U.S. Military Is Monitoring Groups Protesting at the Border | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Military Is Monitoring Groups Protesting at the Border

theintercept.com

88 pointsOrgNet47 comments

Are they watching both sides of the protest, like the self styled militias roaming around posing as law enforcement?

The U.S.-Mexico border isn't protected by militias, it's patrolled by domestic terrorists.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/u-s-mexico-border-isn-...

They explicitly call out "unregulated militias" in the same threat assessment.

The linked briefing is basically a daily update update - it includes a 3 day weather report and assessment on weather impact on operations.

We can't know why the three specific events were called out as "Events of Interest". Probably through social media posts - in fact all the details of the events seem to be the type of stuff on a facebook event page. Question is do militias do that on their patrols?

We're missing all sorts of contexts. Like yes, the slide header is "Threat Fusion Running Estimate", but the subheader is "Events of Interest". Does inclusion under this slide mean they actually think they are a threat? What are their working definition of threat? Or are events of interest (as in any type of large gathering near and related to the area of operations) automatically included in the threat estimate?

For example, the inter-faith group "being tracked" is assembly a protest outside (or near? unclear) a military base. Knowing that a protest will appear a certainly a way to deconflict.

This is just a basic CUB (Commander’s Update Brief). People are reading way too much into this.

People please be safe. This is a friendly reminder that the fourth amendment is significantly weaker within 100 miles of an international border than it is for the rest of United States [0].

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

Not enough people know this. An additional addendum to this is International airports. Specifically: The International border includes a 25-mile radius around international airports.

The majority of US Citizens live within 100 miles of the border. A good chunk that don't live within 25 of an 'international' airport. Further note: "International airport" is based on designation and not traffic. You can have a 1 runway po-dunk airport in the middle of nowhere that received 'international' status as a checkbox formality in the event that ANY plane MIGHT need to use the airport for emergency purposes.

> The International border includes a 25-mile radius around international airports.

Not true.

The 100 mile limit is from and “external boundary.” Within 25 miles of an external boundary, CBP has additional powers.

That 25 mile radius from an international airport is just made up. Border Patrol doesn’t have any power in Kansas City for instance, despite them having an international airport.

CBP’s authority within these border zones only covers immigration law and certain federal crimes.

https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/border-zone/

Sadly, those "certain federal crimes" includes drug offenses, which is a wonderful pretext ("I smelled marijuana") for all manner of invasiveness and harassment.

"International airport" isn't a checkbox formality. It's a specific length (and weight-bearing capacity?) of runway.

That is very true. I didn't mean to imply that any dirt-track could receive that designation. It is however a 'checkbox' for those airports that do infact meet those requirements. {thus my "checkbox" statement}

Before I ever heard of such designation, I had a very glamorous opinion of what was required to be an 'international airport'. Things like regular flights from all over the world landing and taking off. Huge passenger gateways & terminals, and thousands/millions of people being served every day.

The airport in my town has 3 runways. is serviced by 2 carriers. has under 20 (closer to 10) arrivals on average per day. Is only open part-time. (weekends + holidays) It has 'international airport' status.

A tremendously HUGE Russian Cargo plane landed here to deliver a factory for a major automaker.

My point in the OP was that even 'minor' airports could be affected by that international border.

Three runways is still one runway more than Heathrow, which is one of the busiest international airports in the world.

Not undermining your point, just thought it was interesting.

Londons' airports have been kind of a mess for ages now because they've gotten hemmed in by developments on all sides. Heathrow really really wishes it could have more runways but it'd require bulldozing loads of housing developments and even more noise for the existing houses.

Runway length and weight bearing capacity has nothing to do with it. It’s simply the presence or potential presence of CBP personnel available to clear inbound flight. Source: I am a pilot who flies to Mexico frequently.

The fourth amendment itself isn't weaker, as it is an abstract ideal. Stating things the way you have hides the party responsible for the current policy.

A better description is that the Supreme Court issued a justification to perform searches, this one based on being within 100 miles of the border. A similar justification could be written to perform searches in Kansas if they felt the need.

While this is concerning, it's hardly surprising. After all, if I were a gov't in power I'd want to keep track on groups that could be a potential threat.

I find it highly surprising that this task is carried by the US Military on US soil. Afaik dirty jobs like this one were in FBI's court, at least in so doing there was still a semblance of protecting the US Constitution. Granted, I'm not a US citizen so I may be be a little off about this, but from what I read about the subject (mostly from "The Federalist Papers") the non-involvement of the US Military on US soil is pretty much at the basis of the United States as a commonwealth.

Surprising in what way? That the US military is patrolling the border of the US, as opposed to the border of a country on the other side of the planet?

I assume you’re referring to Posse Comitatus, which is a seriously misunderstood law. Patrolling the border and ensuring territorial sovereignty is well within the purview of the US Military.

> Patrolling the border and ensuring territorial sovereignty is well within the purview of the US Military

I still think it is against the very spirit of the US Constitution and in this particular case I don't see against whom are these soldiers "ensuring territorial sovereignty"? There is no enemy military force on the opposing side of the border.

I actually grew up in a Eastern-European dictatorship but even they didn't use the Military to "protect" the country's borders, the dedicated border patrol forces were doing just a fine of a job of making sure nobody was escaping the country (because that was their job). The last time when we actually had soldiers "protecting" our borders was in the late '40s-early '50s on the Yugoslav border, when there were exchanges of live ammunition between Romanian and Yugoslav soldiers each stationed on their side of the border [1]. I can't see why the already de-facto militarized Homeland Security people aren't allowed to handle this, after all this is their main job.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito%E2%80%93Stalin_split

I believe that US military personnel are not empowered to apprehend any one in their current capacity. They are providing technical and logistical support to DHS personnel who are actually apprehending and enforcing the law.

I feel like it's a little of a non-sequiter to try to compare the distribution of work amongst two militarized wings of a government in two different systems across decades. If we're going for spirit of US Constitution, we're already pretty far away - maintaining the world's strongest standing military is hardly in the spirit of the Constitution. I think there are parts of the constituion where it's still valid to seek the spirit of as a form of guidance, but it's been decades and decades since America the nation has shed that part of the constitutional spirit.

Almost everything that you said is contrary to what I believed the majority consensus was in the States, I thought that the direct involvement of the US Military on US soil was one of the ultimate political/societal taboos, maybe because of the devastating effects that the Civil War had at a societal level. But I guess I was wrong (in my defense I live half a globe away from the US).

The distinction is that the US Military is not, generally, permitted to enforce domestic policy. E.g. you won't find them giving out parking tickets. National security (or "the common defense") is a pretty big exception to this rule, and of course includes border security - which is an extension of foreign policy.

The outrage is precisely that the government in power considers non violent protest movements "potential threats", yeah.

I mean, obviously if you don't agree with them you'd tend to view them in a less generous light (e.g. "Some of those hippies are loons, and all it takes is one with a weapon...") and view this decision as reasonable.

The problem with that thinking is that mere political disagreement is never a justification for "threat" in a democracy, by defintion. People disagree, that's the whole point. You need a history of violence, some rhetoric, something. But protesting ICE by itself isn't enough.

For the last few years, we've been assured that words themselves - regardless of what they are - are violence and just as damaging as physical violence. If that is true, this makes perfect sense and just another step towards the logical conclusion.

It's bad but shouldn't be surprising.

Words can be violent, sure. Violent rhetoric is for sure reason to surveil a group. What words specifically did these groups engage in that worries you?

>The outrage is precisely that the government in power considers non violent protest movements "potential threats", yeah.

And how is the military supposed to know if these non violent protest movements are non violent without looking at them?

I don't know about the U.S. specifically, but usually the military in a democratic country is not allowed to care. That's the job of the police.

Every military, democratic or otherwise, is going to care about potential threats to their bases or ongoing operations. The army isn't out there knocking on doors to investigate. They are getting information from other agencies and publicly available sources to present to the chain of command.

We seem to have defined down "extremist:"

“The extremists belong to a known anti-border wall group alleged to have direct action camps in the McAllen, TX area,” the document states. The group in reference appears to have been the Rio Bravo Action Camp, a training camp hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America’s Rio Grande Valley Chapter, the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, along with several activist groups, according to its website. The action camp’s training appears to focus on nonviolent forms of resistance, including civil disobedience and street protests.

And defined "terrorist" upward.

San Francisco government has officially declared the NRA to be a "terrorist" organization. Not the NRA-ILA (the lobbying arm), mind you, but the NRA 501(c)(4) non-profit organization, whose mission is safety and training.

It would be like saying Sinn Fein was a terrorist organization but the IRA wasn't.

Honestly, I don't know why you'd bring up a nonbinding resolution by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in a serious discussion about federal law enforcement, the US military, and civil liberties. Their resolution is something you don't need to care about even if you live in San Francisco. (I had to google it)

But who is monitoring the military?

Top. Men.

As a counterpoint, almost every major European power “monitors” certain protest groups. The French Army, for instance was authorized to shoot Yellow Vest protesters. After the 2015 terror attacks in France, civil liberties were greatly curtailed due to the “state of emergency” — a state of emergency that kept getting extended at the whims of the Élysée Palace.

> The French Army, for instance was authorized to shoot Yellow Vest protesters

How is that monitoring?

It’s not surprising, given a number of groups with similar intent were openly planning to intimidate or kill border patrol agents (govt employees) and have attacked govt buildings (shots fired at a building in San Antonio, woman with a firebomb in an ICE facility, man who shot at agents and tried to firebomb an ICE facility...)

If there's evidence of an individual threatening to kill a law enforcement officer I have a hard time believe they won't be arrested, unless the investigating officer(s) or prosecutor(s) don't feel it's credible for one reason or another.

Are the events you listed connected to these groups specifically?

I don't have a problem with the government monitoring groups that are protesting to make sure no violence occurs, but I do have a problem with the US military performing law enforcement actions on American soil. Posse Comitatus exists for a reason.

well... that paints an entirely different picture than the one in the article which is a bunch of smiling old ladies, men and adolescents. None of them look like they're about to go Rambo, unless it's a gross misrepresentation of the majority of those there.

The truth is probably in the middle...this is the Intercept after all. They've defended Assad, Maduro, Putin, etc somehow saying their internal corruption/slaughters were because of the US.

And they may well be monitoring far right protestors as well.

And the intercept that's way out on a limb with the likes of appeasers for dictators like George Galloway and Sad to say Jeremy Corbin compared to main stream left wing politics.

Many of Assad's were. Not that he isn't responsible for his own actions, but the US put him in a position to kill far more people than he would have otherwise been incentivized to fight. The "Syrian Civil War" would have been brief with few casualties, were it not for US intervention and support of the rebels. We turned a tussle that would have played itself out in a couple of months into a decade-long quagmire that has killed countless civilians, decimated the country, pulled in armies from around the world, and on several occasions toed the line of nuclear war.

There are cases in which half-assed actions in favor of "good" (allowing that for the sake of argument) are way worse than doing nothing. Syria was one of them. Predictably.

Quite possibly a worse strategic blunder than Iraq, to boot. And I'm a libby-lib who protested that war.

There are two different groups of anti-war people: 1. People love peace and don't want war, but also they don't understand sometime war might be necessary 2. People who knew that specific war (Iraq war) would have very severe calculable and incalculable consequences that eventually hurt US.

Which group did you belong to?

As contrast let me tell you that they're also 2 groups of people outside of the US who supported the war: 1. Those shares the "values/belief" with US and saw the war would spread democracy and more importantly would deter dictator countries like China, and 2. Those who already knew the action would fail to prove democracy can be applied to any country, would weaken US so the world would be more balanced. History proved the 2nd group are correct.

Chiefly #2 on both counts. I didn't see it as strategically useful, nor as in fact advancing any kind of humanitarian or idealistic vision (brand, rather, if we're being frank) for the US.

I end up agreeing with the anti-war-for-morality's-sake folks more often than not, though, mostly because US foreign policy on that front is kind-of shit, generally speaking, and because my inclination is to default to their position absent a compelling reason to oppose it.

I would hope that national security decisions by a world Superpower are not being made even in part based on the demeanor of the individuals in the photographs taken and published by the news media.

of course not, but news like this tends to shape how we think about the protests in general when clearly there are those who have pure intentions. If they are having data collected on them as well, regardless of whether that's constitutional, they should, at the very least, not be grouped into the same category of those for which the justification is based on threats of attack.

> man who shot at agents and tried to firebomb an ICE facility...

Yes, and what happened to that guy? (Willem van Spronsen)

Also last I checked he didn't shoot at agents, he tried to set their (empty) cars on fire and was shot for refusing to disarm himself. This is technically arson, but different from the "he tried to burn down a building with people in it" narrative the authorities tried to push for a while.

> openly planning to intimidate or kill border patrol agents

Sorry, what? Citation needed on that one.

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