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Comment by fearingreprisal | Hacker News Reader

It's very disingenuous to imply that these people are being arrested ( or whatever other term you'd use ) for purely political reasons. These people are involved in a riot. These people are not being individually targeted based upon their identity. If they were not involved in what is a violent and largely unlawful civil disobedience they would not be apprehended.

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The CCP would state literally the exact same argument to justify their actions : "It's very disingenuous to imply that these people are being arrested for purely political reasons, they are causing social unrest and preventing harmony. They are not being targeted because of their identity, but because of their actions".

And it's just as bullshit when China says it and when the Feds say it. There is no justification for black-bagging people. When that happens, it is almost always for political reasons. If it wasn't, then they could use normal legal channels instead of violating the law.

By the way, civil disobedience is always illegal. That's what the "disobediance" means.

There is a very clear difference between "Arrested for disagreeing with Donald Trump" and "Arrested for participation in an illegal act". You know what the difference is. Everyone knows China's crackdown on dissidents is entirely different from people participating in the riot getting arrested by Federal agents in unmarked cars.

How do you know that they were participating in a riot?

By the way, in Oregon, Federal agents are not allowed to carry out such actions without registering beforehand with the State. So this was literally an illegal arrest made by agents of a completely unrelated agency being used in order to do what Donald Trump wants instead of following the process of the law.

China's crackdown on dissidents is very similar, they also use the tactic where they push peaceful protests into riots and then use that as an excuse to arrest everyone.

Federal agents can enforce federal law anywhere in the US. They don’t need the state’s permission to, for example, arrest someone for vandalizing a federal courthouse. What you’re referring to is federal agents enforcing state law, which is also allowed but requires registration in Oregon[1].

That’s not a defense of the current situation; we should be putting more limits on what federal agents can do (like requiring them to identify themselves during an arrest).

[1] https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-heck-are-federal-law-enforc...

Yes. Federal crimes. Rioting, unless it is specifically vandalism on a federal building, is not enforceable by Federal agents, because it isn't a federal crime.

When I'll see the warrant signed by a federal judge against these people for a federal crime with probable cause, then maybe. But so far, no one was served with a warrant.

Federal officers can make warrantless arrests if they have probable cause to believe the individual has committed a crime, just like normal officers. It's hard to tell if these arrests meet that threshold, but it's at least possible that all laws are technically being following here.

Again, that's not to say this isn't a bad situation. I'm explicitly advocating for changing the laws that allow this to be even possibly legal in the first place.

Sure, if they had probable cause. Do you think that those federal agents just witnessed that a federal crime was committed?

In the video I’ve seen, there’s not enough context to tell whether they have probable cause. Which by the way does not require that they “just witnessed that a federal crime was committed”.

I’ve been to some of the protests in Portland. It’s hardly a riot. There’s been some spray painting, but for the most part it’s cops beating the shit out of peaceful people.

I’d suggest you look at some local reporting from people like https://mobile.twitter.com/tuckwoodstock

Note that a riot is a really loosely defined term, literally any civil unrest or any gathering which the authorities don’t agree with can be labelled as “a riot”.

The actual charges given to people after a “riot” are usually unrelated (jaywalking, illegal lodging, etc.) and are mostly dropped before this goes through the courts.

I haven’t looked at the figures but I would be very surprised to find the percentage of protestors arrested for the Black Lives Matter cause that are guilty of rioting is more then a single percent. To reword: I claim (though I don’t know the figure) that less then 1% of people arrested during a “riot” are found guilty of rioting.

> If they were not involved in what is a violent and largely unlawful civil disobedience they would not be apprehended.

Civil disobedience is always unlawful, the clue is in the name. Also violence against property (protesters) is not the same as violence against people (police) though they are often deliberately conflated.

It's sometimes moral to break the law, that's how law gets changed; civil disobedience is good trouble, necessary trouble.

I am not supportive of the riots in Portland, but it makes me incredibly uncomfortable to have agents of the federal government a) there at all, when it should a local and state issue, b) grabbing protesters/rioters off the streets, searching them, intimidating them, and releasing them without charging them with anything.

I wrote a response, but then I focused on your username, so I assume you're being ironic.

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