"Conspiracy to Impede or Injure Officers" seems like a pretty broad category, and should be separate things. Conspiracy to impede is one thing. That might be applied to planning to be at a protest where you may be in the way of an officer. Injuring is a very different thing. Conflating the two into a single charge seems disproportionate. This conflation seems intentional to give an excuse to just round up anyone who plans to be at a protest, and charge them with a crime that has a punishment equal to assaulting an officer.
FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
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Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#12Facts start at the third section, "‘An issue of selective prosecution’", after ~30 paragraphs of character/story/emotion building. > Mavalwalla was one of hundreds of people to respond to a 11 June social media post from the former president of the Spokane city council that encouraged protesters to block an Ice transport they believed would carry two Venezuelan immigrants who were in the country legally, petitioning…
The facts start at the beginning:
- the actual US attorney for the area was pressured to resign from Republicans (Trump)
- Republicans put in a guy with 0 legal experience who was previously working for a political group. Said guy also wanted the US government overthrown on January 6th as he supports the insurrectionists. This is also the guy who supports the Republican's attempt to illegally erase the 14th amendment.
- The person who was arrested and charged was merely exercising his first amendment rights to peacefully assemble and protest. He did nothing violent nor criminal.
Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#13"Conspiracy to Impede or Injure Officers" seems like a pretty broad category, and should be separate things. Conspiracy to impede is one thing. That might be applied to planning to be at a protest where you may be in the way of an officer. Injuring is a very different thing. Conflating the two into a single charge seems disproportionate. This conflation seems intentional to give an excuse to just round up anyone who…
Conspiracy to impede is unconstitutional, as people in the US have the right to peacefully assemble. If cops decide to illegally break up a protest, then they can say "oh you're impending me!" and no one actually has a 1st amendment right.
Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#14The complete lack of pushback from traditional conservatives against Trump's constant overreach and his complete disregard for basic civil liberties and the rule of law continues to shock me.
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truly i implore you to read Dark Money by Jane Mayer if you think there was any real power behind the libertarian movement that wasn't explicitly directed at consolidating disparate rightwing movements into the monolith of the modern GOP.
Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#15The complete lack of pushback from traditional conservatives against Trump's constant overreach and his complete disregard for basic civil liberties and the rule of law continues to shock me.
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Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#16The complete lack of pushback from traditional conservatives against Trump's constant overreach and his complete disregard for basic civil liberties and the rule of law continues to shock me.
i think the memetic idea of "traditional conservatism" doesn't really exist in any meaningful historical context. that type of label has always been a mask for ethnonationalism, whether or not every conservative voter actually believed in ethnonationalist ideals.
Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#17The complete lack of pushback from traditional conservatives against Trump's constant overreach and his complete disregard for basic civil liberties and the rule of law continues to shock me.
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Acceptance is embracing a fascist autocracy? "Hmmm. Libertarianism didn't resonate with liberals. Guess we will just go full on fascist.", is how I interpreted that.
Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#18Facts start at the third section, "‘An issue of selective prosecution’", after ~30 paragraphs of character/story/emotion building. > Mavalwalla was one of hundreds of people to respond to a 11 June social media post from the former president of the Spokane city council that encouraged protesters to block an Ice transport they believed would carry two Venezuelan immigrants who were in the country legally, petitioning…
The Bundy brothers - the ones who led an armed occupation of a wildlife refuge for 41 days - were charged with that same crime, and they were acquitted: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/27/oregon-milit...
So I would caution against reading a short description of the law and thinking it's an open-and-shut case against the protesters.
Re: FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
#19This article is confusing. I think the actual charges are this:
> According to the indictment, Mavalwalla and his co-defendants “physically blocked the drive-way of the federal facility and/or physically pushed against officers despite orders to disperse and efforts to remove them from the property”.
And it was recorded and posted to Instagram:
> A one-minute video posted on Instagram shows the army veteran briefly jostle with an officer whose face is covered by a ski mask and sunglasses. Mavalwalla then locks arms with other demonstrators to block the gate.
Sidestepping the political hot topic, if you use Facebook to coordinate with others to block federal officers from doing their job and then someone from your group records it and posts it to Instagram, your lawyer is going to have a hard time finding a way out of charges like this.