Or maybe I'm just surprised that a group of law enforcement officers would decide, "Hey, we don't want people to know who we are," and decide to wear masks.
"…I think this is what the state of California is trying to do. Establish limits as to how much the federal government can do within the jurisdiction of the state. It's an issue of state sovereignty."
More of the Cold Civil War playing out. (Also see coastal states forming health cooperatives (?) so that their citizens can get COVID vaccines, etc.)
It would be nice to be surprised. It _should_ be surprising. It's unfortunately not surprising at all.
They cite, of course, the same argument ICE makes: threats against them.
Is that legal? Well, their theory is that any kind of "family law" proceeding (including convicting minors of crimes, and locking them up without access to family or schooling for years) is considered civil law. Therefore none of the normal legal rights apply. I would think this is trivially a violation of the constitution, especially because it comes to imprisonment, but clearly it is not, since the justice department has no problems doing it. A child can be locked up for a crime (up to when they get 27 years old, yes, not 18, in some states), even if the present proof they didn't do it. The very, very, very basic legal right to not get convicted of a crime that you didn't do is openly violated by youth services. Right to have a trial? Nope. Right to having the state prove their case? Nope. Right to not get locked up without cause? No. Etc.
Needless to say, this was promptly exploited by some states who gave kickbacks to judges who "delivered" juveniles for private detention facilities. When caught doing this, the justice department promptly declared nobody had done anything wrong (except one of the judges who, in addition to having thousands of kids locked up for money, had lied on his taxes. He was never actually imprisoned, and finally pardoned by the president)
Oh and in case you don't know: locking minors away from school? Yes. Youth services does that. Parents aren't allowed to do that. Schools aren't allowed to do that. The police isn't allowed to do that (minor gets arrested, and wants to go to classes or do your homework? Police has to make it happen). Fucking death row isn't allowed to keep a minor out of school. But youth services IS allowed to do it.
So a secret police in the US? This is not new. What's new is that immigration enforcement started doing it on a large scale.
The government shouldn't be able to threaten you with 50 years in prison if you don't give up your rights. And they definitely shouldn't be able to tell a just that the agreement/plea wasn't coerced. But here we are.
SWAT officers also wear masks when on mission, for their own protection, so why should ICE have to unmask by law?
I question the intelligence of suggesting that police should be held to the same standard as criminals. "If the bad guys can do it, we should be able to do it!" Is a wild take.
The core tenet that makes someone the good guy is "we treat them better than they would treat us". It's so disappointing to see the people who are supposed to be the good guys advocating they should be able to be as cruel as the bad guys they exist to prevent.
Am I missing something?
> Bianco said while campaigning in Northern California on Friday. "Every single person that voted for that needs to be eliminated in the next election. Anyone that votes for those people are absolute idiots.
holy shit, "eliminated" is not the appropriate word here... what is wrong with this guy? (other than uncontrolled anger?)
I've even seen comments here and on reddit of people saying that the exclusionary rule should be eliminated, since if somebody is a criminal they shouldn't get constitutional protections.
It is worth remembering that the idea that the constitution seriously protects even those who really did crimes is pretty radical. Things that we consider to be baked into our judicial system (the exclusionary rule, miranda warnings) are not terribly old and were extremely controversial when first established. Congress passed a whole law saying that Miranda v Arizona was invalid (which they don't have the power to do). This means that we need active work to protect it.
Don't Feds have immunity to almost everything?
I think the law is to start a fight with the Federal government. All they need to do is arrest 1 of them and then it's on.
Will it do anything? I dunno, but I'm tired of watching Dems do nothing.
I mean laws like that label near everything as cancer causing.
https://www.csg.org/2024/09/25/military-101-orders/
What section of US law they're activated/deployed under determines whether or not they can legally be used in an internal law enforcement capacity.
And generally speaking, federalized forces (either active or NG) cannot ever be used as law enforcement.
Hence why, despite the posturing and marketing of 'sending the military in', this administration is specifically using federalized military forces only in non-law enforcement capacities (and then encouraging the freed up state/local law enforcement to focus on law enforcement).
This is civil war. In a civil war there is no Uncle Sam. Just human beings from different states and of different political persuasions who need to decide what they do with their firepower, and whose orders they obey.
Meanwhile tank man had a shopping bag.
Deploying Guards would also be a good way to start building some institutional momentum for defending our country - preempting following illegal orders (like what happened in CA), sussing out traitors in the chain of command, and mitigating the dynamic where much of traditional state law enforcement is sympathetic to the destructionists.
- CA bans face-masks for law-enforcement
- White House issues executive order requiring face-mask use for all federal law enforcement
- Both are placed on hold pending litigation, allowing the status quo (face-masks) to continue
- Litigation eventually winds up at the Supreme Court
- Supreme Court once again confirms White House can do whatever the hell it wants, Constitution be damned.
I really hate this timeline. Like, a lot.
If people actually took the time to read the opinions [0], they'd realize...
1. Many of the 'allow the administration to continue' rulings are overriding stays, rather than actual decisions. Those cases are still pending in the courts and will eventually end up back at the Supreme Court.
2. Of the actual Supreme Court decisions, the news typically gives the most dumbed-down, hot take version.
3. Even to people without a legal background, much of the decision or dissent is written in plain English, attempts to lay out the rationale, and can be read by anyone with a secondary education.
Just FWIW, giving up wasn't my point at all. I'm just not particularly optimistic that putting anything in front of the current SCOTUS bench will result in a lot of welcome rulings. That doesn't mean we don't seek legal remedies; it just means we need to plan for them to not work out and act accordingly. I'm heartened by the amount of work people are putting in at the state level and getting appropriately creative with bending the rules — for instance, the recent effort to redefine corporate powers at the state level in order to obviate _Citizens United_.
To hold them accountable when they break the law.
E.g. the famous Marbury v. Madison decision that effected no action in that instance but substantially shaped the relationship between the branches by establishing the federal court system's power of judicial review
2OEH8eoCRo0•4mo ago
rolph•4mo ago
blackqueeriroh•4mo ago
rolph•4mo ago
jrs235•4mo ago
mixmastamyk•4mo ago
pm90•4mo ago
piltdownman•4mo ago
Under the current administration? Not at all https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/18/ice-nyc-protest-005...
JumpCrisscross•4mo ago
Sure. But hopefully they'll be saying that while one of their own is being charged.
dmatech•4mo ago
Perhaps the most infamous case of this was the Idaho manslaughter case against FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi for killing Vicki Weaver in the Ruby Ridge incident. His case was simply "removed" to federal court and dismissed under the supremacy clause (although this dismissal was later overturned narrowly when appealed).