President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[wuapinmon]

At what point have they violated privacy? Is it when they find out who organized the rally? What about just going to the rally and seeing who the leaders/participants are? Is that wrong, too?

That is not an apt analogy. As I understand it, They were trying to force a third party to provide identifying information that is not otherwise available to the public. Being present at a public gathering is not the same.

This.

[wuapinmon]

Not really. There is no right to privacy in the constitution, except for one implied by the courts.

That said, I think it is very disturbing that they sought that information precisely BECAUSE no crime was committed or suspected. The govt should keep out of my business unless there is some very good reason. And visiting a site that is engaging in anti-government but legal political activity should, standing alone, never justify being forced to identify yourself. It's like the government collecting names and addresses at an anti-trump rally. Completely improper.

The implied right from the courts means it's legally there until the SCOTUS says otherwise. Saying that there isn't one is pedantic at this point. Or, Originalist nonsense, like returning to the gold standard and letting state legislatures appoint senators.

[cowboy]

This.

So it would be ok for the government to be present at a rally in order to identify people, but not try to identify them after the fact?


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[old_gregg]

yikes

[wuapinmon]

So it would be ok for the government to be present at a rally in order to identify people, but not try to identify them after the fact?


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If the rally were public, and there was no trespassing to attend say a private affair, then it would be fine to me. This already happens with plainclothes undercover officers. But, demanding a list of invitees or attendees ex post facto, no. And, I reject out of hand the whole, "If you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to worry about." Our rights are unalienable.

[cowboy]

If the rally were public, and there was no trespassing to attend say a private affair, then it would be fine to me. This already happens with plainclothes undercover officers. But, demanding a list of invitees or attendees ex post facto, no. And, I reject out of hand the whole, "If you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to worry about." Our rights are unalienable.

If the intent/end result are the same, why is one okay and the other not? What about the FBI reviewing security tapes to determine who the leaders of a protest are? Is that okay?

[Applejack]

Cowboy, do you really have no problem with the government tracking people that visit certain websites? (I know, Walter, that they already do). If so, you are definitely less libertarian than you portray yourself here.

[wuapinmon]

If the intent/end result are the same, why is one okay and the other not? What about the FBI reviewing security tapes to determine who the leaders of a protest are? Is that okay?

If the FBI got the security tapes from their own recordings, fine. The principle, to me, is the same thing with photo tickets. The end result of the government asking a private entity to give it private information is not the same. The govt is asking a private entity to violate someone's right, without obtaining permission beforehand, thereby using private entities for govt purposes. It's not the same thing. We're talking 4th and 9th Amendments here. The rights not spelled out in the Constitution does not mean that they are possessed by the State. Ergo, the right to privacy, judicially affirmed, should hold here. If the government wants to know the IP addresses of individuals who visited that website, let them show due cause to a judge, get a warrant, and subpoena the records. But 1.3 million records of anyone who visited the site? 9th Amendment!

Especially when we see how just unrighteous this government is, and what a complete piece of shit Jeff Sessions is, I have a huge problem with the government with Trump as XO asking for private info about people who protested his inauguration. The way to destroy an opposition is to find the leaders and neutralize them. This facilitates that. From the many videos I watched, the most violent people that day seemed to be the DC and Capitol Police.

[old_gregg]

who knew the whole pastoral schtick was a cover for cowboy being a fucking dummy this whole time

[cowboy]

If the FBI got the security tapes from their own recordings, fine. The principle, to me, is the same thing with photo tickets. The end result of the government asking a private entity to give it private information is not the same. The govt is asking a private entity to violate someone's right, without obtaining permission beforehand, thereby using private entities for govt purposes. It's not the same thing. We're talking 4th and 9th Amendments here. The rights not spelled out in the Constitution does not mean that they are possessed by the State. Ergo, the right to privacy, judicially affirmed, should hold here. If the government wants to know the IP addresses of individuals who visited that website, let them show due cause to a judge, get a warrant, and subpoena the records. But 1.3 million records of anyone who visited the site? 9th Amendment!

Especially when we see how just unrighteous this government is, and what a complete piece of shit Jeff Sessions is, I have a huge problem with the government with Trump as XO asking for private info about people who protested his inauguration. The way to destroy an opposition is to find the leaders and neutralize them. This facilitates that. From the many videos I watched, the most violent people that day seemed to be the DC and Capitol Police.

Okay, but it seems you are saying two different things. First, you say that it's okay for the FBI to gather information on protesters as long as they aren't forcing a third party to give it to them, but this,

The way to destroy an opposition is to find the leaders and neutralize them. This facilitates that.

suggests you don't believe the government should collect the information at all. Which is it? (I ask that for clarity, not in an argumentative way) Also, regarding the quoted statement and going back to my original question (again), how will the government "neutralize" them if they broke no laws?

[frank ryan]

It's come out that one of the deplorables in Charlottesville fired a weapon. Probably one of the good people our dipshit president was referring to.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/2...p2jwMAfr?amp=1

[wuapinmon]

Okay, but it seems you are saying two different things. First, you say that it's okay for the FBI to gather information on protesters as long as they aren't forcing a third party to give it to them, but this, suggests you don't believe the government should collect the information at all. Which is it? (I ask that for clarity, not in an argumentative way) Also, regarding the quoted statement and going back to my original question (again), how will the government "neutralize" them if they broke no laws?

This government is corrupt. You don't have to break the law regarding protesting. You probably commit a felony every year without realizing it (https://mic.com/articles/86797/8-way...-it#.cQOLdVl2Y). Let the government identify you and then turn a guarded eye to your life, and you can pretty much lock up anyone, make them spend money on attorneys and bail, or force them into a plea bargain so that they can try and get their lives back. So, if the FBI/NSA/ATF/ETC wants to identify someone, let them work for it.

[SCcoug]

Embedded Tweet

[frank ryan]

Here's some more on some the Charlottesville goons being arrested:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/2...eiO84bc0?amp=1

“At first it was peaceful protest,” Mr. Long told The Root, a black news and culture website. “Until someone pointed a gun at my head. Then the same person pointed it at my foot and shot the ground.”

Photos showed that Mr. Long had been using an improvised torch to spar with a man carrying a flagpole when the shot was fired.

Richard W. Preston, 52, was charged with discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, a crime punishable by two to 10 years in prison. He was arrested Saturday and is in the custody of the Baltimore County Detention Center in Towson, Md., the police said.

Mr. Preston is an imperial wizard in the Ku Klux Klan, according to numerous news reports. “We didn’t go as the Klan,” Mr. Preston told an Indiana TV station shortly after the rally. “We didn’t go there to create havoc and fight. We went there to protect a monument.”

The beating victim, DeAndre Harris, 20, was cornered in a parking garage just yards from Police Headquarters, where he was attacked by six men who had gathered for the rally. Mr. Harris has a broken wrist and sustained a head injury that required 10 staples, his lawyer, S. Lee Merritt, said.
Daniel P. Borden, 18, was charged with malicious wounding in connection with the aggravated assault on Mr. Harris, the police said. He was arrested Friday and was being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center in Cincinnati, the Charlottesville police said in a statement.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Last week's Time had a series of interesting essays about C'ville, the white supremacist movement, and related matters. I've been mulling over what white supremacists, and even less rabid fans of Trump, mean when they say they want to "take America back." Back to what? One of the essays (by Eddie Glaude,chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University) made a number of interesting points, including

Moreover, several studies have shown that social issues, not economic issues, motivated the Trump voter. Trump voters worried that a particular cultural vision of America was eroding. Politicians' appeals to “the white working class revolt” among Democrats and Republicans is less about the economic devastation of workers and more about white identity—with black and brown folk and immigrants as the scapegoats.

He closes with three provocative questions, including "Can you truly give up the idea that this is a white nation?" I was raised in the 50s and 60s, and although I was taught to shun bigotry and racism, there was always a subtext that whites were inherently superior (thanks in part to our excellent performance in the preexistence, apparently), and it bothers me that a small (but thankfully decreasing in size) part of me says "no" to that question. I think many millions of my fellow citizens would answer the same way, and that's the problem.