ICE misconduct megathread (Immigration "enforcement" in the US)

[grumbler]

So, Americans, what's your take gun-culture wise, how are the protestors with a gun permit likely to respond to this? Will they be more likely to leave their guns home in the hope that will increase their chances of walking away without being summarily executed for standing somewhere, or the opposite - seeing how they can get killed even if they are having their hands high up in the air, will they be more likely to brandish their gun and open fire if ICE approaches them?

That is THE question, IMO. The Trump regime is clearly trying to provoke a violent response in order to have an excuse to implement some sort of martial law. This would, they hope, create some sort of "rally 'round the flag" effect among their supporters and justify criminalizing even peaceful protest.

ICE is building a database of "domestic terrorists" using facial recognition of the protestors filmed by ICE/CPB agents.  What do you think the odds are that this database will be used in the midterm elections at critical voting places to arrest the "domestic terrorists" standing in line to vote?

[Tamas]

Yeah, it's a very precarious position. Be passive and they can implement their fascist rule and they can coerce people not to go and vote. Resist too much and you give them the excuse to do so even more brazenly, at which point there's no turning back without a, well, a revolution, really.

Like we have been discussing, I think pro-democracy forces need to walk this careful balance until the mid-terms. But if the mid-terms fail to produce a Republican collapse, something more radical will be needed.

[crazy canuck]

For what its worth, Tamas, I fully agree with you. Without modern camera phones and social media to share said video footage, the FBI/ICE/DHS would have had a monopoly on the "truth" and the legacy media would have just accepted their version and aired/published/reported on it. Probably word for word like they do with most police and government statements. Passive voice and all.

We had citizens taking photographs and videos of police wrongdoing long before the internet.  We also had something called investigative journalism and news media (both print and tv) who saw their role of holding government to account as being important.



The notion that we didn't have a way of keeping government accountable before social media is frankly absurd.

The combination of those to things