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Comment by trees101 | Hacker News Reader

there seems to be an imbalance of reporting about this sort of thing. When state power is used against BLM protests, we get articles about "shadowy surveillance". When state power is used to track down Jan 6 protesters, it's apparently a good thing.

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Was there a cross agency multi-year task force setup ahead of Jan 6 with the specific aim of targeting those involved?

Because not only have I not heard anyone say that’s a good thing I’ve not heard about it at all.

I'm not sure I understand your point. BLM protests are legal while storming the Capitol is not. You'd hope the police would go after breaches of the law and not innocent people.

So then the violence, looting, burning, and destruction of property that occurred at the same time and place as the BLM protests are somehow conveniently NOT the BLM protests?

I’m sure you actually do understand the difference right?

In one case you have a group of people taking advantage of protests to engage in criminal theft that is divorced from the reason for the protest.

In the other the point of the protest was to disrupt the orderly transfer of power. The violence, looting etc were a mechanism to accomplish that goal.

We wouldn’t include looters using the protests at the capital as cover for breaking into a mall in the capital protests anymore than we’d forgive a BLM protest that’s stated goal was disrupting general policing by starting a violent riot.

The point of the BLM protests weren't violence.

The point of the Jan. 6th protest was.

There were between 80k - 120k protesters [1] present on January 6. An estimated 1,200 illegally entered the building. That's 1%. Do you have a credible citation that indicates that the core purpose and motivation of the ~100k was to support the action of the 1%?

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-classified-documents-reve...

The whole reason the protest existed was to convince, through intimidation, our Congress to overturn the results of free and fair election.

Since you repeat your assertion without providing evidence, I'll assume you do not have a credible citation.

Please provide a credible citation that you have to provide a credible citation for something absolutely obvious.

Thieves, looters and criminals always take the opportunity to do their business when people is looking elsewhere. Would you blame New Orleans citizens because some bastards went around stealing stuff during the Katrina hurricane? Right now there are Ukrainians looting empty houses and closed shops; there are reports of people killed and robbed in the streets, and the news comes from EU journalists, not Russian propaganda; would this make the Ukrainian resistance any less worth of support? Regarding fires and destruction, yes, that is very possible and believable. Undercover agents aside, when angry people protest down the street, it is almost certain that some are from borderline or full criminals; it's just that a percentage of the population is made of criminals regardless of color, gender or class. Put enough people together and you soon get a 100% chance that at least one of them is a criminal. A few months ago anti vax protesters vandalized one of our national trade unions offices. They were mostly extreme right wing militants, all white.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/10/25/how-a-covid-pa...

LMAO

Burning down a Wendy's is legal?

WOW

Mostly I think that's because the world isn't black and white and most real problems, preventing terrorism in this case, are too complicated for simple one-size-fits-all solutions.

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