Comment by mrandish
13 days ago
I suspect they're going to find it challenging to turn protected speech into something prosecutable like obstruction - assuming activists exercise even a modicum of care in their wording. Seems like just another intimidation tactic but in doing that, they've also given a heads-up to their targets.
For all the complaints about the previous DOJ, one thing nobody ever argued was that they weren't intending to get convictions. They only brought cases they thought they could win.
To see DOJ use its power the way we've seen (and I know the original story here is only with FBI at this point), it makes me think there should be some equivalent of anti-SLAPP laws but aimed at federal prosecutions. Some way to fast track baseless charges that will obviously never result in anything and that are just meant to either (a) punish someone into paying a ton of lawyer fees, (b) to intimidate others, or (c) grab some short-term headlines.
Considering ICE is executing people in the streets and were already breaking laws before this something little like free speech won’t help
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Your causality is reversed.
The dude was literally just standing there on a public sidewalk with his hands up. He never initiated the altercation or otherwise impeded any lawful investigation.
The agent chose to initiate the altercation during which the victim was pepper sprayed, pinned to the ground by six people, disarmed, and then shot ten times.
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