Am i weird in that this feels kind of normal (im not american)?<p>Protests should be protected, but i normally assume protestors get permits, and a reasonable police presence is around. Not to intimidate anyone, but just to make sure nobody gets too rowdy, keep protestors and counter-protestors away from each other (to prevent violence), provide aid if anyone gets hurt (big masses of people is always a trample risk). Otherwise just do normal crowd control sort of things.<p>If they were surveiling individuals who participated afterwards, maybe that would be something, but it seems like (according to the article) all they were doing was keeping track of when protests were happening.<p>Protests are not private events. They are literally the most non-private event possible. That is the entire point. I dont think there is any reasonable expectation of privacy in terms of time&date of demonstrations.