Why was this flagged? There's another thread of this exact same article on the front page at the moment, too.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866926" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23866926</a>
This sort of thing is terrifying to me. I've read a little bit about the Stasi, and back then the whole idea behind it seemed too absurd to believe. Now we're living it. If you question or protest the status quo, you are literally putting your life in danger.
This is <i>straight up</i> fascistic. Regardless of your opinions of the protesters or if they committed a crime, the feds should never do this, full stop. The feds making a proper arrest should announce who they are, who they're with and why they're making the arrest. The reason being that you have <i>no clue</i> if they actually are the feds or not. They could just be some jackoffs wearing cosplay looking to cause trouble and this gives them explicit cover in addition to being overt violations of someone's rights.<p>If you're one of the pro-freedom people here on HN, how could you <i>ever</i> rationalize this sort of thing? In what world is it ever OK for the feds to do this sort of thing? This is something both the left and the right should be able to fully agree on!<p>I'm incredibly disappointed this got flagged, but not surprised. It is somewhat ironic though, since on HN any threads about perceived censorship gets massive amounts of votes such as when Twitter added the disclaimer to Trump's tweets. But then you have someone quite literally being abducted without cause and here come the flags and the 'it's too political' signs coming out.
As a Portland resident, I can confirm the PPB has been escalating peaceful protests in neighborhoods. A few days ago protesters (including a mother of a protester who was horrifically maimed by an impact munition to the face by feds) were attacked and teargassed outside the police union hall in a very residential neighborhood.<p>The border patrol, DHS, and Portland Police Bureau are purposely terrorizing the citizens of Portland for political motives every single night. Portland is a lightning rod for right-wing animosity.<p>A lot of previously passive citizens are becoming radicalized by these events (similar to wartorn countries) and it kind of feels like a foreign occupation at this point.<p>I don't think I can ever go back to trusting police or the federal government the same way.
What's really happening is that these rioters (not the protestors) are watched trying to instigate violence at the protests and when they leave the area, they get arrested. This is because the local government has been absolutely useless at doing their job at stopping the rioting.<p>Start at 9:30 timestamp:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/3ptD6koTknw?t=570" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/3ptD6koTknw?t=570</a><p>People sharing videos of this share either selectively edited videos without context OR they only share the ending part where they are arrested and not the part where they were instigating violence in the peaceful protests.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/ha-7SETmJD4" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ha-7SETmJD4</a><p>Also they are not unidentified. They have Police on their chest.<p>There's also a theory (can't confirm this) that these are undercover operatives being extracted as they have been infiltrated Antifa.
This is utterly disturbing, and just as disturbing is the apparent reaction (or lack thereof) in this comment section. I know you guys have a lot to think about right now but, Americans, please understand that this is horrifying and unacceptable.
Reddit was all over that video the other day. The general consensus was that it looked more like an extraction of an undercover operative (dressed all in black! with only the eyes visible!). That seems plausible to me because of how cooperative the guy in black is, the efficiency of the whole thing, the fact that none of the other people in the area/video seemed to know who the guy was (they had to ask him his name, etc).<p>And the general theory that America is some sort of police state. Undercover operators during a protest (of any sort) is an entirely logical supposition. No, it is not a blatant one; I am not being dramatic. However, the current social turmoil is revealing the oft-ignored dark side of the police to "white America" and I think that is a good thing.<p>I live in the UK now and the atmosphere in general here is different, I've interacted with police a few times, and no issues - but I am white. If you're in London and black... it is different. Yes, there have been stories of undercover police doing all sorts of shite with respect to environmental protesters aka "terrorists"... and lists of undesirables aka leftists...<p>But even then, it is still nothing like America. This is just my experience and gut feeling - the Robert Peel theory of policing still lives on here - in the States, the theory of policing is more like police are the occupying force. Cutting the budgets of police departments will help go a long way towards controlling the problem - here, the police have a limited budget (and manpower) and so have to be smart in not wasting money and dealing with avoidable hassles.