There seems to be wild speculation about freedom of speech rights or hacking Signal.
The FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff.
The FBI simply joined groupchats and read them. This is trivial stuff.
If you mean more broadly trivial, I see that quite differently. An administration that has repeatedly abused its power in order to intimidate and punish political opponents is opening an investigation into grassroots political opponents. That feels worth being concerned about.
As to actually acting on what they learn, within this context yeah that would be troubling.
iirc that was something more than infiltration. The FBI found an extremist loser who lived in a basement, egged him on, helped him network & gave him resources. Without them, he probably would have been thinking really hard about it, not much more.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/29/politics/aby-rayyan-fbi-terro...
It's how they found about Martin Luther King's affairs and what led them to write him a letter telling him to kill himself.
Given FBI Director Kash Patel is a Trump appointee, and I might even go so far as to say a Trump stooge, I think we have to assume that that is exactly what will happen.
That (US domestic political groups, anyway) is their job, after all?
If I recall correctly, they actually set the precedent here by adding civil war era conspiracy charges to put an additional 10 years on women who protested in front of an abortion clinic.
AI summary…
> Six of the protesters (including Heather Idoni) were convicted in January 2024 of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in prison—and felony conspiracy against rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241, which carries a maximum of 10 years. The conspiracy charge stemmed from evidence that the group planned and coordinated the blockade in advance to interfere with clinic operations.
Is it a violation of the FACE act? Absolutely.
Conspiracy? If that's a conspiracy then virtually any protest that involves any planning whatsoever could also be twisted into a conspiracy.
Yes, that's what a conspiracy is. In other news, the sky is blue.
Conspiracy, to conspire.
Conspire, to make plans, usually in secret.
The reason conspiracy is a more serious crime is because it's worse; it's one thing to go to a protest with a bunch of friends, and then decide in the heat of the moment, when everyone's emotions are raging, I don't wanna leave yet. It's completely different crime to decide before the protest starts, in a secret group with a bunch a friends. There's nothing they can do to make you leave. And when the cops show up, and when they say you have to leave you're gonna throw a frozen water bottle at them.
In this case, they planned to actively stop someone from receiving the medical care. Do you feel that's reasonable? Should I get to decide what medical care I think you should have? Only on days I'm free to go out and protest, obviously.
Somewhat related, after reading florkbork's post, I'm excited to hear your reply about if you think crushing someone's hand in the door counts as protesting?
Compare it to the situation in Minnesota. Protester bites of the finger of an agent. Is that protesting? Groups of people follow agents around blowing whistles while they're trying to do their job. Can protesters show up at an someone else's workplace and start blowing whistles at everyone? Diners? Medical offices?
https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/officer-will-lose-fin...
Now a situation has been created where everyone involved in those Signal chats could be...charged with conspiracy. The door is opened for that argument to be made and until the charge was thrown onto those women after the abortion protest, nothing like that had been done before.
FACE Act and Assault charges, plus damages were absolutely warranted. Conspiracy charges were political punishment.
That's factually incorrect. You you're welcome to conspire all you want. It doesn't become a chargeable offence until you, or someone else who has contributed to the planning, commits some overt or articulable action towards that end.
It's not illegal to be present in a signal chat. It's not even illegal to hypothesize violent resistance/protest. It *is* illegal to make plans to violently protest, and then pack your car full of weapons.
Conspiracy is notably different from solicitation; because it's also illegal to encourage someone to commit a crime, even if you don't yourself plan to participate.
> Conspiracy charges were political punishment.
Nah, I do agree it probably gives the appearance of it being politically motivated. But regardless of how you feel when "your side" is "attacked". That's kinda how the legal system works. If you don't charge them with conspiracy, all the evidence you've collected where they admit they know what they're doing is illegal runs the risk of being thrown out, or otherwise challenged. If you want to charge someone for assault or battery, and you have text messages where someone claims they don't care if someone gets hut. If you exclusively charge them with the assault or the battery. And they put forward the affirmative defense of, yeah it happened, but they pushed me first. You've just opened the door to an acquittal because the video someone got starts halfway through.
Being careless enough to allow that to happen might even be prosecutorial malpractice.
> Compare it to the situation in Minnesota.
I try to avoid whataboutism.
> Can protesters show up at an someone else's workplace and start blowing whistles at everyone? Diners? Medical offices?
Yes? I've heard of protests almost every where, haven't you?
Follow up question, are Diner servers/cooks or physicians/nurses empowered to legally abduct people by force, and then protected from liability for any crimes or needless harm by qualified immunity?
If not, I think it's fair to apply different standards to different cases, and asinine to say, well what about [completely different group, with a completely different set of objectives, and completely different set of restrictions, doing a completely different thing]
> As a Health Center staff member ('Victim-1') attempted to open the door for the volunteer, WILLIAMS purposefully leaned against the door, crushing Victim-1’s hand. Victim-1 yelled, "She’s crushing my hand," but WILLIAMS remained against the door, trapping Victim-1’s hand and injuring it.
> On the livestream on June 19, 2020, WILLIAMS stood within inches of the Health Center’s chief administrative officer and threatened to “terrorize this place” and warned that “we’re gonna terrorize you so good, your business is gonna be over mama.” Similarly, WILLIAMS stood within inches of a Health Center security officer and threatened “war.” WILLIAMS also stated that she would act by “any means necessary.”
The reason they could prosecute to this degree? https://msmagazine.com/2024/01/18/anti-abortion-surgi-clinic...
A member of the conspiracy admitted to the planning; they have text messages and detail of deciding who will risk arrest, after going over the fact they'd be trespassing and violating the FACE act.
Do you think the administrative and medical staff present in 2020 would agree with you? That the group that blockaded, threatened and assaulted in one instance access to health services are in fact the victims here of government overreach?
Organised criminal activity.
Edit: I’m not complaining about moderation but it would be fascinating to know what part of this others believe is incorrect:
- Do you think the Anti ICE groups are not organised?
- Do you think obstructing federal officers is not criminal?
- Something else.
What are you even talking about?
Define obstruction. Everything reported, blowing whistles, encouraging businesses not provide service to ICE agents, and recording from a distance is not obstruction. It's a First Amendment right to keep government forces in check.
Resistance itself is not criminal, especially when many of the actions they are resisting are themselves illegal. In fact, it is our civic duty to resist illegal or immoral actions by the government.
Surely organizing and paying people to do things by itself is not a crime.
Are you referring to how a Democratic party AG's entire campaign was to "pursue Donald Trump". And then she found a victimless "crime", that every real estate developer is guilty of, in which nobody was harmed, and the banks were equally guilty, for which the statute of limitations has expired, to get her 34 felonies just to throw the ex president in jail and to stop him from running again?
Being convicted of a crime does not stop you from running for president. Being in prison also does not stop you from running for president -- one person has. The only qualifications necessary to run for president are to be a natural born citizen, have spent the last 14 years living in the country, and be at least 35 years of age.
Also, the criminal trial against him started after he assumed office for the second time. EDIT: Got my years mixed up. Ignore that last bit.
Nope. He was convicted even before the election started.
I could say the same thing to you. Go back a few more years to his first term, to his campaign. He is absolutely the main architect of the chaos that has ensued. You don't get to start fights and then get mad when people fight back. The selective outrage you're demonstrating here is baffling.
Can't be hard to get into for some skilled undercover cops. TV shows have shown me they do these things all the time!
Protesting is not something you should do "casually."
See also: https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect
That doesn't include vandalism, it doesn't include blocking roads, looting, or assaulting people. What's obvious to me is that a certain class of protestors are intentionally provoking a response from the government by breaking the law. Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, and that is used as an excuse for more protests. The protests get increasingly violent in an escalating cycle.
That process isn't exercising a "fundamental human right", it's a form of violence. If you don't agree with the Government the correct answer is to vote, have a dialog, and if you choose to protest do it in a way that's respectful to your neighbors and the people around you.
Yes, a proportionally large and significant number of local Minnesota community members of long and good standing.
> are intentionally provoking a response from the government
are reacting to excessive over reach by outsiders, directed by the Federal government to act in a punative manner.
> Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed,
This has already happened. Multiple times. As was obvious from the outset given the unprofessional behaviour and attitudes of the not-police sent in wearing masks.
> [the people aren't] exercising a "fundamental human right"
they are exercising their Constitutional rights. Including their right to free speech, to bear arms, to protest the Federal government, etc.
> the correct answer is to vote, talk to your neighbors and friends, and peaceably protest,
Which they have done and they continue to do.
See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defe...
for more about the local community of neighbour loving US citizens acting in defence of their community.
Instead, people are getting killed and videos are coming out that seem very chaotic, where people with different predispositions than you can empathize with the police. If those videos were people getting arrested and pepper sprayed for speaking out and for helping each other, they would hit a lot harder for a much larger population.
Actually, the less training and self-restraint an officer has, the more incentive there is for a target to do everything they can to flee or resist. If a town trusts its local police to be fair and professional, criminals are more likely to accept the offer of "Drop everything and put your hands on the ground." They trust they'll survive the arrest and avoid anything worse than a rough perp walk. But if the arresting officers are known to brutally beat and pepper spray people they detain, I would expect people to resist detainment.
Last weekend, we saw video footage of a man executed while being restrained and with no weapon in his hands. At this point, reasonable people could believe an ICE officer trying to detain them is threatening their lives. When do self-defense laws kick in?
This person is face down on the ground being restrained by three officers. Is the pepper spray necessary here?
edit: I found a video of this event: https://old.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1qjfxbj/ice_pepp...
It doesn't show what led up to this moment, but it appears the person was indeed resisting arrest. If you are not resisting arrest, you don't need three officers to pin you to the ground.
If three officers decide to push you to the ground and jump on top of you, you have three officers on top of you. This says nothing about whether you were resisting arrest or not.
Resisting arrest at least implies that you have some understanding that you are actually being arrested and by someone who at least notionally has some legal basis for doing so. It's why police officers will typically identify themselves and tell you under what you are suspected of during an arrest. If after that someone attempts to flee or fightback then sure.
I'm relatively sure spraying chemical irritants at point blank range is not following any reasonable use of force guidelines. They are just retaliating with force because it suits them.
That is absolute nonsense. You can be a peaceful protestor whilst still inconveniencing the authorities.
Possibly the most famous non-violent protestor of all time is the unnamed man who stood in front of a column of tanks at Tiananmen Square.
Another contender would be Gandhi, who promoted civil disobedience for peaceful protesting.
If protestors are doing this sort of thing to ICE agents, then ICE has probable cause to arrest them while they’re doing it. I don’t support people interfering or obstructing ICE, but standing 20 feet away and filming or blowing a whistle is not obstruction.
What I’ve seen is ICE agents losing their shit and shoving people because they can’t emotionally handle being observed and yelled at, both of which are legal. I would not be able to handle that either, I’d lose my shit too, but I’m not an ICE agent.
I’m sure there are protestors crossing the line too, they arrested a bunch of people for breaking windows at a hotel the other night. I just don’t see the need to add conspiracy charges if they can just directly charge them with obstruction when it happens.
What is not something that should be gone casually – or really at all – is an attempt to engage in insurrection with black bloc or globalized intifada insurgency tactics to prevent the enforcement of law.
Then you are going to be identified and your conversations monitored. This is precisely the outcome the article is complaining about. I find that expectation absurd.
> of a self-governing people
This describes the majority not the individual.
> and petition the government
There is no expectation or statement that your anonymity will be protected. The entire idea of a "petition" immediately defies this.
> to prevent the enforcement of law.
How does "tracking ICE" _prevent_ the enforcement of the law? Your views on the first amendment suddenly became quite narrow.
Because the whole point of tracking ICE is to help people dodge them. It's absurd that people cry foul when the government goes after people actively opposing the rule of law.
I expect the vast majority of government abuses in recent history the world over have to at least some degree followed the law according to those carrying out the acts. Thus it is almost to be expected that as a situation escalates those crying foul might occasionally find themselves opposing the rule of law as described by those in power.
To state it plainly, not all "rule of law" is subjectively equal.
Pretti was breaking zero laws. You’d have to do some prosecutorial voodoo to conjure up a misdemeanor.
There is lawbreaking in that videos. But the felony-level stuff is all from folks in uniform. (Which, thankfully, they’ve started wearing.)
You're not actually arguing that American citizens shouldn't be able to film the cops are you? That would be pretty un-American.
ICE have lost the trust of a significant portion of the people in Minnesota because they are using unreasonable force, eroding constitutionally protected rights and behaving with impunity.
They are, in reality, just conducting a politically motivated campaign of harassment. If they truly wanted to deport as many people as possible they'd start with border states like Florida and Texas, places with 20x more undocumented immigrants.
Illegal immigrants aren't a thing at any meaningful scale if there aren't people willing to hire them.
But since a lot of those businesses that hire illegally or "look the other way" are BIG republican donors in deep red states....we can't do anything about it.
We should have made e-verify the federal minimum standard for ALL employment as far back as 1985. We had the tech and the ability.
Y'all honestly think Donald Trump hires blue-blooded WASPs to mow the lawns at his golf courses?
This is not economically feasible, the cost of food would double or more. They know that and I know that. That’s why they aren’t actually targeting illegal immigrants, America’s dirty secret is that we need them to keep prices low on certain things.
Good luck finding Americans that will pick strawberries or work in a meatpacking plant for $12-16/hr
And yes, it absolutely is feasible, and we all know it. It's just if it happened, some very wealthy and influential people would lose a bit of money and influence - we can't have that now can we?
There are a number of local citizens upset at two out of state vehicles blocking off a road while (?) executing warrentless invasions of homes in the community (?)
What is the appropriate action when Federal over reach is so blatent and unaddressed?
It's not as if people there are angry at ICE / DHS for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
In a democracy? Voting, campaigning, running for office. Defintiely not vigilantism - or other people will also get to ignore laws that you like.
So, free speech, licenced carry, local community resisting unlawful warrents, etc are all ok?
Voting, in the USofA, is ineffectual - it takes years to make change and the choices are essentially shite .. barely a Democracy, more a Republican Autocracy by design.
Of interest:
On Monday, Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, appointed by President George W. Bush, suggested his patience with ICE had run out. After officials apparently ignored his order to permit a detainee to have a bond hearing or release him, he ordered Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, to appear in court on Friday to explain why he wasn’t in contempt of court. On Tuesday, the government released the detainee.
Today Schiltz canceled the Friday hearing but went on to rake ICE over the coals. He identified “96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases” and commented, “The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated.”
“This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law. ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” Schiltz warned that he would haul Lyons or other government officials into court if they kept ignoring court rulings. “ICE is not a law unto itself,” he wrote.
The USofA is literally a country founded on the principle of not allowing Kings or autocracts, certainly not federal authority, step on states right and self determination.
If the government comes to your house and kidnaps your wife, is your first instinct 1: let them, don't fight and 2: vote harder?
I can understand resistance, but whatever he was doing looks more like he had some onset of an impulse control related mental illness.
Just know the King interprets spitting and kicking tail lights as a 'shot at the King.' Pretti took his shot at the King, with his cosmetic accessory piece gun tucked in his waistband, at about 4 out of 100. And expected the King to meet him with something other than 100 or 0. In that light, I'll concede of the possibility he was morally right, but I also think he was a fool. If his goal all along was to kneel, let himself be disarmed, then quietly accept his execution like a bitch -- what did he even get out of it? He handed the pro-regime a major propaganda victory and the anti-regime nothing at best.
> He handed the pro-regime a major propaganda victory and the anti-regime nothing at best.
That's not even remotely true - currently the MAGA pro-Trump crowd is cleaving on gun rights .. the big lie about the need for ICE / DHS is unravelling and now Republican support for ICE is dropping.
People brainwashed or ignoring facts have seen differently, but the brainwashed crowd is already seeing this event the way they want to see it. The MAGA crowd who want to overlook Trump's views on guns will have no problem sweeping this to the side under the heading of "violent agitator suppressed" just as they made excuses for every other time Trump shat on gun rights.
ICE are engaging in violence, warrantless forced entry to homes, at least two shootings that border on murder, they even tried to force entry into an Ecuadorian embassy.
They are detaining citizens at random, relocating them physically and in some cases releasing them; if they don't die in detention due to lack of access to medical care.
If you cannot see how these activities should be observed, documented, protested whilst still standing for professed Amercian values...
Edit: Ah excellent, downvotes without reply because facts are... uncomfortable!
Here's the sources:
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/ice-agents-blocked-from-... - Ecuadorian consulate.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-u-s-citizen-says-ice-f... - warrantless entry
https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-... - many, many US citizens detained only for charges to vanish at the merest scrutiny
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/27/five-year-ol... - deporting citizens
https://newrepublic.com/post/205458/ice-detainees-pay-for-me... - cutting off medical care
https://abcnews.go.com/US/detainees-heard-cuban-man-slammed-... - deaths in custody
Seems completely reasonable given ICE is murdering, arresting, and deporting citizens and legal residents.
The government wronging 1 person to rightfully enforce the law on 10 is unacceptable.
By your logic, combined with the actions of the ICE folks in Minneapolis, anyone who submits the location of a DUI checkpoint into Waze[0] should be summarily executed?
Is that your argument? ICE has murdered people for documenting their locations and actions which, by your statement was to allow others to "dodge" law enforcement.
Documenting a DUI checkpoint does exactly the same thing. So. If your position is that law "enforcement" is allowed to summarily shoot to death folks who document their actions and locations in one context, then they should be allowed to do so in other, more serious contexts like DUI checkpoints.
Is that your claim? If not, please do provide some nuance around what you said, because that's how I understood your statements.
I disagree. If the feds, or any law enforcement, wants to enforce law that is so unpopular that people feel compelled to make it hard in this way then, IDK, sucks for them. Go beg for more budget.
And I feel this way about a whole ton of categories of law, not just The Current Thing (TM).
A huge reason that law and government in this country is so f-ed up is that people, states, municipalities and big corporations in particular, just roll over and take it because that keeps the $$ flowing. A solid majority of the stuff the feds force upon the nation in the form of "do X, get a big enough tax break you can't compete without it" or "enforce Y if you want your government to qualify for fed $$" would not be support and could not be enforced if it had to be done so overtly, with enforcers paid to enforce it, rather than backhandedly by quasi deputizing other entities in exchange for $$.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-immigration-approval...
> Just 39% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing on immigration, down from 41% earlier this month, while 53% disapprove, the poll found.
I am talking about American support for a working legal immigration process, and enforcing that process. Not everyone agrees about exactly what it should look like.
I'm not talking specifically about the actions Trump is taking or the job ICE is doing currently. The current sentiment around ICE is very negative.
Do you think the protests leading to escalations were done simply? Or BECAUSE of the awful implementation? (Masks, no IDs, no accountability, no body cameras, etc.)
If it is the latter, then isn't the blame to be placed squarely on the original enforcement philosophy?
Otherwise it reads like DARVO tactics. If we were talking about a relationship it sounds like -- Person A emotionally abuses Person B to the point of person B pushing back, and then Person A using the fact that Person B reacted (perhaps adversely) as justification for even more emotional abuse.
Yes, I think there would've been massive protests against the US federal government doing anything at all to be effective at deporting illegal immigrants. Significant numbers of ideologically-dedicated people think that not allowing foreigners to immigrate to the US or deporting foreigners who have illegally immigrated is an immoral, Nazi-equivalent policy that they have a moral obligation to disrupt. The masks and other shows of force from federal immigration enforcement are a reaction to the protests designed to keep individual ICE agents safe and effective; and to demonstrate to illegal immigrants that the federal government is serious about deporting them, violently if necessary, in order to try to incentivize them to leave voluntarily.
> Otherwise it reads like DARVO tactics. If we were talking about a relationship it sounds like -- Person A emotionally abuses Person B to the point of person B pushing back, and then Person A using the fact that Person B reacted (perhaps adversely) as justification for even more emotional abuse.
We're not talking about an interpersonal relationship, we're talking about mass political actions and the authority of national-scale governments.
…
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
…
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
- Some insurrectionists
Militarized police with general warrants going door to door, going into schools, hospitals, places of worship to detain the dehumanized untermensch is legal.
People loudly protesting and sabotaging these efforts via their first amendment is a far more moral and honorable stance, despite being illegal in a round-about way.
It's quite literally a protest against state violence via non-violent means.
I am unwilling to risk protesting against this administration given the combination of facial scanning, IMSI catchers, ALPRs, and surveillance cameras in general. I cannot think of a way to stay truly anonymous when protesting, with enough access and time, you could be tracked back to your home even if you leave your phone at home and take public transportation. I believe the aforementioned technology chills free speech in combination with the current administration.
I’m not particularly worried about protesters being targeted by this administration, I worry about future administrations that could be far worse.
Neither is violently undermining our Constitutional order.
These folks should be on notice that they will be prosecuted. If we played by Trump’s book, we’d charge them with treason and then let them appeal against the death penalty for the rest of their lives.
Ah, the "ends justify the means" then? Is this something you want applied _against_ you? Seems reckless.
> These folks should be on notice that they will be prosecuted.
They will not.
> If we played by Trump’s book
Moral relativism will turn you into the thing you profess to hate.
> we’d charge them with treason and then let them appeal against the death penalty for the rest of their lives.
Words have actual meaning. We're clearly past that and just choosing words that match emotional states. If you don't want to fix anything and just want to demonstrate your frustrations then this will work. If you want something to change you stand no chance with this attitude.
I'm not choosing sides. I'm simply saying if you want to avoid FBI attention then take your heart off your sleeve and smarten up.
It’s literally happening. And sure. If I try to murder the Vice President or murder Americans as part of a political stunt, hold me to account. Those were the rules I thought we were all playing by.
> If you want something to change you stand no chance with this attitude
Strongly disagree. There are new political tools on the table. Unilaterally disarming is strategically stupid.
> if you want to avoid FBI attention then take your heart off your sleeve and smarten up
I’m going to bet I’ve gotten more language written into state and federal law than you have. That isn’t a flex. It’s just me saying that I know how to wield power, it and doesn’t come from trying to avoid crooked federal agents. If they’re crooked, they’ll come for you when you speak up. In my experience, they’re more bark than bite.
I'm betting that's exactly what will happen - the FBI will single out some core organisers and let them serve as an example.
No we don’t. Nobody has tested these in court. Trump has no incentive to.
Hitler’s brown shirts didn’t start by killing judges. They started with voter (and lawmaker) intimidation.
Certainly they know the handles of those people, and what they've said and what documents they've exchanged.
Connecting Signal accounts to real-world identity... well, that's definitely the FBI's wheelhouse, but some might make it easier or harder than others.
But there are a few cases where even the Internet sleuths are pretty confident about identity.
> So why does (if the press is to be believed) an authoritarian, fascist, ultra-right-wing regime allow them to operate?
Rationality requires treating behaviour inconsistent with a quality as evidence against that quality.
So why does (if the service manual is to be believed) not changing my car's oil still allow my car to keep operating?
(does this kind of ignore-any-sort-of-abstract-model "insight" sway anybody who is not extremely stoned?)
Isn't the simply inserting an agent into the secret circle the most time honored way to crack security.
Technology often fails around the human factor.
You have a private chat? Ok? and you let people in? So sorry your encryption didn't help with who you let in.
But the worst case for an outsider joining is not very bad; they get to see what's going on, but the entire point of the endeavor is to bring everything to light and make everything more visible. And if an outsider joins and starts providing bad information or is a bad actor, typical moderation efforts are pretty easy.
But the more the whole thing shifts towards that, the closer civil war is.
In other words, if you think any easily joinable movement is a honeypot you already seem to think along the lines of resistance movement in a dictatorship. (If it is .. I will not judge, I am not in the US)
In some cases, popular messaging apps that initially did not provide "group chat" have since added this "feature", apparently in response to "user demand"
The so-called "tech" companies that control these apps from Silicon Valley and Redmond have aligned with one political party, generally whichever party is in power, for "business" reasons, e.g., doing whatever is necessary to ensure their continued profits free from regulation
Surveillance is their core business
i don't think an investigation by FBI has ever been "simply" to the subjects of such an investigation. And to show bang-for-the-buck the "simply reading chat" officers would have to bring at least some fish, i.e. federal charges, from such a reading expedition.
In general it sounds very familiar - any opposition is a crime of impeding and obstruction. Just like in Russia where any opposition is a crime of discreditation at best or even worse - a crime of extremism/terrorism/treason.
These groups are also documented to have harassed people who are _not_ federal officers under the mistaken impression that they are. That’s just assault. Probably stalking too. Anyone who participates in these groups will be committing crimes, and should be prosecuted for it.
If you don’t like the job that an officer is doing then the right thing to do is to talk to your Congress–critter about changing the law. Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law that was passed in 1995 with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. No attempt has been made to modify that law in the last 30 years. If Democrats didn’t like it, they had several majorities during that time when they could have forced through changes. They didn’t even bother.
If that's the case, then why has no one been prosecuted on those grounds?
If I’m having a conversation with my friend, it’s free speech. If we’re plotting the overthrow of the government, it’s insurrection.
To observe them, and prevent them from committing crimes. Which if it isn't legal, is moral as all get out.
"Jobs" Nurmberg lol. Not an argument.
Filming officiers performing their jobs is not obstruction, even if it does make them uncomfortable. If it makes their jobs harder that's only because they know what they're doing is unpopular and don't want to be known to have done it.
> If you don’t like the job that an officer is doing then the right thing to do is to talk to your Congress–critter about changing the law. Keep in mind that ICE is executing a law that was passed in 1995 with bipartisan support in Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. No attempt has been made to modify that law in the last 30 years. If Democrats didn’t like it, they had several majorities during that time when they could have forced through changes. They didn’t even bother.
Yeah, there's a massive disconnect between politicians and their voters. This is pretty strong evidence of that disconnect. Even now Democrats refuse to support abolishing ICE, despite majority support among their constituency. Who are voters who want immigration reform supposed to cast their ballots for? There hasn't been such a candidate since ICE was created in the wake of 9/11. Conservatives got to let out their pent up frustration with an unresponsive government by electing Trump. Liberals have no such champion, only community organizing.
This is irrelevant, because many people have been observed physically obstructing officers, whether or not they were filming at the time.
> If it makes their jobs harder
Have you heard the constant blowing of whistles in these videos? Did you know that protesters have organized the mass 3d-printing and distribution of these whistles (https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2025/12/not-just-a-toy-how-wh... ; https://www.startribune.com/whistle-symbol-ice-protest-minne... ; https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2026/01/21/chicagoa...)? Can you imagine how this level of noise interferes with a job that involves verbal communication with both coworkers and civilians?
> Even now Democrats refuse to support abolishing ICE
I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest" without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
And you're aware that the Signal groups in question are alleged to include Democratic state officials and a campaign advisor?
For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced? Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
What is not legal is point guns at journalists, beat people who record you on the phones and shoot people in the back because they had phone in hand and you are frustrated. What is not legal is to throw pepper spray at people who are no threat. One gotta love the "they mass produce whistles" as a grave accusation while ICE men literally openly threaten to kill people who are no threat. Or kill them and then are proud of their murdering colleagues.
> I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest"
Yes, he had good speeches.
> without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
Lol, heavily armed cowards jump at observer, 8 on one, there is no resistance and then they call it resisting arrest.
> For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced? Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
ICE is basically a violent gang with impossible to reform culture. You dont hire gangmembers to do law enforcement. It needs to be abolished and people in it need to be banned from working in law enforcement.
Not the last guy they executed. He was recording, then backed away when an officer approached him. Then he got dogpiled, his holstered gun was taken, and then he was shot repeatedly.
> Have you heard the constant blowing of whistles in these videos? Did you know that protesters have organized the mass 3d-printing and distribution of these whistles?
I'm quite aware of the intentionally annoying whistles. You're taking a pretty broad interpretation of "interference." I didn't realize that feds had a protected right to a calm and quiet work environment.
> I'm not mistaken in my understanding that Tim Walz is a Democrat, am I? The one making public speeches falsely claiming that ICE aren't LEO and encouraging "peaceful protest" without mentioning anything about obstruction of justice or resisting arrest?
Yeah, Walz is a weak Democrat who can't even condemn the organization killing and abducting his State's citizens. Exactly the kind of politician voters are tired of. All he can say over and over is to "not take the bait" by resisting occupation more forcefully.
> And you're aware that the Signal groups in question are alleged to include Democratic state officials and a campaign advisor?
I've not heard that alleged, but it wouldn't be surprising for some to be monitoring the situation. If you mean to imply that Democrat officials are organizing the resistance then that's laughable. If you're a Conservative then there are only a handful of Dems you should be afraid of, and the rest of the Dems will help you make sure they're not too influential.
> For that matter, exactly what do you mean by "abolishing ICE"? Should it not be replaced?
A more focused INS under the DoJ would be a good reset. A paramilitary with twitchy trigger fingers is no way to enforce any law, much less something as nonviolent and bureaucratic as immigration. If someone is being violent, send the Police, hold a trial. If you need to sort out immigration status you can send a pencil pusher to get papers in order.
> Should immigration law not be enforced? Should the USA allow everyone to reside within its borders who wishes to do so, with no barriers to entry?
No barriers? No. Extremely low ones though, absolutely. You do realize that almost all undocumented people living in the US are on overstayed visas, right? We let them in after checking they weren't dangerous, then they started working and living here. Now they make up a sizable chunk of the population. Clearly our immigration system is broken if it leaves this many residents undocumented. And your proposed solution is strict enforcement?
Imagine, if you will, applying this standard to, say, speeding. Repeated instances of speeding result in increasing fines, and eventually revocation of your license. That's what the law says! Should we not enforce this law?? Well. If we used cars' and phones' GPS and cameras to reconstruct a few days of driving behavior, then handed out punishment as dictated by law, 90% of drivers would instantly lose their license. Half of the population would be unable to go to work, buy food, of get their kids to school. It would be a disaster of historic scale. The problem then, is the law. To put it more succinctly: I am not a proponent of enforcing bad laws, and neither is just about anyone else here in reality.
This kind of behavior would not be tolerated any more if it targeted other work environments. Harassment (and that's the most generous interpretation) is not free speech.
Yeah? It's exactly the fact that their work environment is public streets and other people's homes, schools, and churches that prompt this behavior.
"Work Environments" jfc. Harassing harassers is morally ok in anyones book. That they get paid for harrassment is irrelevant. People dont need to endure oppression because the oppressors are on the job.
Not to mention that the point is also to alert illegals of the LEO presence so that they can get away.
That's just normal law enforcement behavior though. I'm sure if she hadn't been short with him he would've otherwise been well-behaved and enforced our immigration laws without incident.
A very vocal minority is not a majority.
> Democrats overwhelmingly support eliminating ICE (76% vs. 15%), as do nearly half of Independents (47% vs. 35%). Most Republicans (73%) continue to oppose abolishing ICE. Only 19% of Republicans support eliminating the agency
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53939-more-americ...
Jan 23rd General strike, Minnesota: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Downtown... https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1ql7eva/mn_01232...
This is not a 'vocal minority'.
Oh, that's one blue state; right? What do the rest of Americans think?
> The Economist/YouGov poll, 55 percent of respondents said they had “very little” confidence in ICE, while 16 percent said they have “some” confidence in the agency. Sixteen percent said they have “quite a lot” of confidence in ICE and 14 percent said they have “a great deal.”
Source poll: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabRepor...
No; conspiracy to impede and obstruct is a crime.
If you are about to do something I don't want you to do, but which is lawful for you to do, 1A covers me saying "hey, don't do that". It does not cover me physically positioning myself in a way that prevents you from doing it. And if you happen to be an LEO and the thing you're about to do is a law enforcement action, it would be unlawful for me to adopt such positioning. It is unlawful even if I only significantly impede you.
And ICE are federal LEO.
The fact that federal agents are breaking the law doesn't change that. At all.
In spite of what you've been told federal LEO are bound by the law.
Executing random bystanders on a whim, operating without visible ID, failing to allow congressional oversight of facilities, failing to give those captured access to a lawyer - among many, many others - all put this operation far outside of any reasonable claim to proportionality or legality.
Which is obstructive, especially given that there was parking on both sides and everyone is in an SUV.
> The other was filming from a distance.
No, he is very clearly seen on video in the middle of the road directing traffic, and then physically interposing himself between an officer and another person who the officer may have intended to place under arrest, and then physically resisting arrest. At no point in the altercation did officers close the "distance"; he was the one who moved in.