 a.m. on Wednesday and four people in camouflage jumped out. Given the lack of markings or identification, he had no idea who they were.
One of the officers said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ and just grabbed me and threw me into the van. Another officer pulled my beanie down, so I couldn’t see,” Mr. Pettibone said.
Mr. Pettibone said he was terrified and that at no point was he told why he was arrested or detained, or what agency the officers were with. He said he was ultimately held for about two hours before being released.'""
I haven't seen enough authoritative evidence to truly say that there are "unmarked vans driving around portland kidnapping protestors"; if the federal government is doing that to nonviolent protestors who are obeying orders, they put themselves directly at risk of being sued for civil rights violations.
I've noticed that WaPo is especially prone to rumormongering/anecdote amplification in a way that makes it sound like the problem is far worse than it really is. I find it necessary to read a wider range of news to get a fully informed view.
I think this is happening in order to identify specific people who can be demonstrated to have some sort of link to other, unidentified instigators that the feds are after (e.g. linked via drone or bodycam or other footage showing interaction). So they pull somebody off the street in this manner, conclusively identify the person, and then pull and add that person's metadata to the Palantir graphs, in order to identify the people they can't find, or people they suspect are running the instigator show. That this is happening in Portland in particular does not surprise me at all, given the history of the city and the level of organization at protests and riots there in the past (something I have personal experience with and know a bit about). I strongly suspect that local law enforcement is fully supporting these operations, even if they are not doing so outwardly, or even denying it.
The first paragraph says that there are only generic "police," patches on their fatigues. No badge numbers, nothing indicating where from, or anything beyond that patch.
I know someone might say that's technically marked, but, when you're being pushed into a minivan, that's pretty vague. I know damn near any american reading this will have been told as a child not to go along with a stranger just because they said they were police.
They appear to. Even on the video[1], which was obviously shot on a potato (or Twitter compressed the shit out of it) you can see there is a round emblem on the left arm. You can see at multiple times, for example at 15 seconds.
We urgently need a federal statute to require that armed federal agents wear prominent identification. Even just a number that we can lookup for the details.
Cops with no accountability are how we got in this mess and this anonymity amounts to more of the same.