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Comment by 0xbadcafebee | Hacker News Reader

We know what's next after this: they start using intel to blackmail activists into silence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO) Worked for the SS, worked for the KGB, worked for the FBI, it'll work for ICE.

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Just wait until they switch us to the deutchemark.

Bitcoin doesn't work properly without power or network access extending over days though.

Blackmail them with what? It's the ICE agents who are wearing masks, because they know their life will be ruined once people discover who they are and what they've been up to.

Dig into their past, find indiscretions they can lean on. When you can't win the argument, discredit the messenger.

Even if a person has no indiscretions, everyone has a weak point. A significant other, child, friend, job, boss, bank, etc.

It's even easier today, as it doesn't even need to be true. Most people don't care about the aftermath, just about the headline.

Everyone is guilty, we just haven't proven it yet.

> Blackmail them with what?

With murder or deportation or harassment.

Sure, but then why do they have to wait? ICE agents who want to threaten legal observers can just do it to their faces - as we've seen, even if they murder legal observers the Trump regime will have their back. I think most don't want to do that, whether out of cowardice or an understanding of what's coming once their leaders are brought to justice.

But there aren't that many of them. But if you make the populace afraid in advance, that's cheaper than deploying a batch of goons to every major city.

They are continuously moving the goalpost. They don't know themselves what they are gonna get away with for the time being. But they will iterate themselves to whatever is the line - or don't stop if there isn't any.

so extortion, not blackmail

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