FBI arrests US Army veteran for 'conspiracy' over protest against ICE
theguardian.comThis 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.
Facts 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 for asylum when they were detained.
> “I am going to sit in front of the bus,” Ben Stuckart, the former city council president, wrote. “Feel free to join me.”
With this "problem" for the prosecutors quoted:
> In this case, prosecutors would just have to prove that defendants agreed in concert to impede or injure an officer.
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.
IANAL, but that cases seem very different. This appears direct (prevent the federal officer from completing their enforcement action), where the Bundy brothers appears to have been indirect (in response to a federal officers that completed their action):
> In response to the imprisonment of two Harney County ranchers, who were prosecuted for arson, Ammon and Ryan led a group of activists in an occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge, an obscure sanctuary for birds.
> Ammon declared that he and other protesters, some who openly carried firearms and took over government buildings and equipment, would stay until the ranchers were freed and the refuge land was given to locals to control.
The thing that prompted the occupation isn't relevant. They physically occupied federal property and prevented federal officers from entering or from performing their duties. Much like in this case!
And much like the other case there is a first amendment component, and the balance of how much the government can override ones right to express one's self when doing so impedes the work of the government.
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.
> nor criminal
IANAL, but it appears to be criminal: 18 U.S.C. 111
This does not appear to be covered under "peaceful protest": https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights
you're quoting a lot of legal code for someone starting all of their posts with "IANAL"
The point of commenting IANAL, is that legal code is complicated. The ACLU is likely giving "best-practices", but that's not legal code. It's guidelines.
This feels pretty first-amendment to me, but I have little doubt that SCOTUS would think that people's first-amendment rights are less important than the Gov't's ability to do what it's doing.
I just also think that SCOTUS is wrong and full of very political actors who are grossly partial towards the current administration.
I’m passively auditing articles and IG reports on federal arrest, indictment, protests, and military action on US citizens.
In this mode I’m asking myself, What’s being reported here. Is it same as previous stories or different?
This story features a citizen, participating in a protest. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is a federal arrest 30 days after the event.
I’m not saying this as fact of arrests (could be happening a lot for all I know), but only in terms of what is reported. And when you watch the videos of someone who gets in the face of law enforcement (I can’t see the video on the gift link, so I’m going by descriptions) invariably they are pulled offline and taken down by 4-6 police. Police are taking any physical interaction as assault and arresting people on the spot. (Maybe the police were overwhelmed or afraid this veteran would hurt them compared to the women I see shoved and dragged in IG videos).
Also, why 30 days later? The person who would have had the responsibility to arrest and charge resigned, and their replacement is reportedly unqualified?
As a citizen who has the right to protest (1st amendment), I’m not thinking that the government is taking names. Now I am, which is possibly the point.
AND! The president is calling for the end of No-Cash Bail. Do you see the chilling effect potential?
Not to mention the hypocrisy/asymmetry of January 6th as an event of obvious violent obstruction of federal procedure (every accusation is a confession). This arrest is notable in comparison to other reported arrests.
Seeing, not just stuff like this, but a myriad of things, imo the US is cooked. EU countries that still have enlightenment ideals alive need to cut ties asap. In particular we need our own completely independent armies, arms production, and nuclear deterrence.
Imo what we're seeing in the US now is the visible "blooming" of things which have been growing and metastasizing since the 80's.
I agree for the moment. My hope is that cases like this will form the basis of positive change in the next few years.
"Thank you Ronald Reagan, your legacy is intact"
"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.
> a crime that has a punishment equal to assaulting an officer
I'd be very surprised if the punishments for impeding or injuring are equal, despite the two crimes being described in the same statute. Afaik sentencing guidelines take into account more than just the charge itself.
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.
The fact that Americans have a right to peaceful assembly doesn’t mean that every non-violent assembly is legal ( https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-3-1/A... , last sentence):
“the government may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech, provided the restrictions ‘are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.’”
People complain about this all the time (“free speech zones”) but it’s been the law for decades.
See also https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/protesters-rights .
What does a reasonable restriction make is up to the court to decide, not cops, and definitely not some federal agency.
There's a lot of precedent too, I'm sure.
So yeah, there's no real way to know ahead of time if any protest is or is not legal or legally impeded. That's not the case with continental law where it's defined ahead of time.
I think the ACLU’s advice (which I linked to) is pretty clear about how to organize a legal protest. Sometimes the goal is to get arrested, but if you want to avoid that, then it’s not hard to do.
Taking this to its logical conclusion you should be able to walk up the hill, push aside the cops, enter the rotunda, occupy the chambers of Congress all within your first amendment rights.
There is nuance and balance to be had in law, your rights end where others begin.
> Taking this to its logical conclusion you should be able to walk up the hill, push aside the cops, enter the rotunda, occupy the chambers of Congress all within your first amendment rights.
Isn't this exactly what the MAGA crowd has professed to believe since 1/6/2021?
And not just regarding the first amendment.
They were fine storming government buildings with guns in hand during covid. They considered the Bundy brothers and Kyle Rittenhouse to be heroes and patriots.
These rights are absolute and inalienable, granted by God as long as you're "white and right." Otherwise it's time to crack skulls.
I'm certainly not advocating that "conspiracy to impede" should be illegal. I just feel that putting "impede" and "injure" together into a single charge seems like a way to deal excessive punishments in a way that could be very broadly interpreted.
The 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.
Stop being shocked, and start pushing back. Everyone is looking around for someone else to acknowledge that something is up (like a baby that just hit its head), and everyone needs to start crying.
People in the US do not have due process rights. I can confidently say this, because if anyone doesn't have due process rights, then no one has due process rights.
> if anyone doesn't have due process rights, then no one has due process rights.
By your logic, no one has due process rights in this country.
Yeah... I said that? Idk what country you're in, but I definitely said that immediately before the thing you're quoting from 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.
~No one pushes back on abuses of power by their own side.
(Not literally no one, but few enough people that they effectively don't matter.)
"traditional" conservatives are mostly people who were sufficiently concerned with appearances to not say the quiet parts out loud. I have no doubt they support trump's agenda, if not the uncouthness of his methods.
It was always just a mask.
> The 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.
There hasn't actually been a complete lack of such pushback from traditional conservatives; the surviving icons of traditional conservatism have often been vocal anti-Trumpers.
What it turns out is that, while some of the former luminaries are still alive and active, there are, as far as political impact goes, no traditional conservatives left.
I’ve asked myself why my grandparents did not try to overthrow their Nazi regime. They were not the most immoral people on the surface, they just viewed their actions happening as the only way of survival. I think the answer lies in seeing what really happening instead of what’s portrayed as happening on their propaganda outlets. Articles like this start to transition people away from supporting fascism if they are believed.
I will say that, having grown up in the 80's and 90's far removed from the fascist states of yesteryear, it was always baffling how Western nations succumbed so completely to authoritarianism.
I am not longer baffled.
I’m seeing it happen in real time and am still baffled. I realize now there are groups of people with perceptions of reality so different from mine they are basically akin to an alien species.