Comment by marinmania | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marinmania | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the issue here is not necessarily that the surveillance happened, but it has the appearance of impropriety. I think a possible solution is to have a national law enforcement agency that can step in when local agencies run into issues that involve investigating their own.

The number of protests involved here that turned violent is rather large. It would be silly to insist that local police not monitor public channels where protestors are organizing. We don't even get from this report if this was necessarily more work compared to a counterfactual where sit-ins or violent protests were against local schools or other government agencies.

I get where people are skeptical, but that's why an outside agency could potentially be useful in doing the same exact work (if not more) while making it more clear there is no impropriety.

>On March 6, 2023, it was reported that 23 people who had thrown large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police, as well having set buildings and equipment on fire, had been charged with domestic terrorism. Only two of them were from Atlanta. One was from France, and one was from Canada.

>On January 18, 2023, Georgia State Troopers and other agencies launched another raid. During the raid a trooper was shot in the leg, and a protester, Manuel Terán, known also as "Tortuguita", was shot and killed by police.[24] Police stated that Terán fired on them without warning.[25] Multiple groups, including other protestors, two independent journalists who had previously interviewed Terán, and Terán's family, have questioned whether Terán fired first, pointing to the lack of body camera footage of the shooting and calling for an independent investigation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City

Impropriety is taking a protest that has been ongoing for 4 years and seen some of the most egregious abuses of the state's monopoly on violence against protestors and selecting two anecdotes that tries to paint a "both sides" narrative

Not to mention there should be holding a much higher standard of "propriety" of those that we arm and give power to. The systemic abuse of power here affects all of us members of this society. Not just these specific protestors

> selecting two anecdotes that tries to paint a "both sides" narrative

If a person is throwing Molotov cocktails and lighting buildings on fire to advance a political cause, that's technically terrorism and should be pursued in the way we pursue domestic terrorism. (Though I'm unclear how one differentes riots from terrorism under this framework.)

We can, at the same time, be critical of Atlanta's policing methods. But that isn't both sidesing the problem. They're orthogonal issues. (I have difficulty believing someone torching buildings is seriously invested in police reform.)

If society is not able to rebel, no political action can happen, at least in some parts od the world. Technically this might be terrorism, practucally it is a safeguard

Political action is able to happen every couple years in Atlanta at the voting booth. Voting is the safeguard. The majority of people in Atlanta consistently vote for people who want to build a police training center.

Just because you think your side is just, it does not give you the right to overrule the will of voters.

Constitutional rights cannot be trampled on, but otherwise it's counterproductive to give extra care to the losing side of a political fight simply because they trespass and start fires.

Just to be extra cynical here, part of the alleged criminal conspiracy was collecting signatures for a referendum against cop city. And the state is seeking legal corner cases to prevent the referendum that has seemingly met all the requirements from appearing on the ballot.

How is voting supposed to address that?

https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/Ex...

These are what the article is referring to when it talked about police monitoring the signature collection protests.

As far as I can tell they generate a report like this for every single protest in the city and send to police so they know what's going and how many people they expect to be a different public place.

> I feel like the issue here is not necessarily that the surveillance happened

It is the issue. A local PD should not be surveilling innocent people for any reason, especially a political one. This is a clear abuse of power.

> In April 2024, students at Emory University organized a protest on the university lawn against Cop City and the university's ties to Israel. A statement from protest organizers accused the university of being “complicit in genocide and police militarization” and called for "total institutional divestment from Israeli apartheid and Cop City at all Atlanta colleges and universities." The protests were peaceful until Georgia State Patrol, Atlanta Police and University Police forcefully dispersed the protests. Law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets, and tasers during the crackdown. 28 people were arrested, including the university's philosophy department chair.

> The arrest warrant for the festival attendees stated that domestic terrorism charges were brought against those based on probable cause, such as having had mud on their feet, and that those with legal aid phone numbers written on their bodies were considered suspicious. According to The Intercept, there is no information contained in the warrants that directly connects any of the defendants to illegal actions. Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum refused to comment when confronted by journalists about this allegation.

> In May 2023, three activists were arrested and charged with felony intimidation of a police officer and misdemeanor stalking, with penalties up to 20 years in prison, for posting fliers and identifying the officer that shot Manuel Terán. That same month, three more activists were arrested and charged with charity fraud and money laundering for organizing a legal bail fund. Regarding the arrests, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr pledged to “not rest until we have held accountable every person who has funded, organized, or participated in” the protests.

Hmmm seems like systemic abuse of power to me

> protests were peaceful until Georgia State Patrol, Atlanta Police and University Police forcefully dispersed the protests

Wikipedia cites two sources for this claim. The first doesn't appear to make it [1]. The second cites "a video posted online" by "a person who identified themself as Bella" [2]. This isn't credible evidence.

Followed it through because there is obviously a massive difference between Emory calling in the cops because stuff was being destroyed and the cops teargassing a peaceful protest.

[1] https://www.wabe.org/pro-palestinian-cop-city-protesters-arr...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/emory-univer...

The first source does indeed have a quote about it being a "peaceful demonstration". The second source (The Guardian) also says "Videos posted online showed students peacefully gathering" and the articles links through multiple videos, photos, and quotes throughout

There is no source that backs up your claim that "stuff was being destroyed"

They've made this situation hard for themselves because while there is a practical reason to keep track of at least some of these protest activities but they've also shown themselves incapable and untrustworthy in handling their own affairs.

Retaliation from police is a real and documented fear (I mean look at harassment of women who accuse a police officer of domestic violence) and incidents like not having any body camera footage is sadly much too common to believe the police can handle these situations in good faith themselves and ensure that first amendment rights are respected.

The trust between them and the populace is broken and, at least the cities I've lived it doesn't seem like they are going to repair it any time soon (specifically the police in Chicago were a dumpster fire when I lived there. I knew someone whose dad was on the force who described the Chicago police as simply "bad people").

> there is a practical reason to keep track of at least some of these protest activities

What reason is that?

Some monitoring of protests is necessary to ensure the safety of protestors and keep track of the potential for violence or other crimes from protestors or opportunists. For example I went to a BLM protest and it was pretty chaotic and there were counter-protestors and some minor vandalism of the local courthouse. Seeing how I was at a BLM protest I'm not a police fan but it was a chaotic situation with the potential to escalate so it so they should have a handle on what's happening and what the dangers are. It's an extreme example but January 6th is a good example of what happens when they misjudge those things.

Edit: to be clear in the case of the BLM protest I went to the organizers coordinated with the police so I'm not aware of any particular surveillance for it.

I agree the police should maintain public safety. I'm not convinced they should be monitoring public discourse or allocating resources based on that monitoring.

Atlanta PD even agrees with me on that last point:

> Moreover, throughout its intelligence reporting, the department acknowledges that public engagement with online postings does not necessarily correspond with the likely size of an event, suggesting that this monitoring is hardly useful for resource allocation.

If event organizers want to request police presence that's fine. But I see no reason police should be expected or even allowed to use surveillance to predict the needs of such an event.

"I'm not convinced they should be monitoring public discourse or allocating resources based on that monitoring." I have no desire to convince you of this and I definitely haven't been arguing for this at all.

I have no idea what monitoring they should do, just that they do have an interest in knowing major protests in their area.

Edit: put yourself in the shoes of a policeman trying to do your job in the best way you can then ask yourself "should I know when protests are happening in the area I work in and what the general situation is during one?" All I'm saying is that the answer to that question, to me at least, is yes. I don't think police need to entirely stick their heads in the sand in regards to protests. This argument is all stemming from a throwaway line in my original comment and I neither know enough to coherently argue nor care enough to argue specifics of implementation.

Sure, I think we are mostly in agreement. I just don't think local PD can be trusted to do any kind of monitoring.

My litmus test for what sources to believe has narrowed to ones which declare both good and bad actions by any parties.

Nobody does things correctly all the time, so if I read an article that lauds one side and has crickets as to their failings... it's clear the author's intent was spin. In which case, why would I trust what they say?

It's statistically unlikely that any one side has a monopoly on righteousness and good ideas.

Cops can abuse surveillance authorities and protestors can be violent. There's no requirement that only one party does bad things.

> My litmus test for what sources to believe has narrowed to ones which declare both good and bad actions by any parties.

Doesn't pass the sniff test. There's no guarantee that any relevant impropriety took place on the part of both parties and even if it exists there is no requirement that it justifies the other's actions. This false balance just serves to blame victims and excuse abusers.

Consider: Is it important to note that a robbery victim also received a parking ticket in her past?

> Cops can abuse surveillance authorities and protestors can be violent. There's no requirement that only one party does bad things.

Ok but where is the evidence that both parties did something bad? And that the response of the cops was justified and appropriate?

The real problem here is that this is bad policing. They aren't improving public safety, they're harassing their political opponents.

Didn't write anything about justification.

Just wrote that typically anyone with power abuses it. And that includes both sides.

I've seen too many movements convinced of their own righteousness and neglect keeping their house in order.

Or have you never seen a group who tolerates problematic individuals (and keeps silence about them) because they're "one of the group"?

This still sounds like faulty logic. The existence of bias in one case doesn't prove it in all cases. Sometimes there really is just an innocent victim. Further, there's no reason to believe there are two sides to any issue. Reality is messy. Your test is too simplistic and fails basic validation.

> The existence of bias in one case doesn't prove it in all cases.

It proves a source has an editorial department that is either fine with the piece as written or didn't do due diligence.

Rarely is there really just an innocent victim. Reality is messy.

For that to work you have to prove the bias for each publication. You can't just assume that it exists in all cases.

Per source, yes.

> It's statistically unlikely that any one side has a monopoly on righteousness and good ideas

It's statistically very likely that a "side" with power (economic, monopolies on violence, etc) is more likely to abuse power than a "side" without power...

Would you look at the Stanford Prison Experiment and say that the prisoners are just as likely to be doing "the bad stuff" as the guards?

Maybe both sides have an even distribution of shitty people, but that's not what matters. What matters is the shitty things that are being done. Its statistically much more likely that a side that has more power is doing more of the shitty things

In an actual prison where gangs and alliances are allowed to form, you'd damn well better bet shitty people on the inmate side would still abuse their power.

That's human nature, and there's power everywhere.

They still don't have as much power as the guards. Therefore they don't have as much power to abuse

> It's statistically very likely that a "side" with power (economic, monopolies on violence, etc) is more likely to abuse power than a "side" without power...

Isn't this tautology? Only the side with power can act on its abusive impulses.

I think a much simpler test is to ask if the police body camera footage is "missing", and if it is to assume they're probably lying.

There is no reason to withhold it or turn off cameras in a situation like this.

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