Category: Economics / Economy / Income / Financial

Frederick Douglass Does Some Great Work at Seneca Falls, Dockum Drug Store Sit-Ins, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 7/19

July 19, 1848 
The first Women’s Rights Convention in the U.S. was held at Seneca Falls, New York. Its “Declaration of Sentiments” launched the movement of women to be included in the constitution.The Declaration used as a model the U.S. Declaration of Independence, demanding that the rights of women as individuals be acknowledged and respected by society. It was signed by sixty-eight women
and thirty-two men.
The impetus came from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, both of whom had been excluded, along with all the other female American delegates, from the World Anti-Slavery Convention (London, 1840) because of their sex.

Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist leader attended the convention and supported the resolution for women’s suffrage.
When suffrage finally became a reality in 1920, seventy-two years after this first organized demand in 1848, only one signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration, Charlotte Woodward, then a young worker in a glove manufactory, had lived long enough to cast her first ballot.
The Seneca Falls Convention and the Early Suffrage Movement 
The Declaration of Sentiments
July 19, 1958
Several black teenagers, members of the local NAACP chapter (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), entered downtown Wichita’s Dockum Drug Store (then the largest drugstore chain in Kansas) and sat down at the lunch counter.

Wichita sit-in sculpture
The store refused to serve them because of their race. They returned at least twice a week for the next several weeks. They sat quietly all afternoon, creating no disturbance, but refused to leave without being served. Though the police once chased them away, they were breaking no law, only asking to make a purchase, a violation of store policy.
This was the first instance of a sit-in to protest segregationist policies. Less than a month later, a white man around 40 walked in and looked at those sitting in for several minutes. Then he looked at the store manager, and said, “Serve them. I’m losing too much money.”
That man was the owner of the Dockum drug store chain.
That day the lawyer for the local NAACP branch called the store’s state offices, and was told by the chain’s vice president that “he had instructed all of his managers, clerks, etc. (statewide), to serve all people without regard to race, creed or color.”
July 19, 1974 
Martha Tranquill of Sacramento, California, was sentenced to nine months’ prison time for refusing to pay her federal taxes as a protest against the Vietnam War.
July 19, 1993
President Bill Clinton announced regulations to implement his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the military, saying that the armed services should put an end to “witch hunts.” The policy was developed by General Colin Powell, then Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and eventually summarized as “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue, don’t harass.”
July 19, 2000
A federal administrative law judge ordered white supremacist Ryan Wilson to pay $1.1 million in damages to fair housing advocate Bonnie Jouhari and her daughter, Dani. The decision stemmed from threats made against Jouhari by Wilson and his Philadelphia neo-Nazi group, ALPA HQ.


Bonnie and Dani Jouhari

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july19

The Young GOPer Behind “Alligator Alcatraz” Is the Dark Future of MAGA

https://newrepublic.substack.com/p/the-young-goper-behind-alligator

James Uthmeier is the real brains behind this notorious migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The more barbarities that emerge, the brighter his star will no doubt shine.

The New Republic

and

Greg Sargent
Jul 14, 2025
Cages with bunkbeds inside the Alligator Alcatraz facility in Florida.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The other day, Stephen Miller went on Fox News and offered a plea that got surprisingly little attention given its highly toxic and unnerving implications. Miller urged politicians in GOP-run states to build their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state-run immigration detention facility that officials just opened in the Florida Everglades.

“We want every governor of a red state, and if you are watching tonight: pick up the phone, call DHS, work with us to build facilities in your state,” Miller said, in a reference to the Department of Homeland Security. Critically, Miller added, such states could then work with the federal government by supplying much-needed detention beds, helping President Trump “get the illegals out.”

Keep all that in mind as we introduce you to one James Uthmeier.

Uthmeier, the attorney general of Florida and a longtime ally of Governor Ron DeSantis, is widely described in the state as the brains behind “Alligator Alcatraz.” Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics, sums him up this way: “In Uthmeier, DeSantis found his own Stephen Miller.”

Uthmeier is indeed a homegrown Florida version of Miller: Only 37 years old, he brings great precociousness to the jailing of migrants. Like Miller, he is obscure and little-known relative to the influence he’s amassing. Also like Miller, he is fluent in MAGA’s reliance on the spectacle of inhumanity and barbarism.

“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter,” Uthmeier said of “Alligator Alcatraz” in a slick video he recently narrated about the complex, which featured heavy-metal guitar riffs right out of a combat-cosplay video game. “People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”

Any migrant who dares escape just might get devoured alive by an animal—one animal eating another. Dehumanization is so thrilling!

The real-world “Alligator Alcatraz” is already gaining notoriety for its very real cruelties. After Democratic lawmakers visited over the weekend, they sharply denounced the scenes they’d witnessed of migrants packed into cages under inhumane conditions. Meanwhile, detainees and family members have sounded alarms about worm-infested food and blistering heat. And the Miami Herald reports that an unnervingly large percentage of the detainees lack criminal convictions.

But Uthmeier is getting feted on Fox News and other right wing media for this new experiment in spite of such notorieties—or perhaps because of them. There’s good reason to think more red state politicians will seek to create their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz” or get in on this action in other ways—and that more young Republican politicians will see it as a path to MAGA renown and glory.

For one thing, the money is now there. Buried in the big budget bill that Trump recently signed is a little-noticed provision that immigration advocates increasingly fear could fund more complexes like this one. It makes $3.5 billion available to “eligible states” and their agencies for numerous immigration-related purposes, including the “temporary detention of aliens.”

When Miller told GOP politicians to follow Uthmeier by collaborating with federal officials to develop new versions of “Alligator Alcatraz,” he was probably talking about this slush fund. State officials can try to tap into it for building out such facilities. “For Republican states across the country that want to copy the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ model, this bill will give them that money,” immigration analyst Austin Kocher tells me.

What’s more, red state politicians are paying attention. Fox News contacted numerous gubernatorial offices to ask if they intend to take up Miller’s invitation. The responses were positive, with many eagerly touting plans for detention complexes. While it’s unclear if these will resemble “Alligator Alcatraz,” the underlying impulse is clear: Many red states want to expand state-run detention efforts. And again: The money is there.

This is a bad development. “Alligator Alcatraz” should not be the model for the future of migrant detention in much of the United States.

Here’s why. The facility is funded and operated by the state of Florida, but the state can use it to detain undocumented people under a federal program that allows ICE to authorize local law enforcement to carry out immigration crackdowns. That puts “Alligator Alcatraz” in a grey area: Local law enforcement agencies are using it to carry out Trump’s immigration detention agenda even as ICE does not run the facility.

Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center, who specializes in criminal justice, points to a toxic combination built into the idea of more versions of this arrangement. ICE detention is subject to federal oversight. But huge influxes of federal money for migrant detention—as in Trump’s new bill—could create new incentives for states to ramp up their own detention efforts. Yet because “Alligator Alcatraz” is a new experiment, she says, it’s unclear what sort of federal oversight future imitation efforts would receive, even if they get some federal money.

“What will access to counsel look like for detainees?” Eisen asks. “What will access to family members look like? It’s difficult to imagine state-run facilities where conditions and due process are prioritized.”

Illustrating the point, when a reporter recently asked ICE for comment on what’s going on inside “Alligator Alcatraz,” ICE said, well, it isn’t their facility. In other words, the federal government is not responsible for what happens inside those walls—even as Miller and Trump call on other states to build more of them.

Which brings us back to Uthmeier and the future of MAGA.

It’s easy to see Uthmeier and his “Alligator Alcatraz” becoming a model for other young Republicans seeking a route into MAGA celebrity. Consider his career trajectory: It’s fairly conventional establishment-Republican stuff. A native of Destin, a small beach city in the deep red Florida panhandle, he earned a law degree from Georgetown and then worked for the Commerce Department in the first Trump administration—and then for the ultra-establishment D.C. law firm Jones Day.

Uthmeier has also made appearances at the conservative Federalist Ssociety, which is as establishment-conservative as it gets. He joined DeSantis’s first administration as a senior legal adviser, and then got appointed as attorney general when the slot was vacated by the appointment of former AG Ashley Moody to now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Senate seat.

All in all, it’s in some ways a conventional path to GOP success. In fact, Uthmeier actually has a track record of criticizing Trump in the past on things like Covid-19 and abortion. But J.D. Vance survived such heresies, and now, in the party that Trump remade, Uthmeier apparently recognizes that “Alligator Alcatraz” is his big ticket. It’s a reminder that in today’s GOP, the MAGA and older-line Republican establishments are bleeding into one another—and that getting attached to such an idea is a path to national MAGA stardom.

Put another way, in the cut-throat world of the MAGA attention economy, association with things like “Alligator Alcatraz” can carry enormous weight. It’s hard for people who don’t swim in MAGA’s rancid information currents to grasp, but when Trump recently toured the facility with DeSantis, it was a huge MAGA propaganda coup for the Florida governor (yes, he apparently still harbors national ambitions).

Indeed, one person who very much noticed this was apparently Uthmeier himself. According to one Florida operative in touch with Uthmeier’s staff, there’s considerable sensitivity in his inner circle over who is getting credit for “Alligator Alcatraz,” with some worrying that Uthmeier isn’t reaping enough of it.

Uthmeier needn’t worry, however. When Trump toured the facility, he said of Uthmeier: “That guy’s got a future.” In this, the MAGA God King himself gave a big boost to Uthmeier’s 2026 electoral bid to keep his appointed AG role, which will be a platform for even higher ambitions. And if more barbarities emerge from “Alligator Alcatraz,” as they surely will, his MAGA future will only get that much brighter.

Some clips from The Majority Report dealing with Racism in the US and Israel and ICE.

Please Join Me!

Writting and calling the US Senators about this. We’ve already paid for this money to be disbursed, with the understanding that it will be. This recission is UnAmerican.

Rescission Package Would Sabotage Recent Funding Deal, Cripple Future Ones

July 15, 2025, 1:47 pm

President Trump’s proposal to rescind $9.4 billion in previously approved spending, which the Senate is expected to vote on this week, is a bad idea for several reasons, as noted in a recent CBPP report. The rescission package would significantly damage life-saving global health programs, peacekeeping efforts, and economic development abroad, and would hurt domestic community TV and radio stations supported by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It also builds on the Administration’s broader effort to illegally impound funds, which includes withholding for months the spending that was ultimately included in the rescissions package prior to the formal request and unlawfully delaying or blocking billions of dollars for other programs from going out.

What’s less obvious but no less important, the package — combined with the Administration’s broader campaign of illegally impounding funds — could also make it far more difficult for Congress to fund the government in a bipartisan way in the future.

Here’s why:

Most of the funds in the rescission package were enacted in March legislation that was passed by Congress — including on a bipartisan basis in the Senate — and signed into law by the President to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. To provide the 60 votes required to avoid a Senate filibuster, at least eight Democratic senators needed to join with 52 Republican senators to invoke cloture on the funding bill.

But presidential rescission requests operate under different rules and require only 51 votes to pass the Senate, so no Democratic votes are needed. If the Senate approves the package (which passed the House on a party-line vote), this would show that Republicans could quickly revise on a partisan basis, with merely 51 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan funding agreement reached only a few months earlier that required support from no fewer than 60 senators.

Nothing has changed about the provisions in the package since the funding was approved in March. They are simply policies President Trump has long opposed and doesn’t want to carry out. But that is not a justification for a rescissions request. After all, it’s typical in an appropriations deal that no one gets everything they want. That means congressional negotiators may get more or less funding than they prefer for a given agency; it also means the Administration may be required to implement programs it does not support.

But if Senate Republicans go along with the Administration’s efforts to simply remove spending they had earlier agreed to as part of the March deal, this would undermine the ability to strike future deals. Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought has also indicated that the Administration “will strongly consider” sending further rescissions requests to Congress. And of course, the trust needed to make these deals is further undermined when the Administration also chooses to withhold money illegally without even submitting a rescissions package.

The result would likely be lasting damage to our ability to fund the government in a bipartisan way, and the consequences will become clearer in just the next few months. Enacting appropriations for fiscal year 2026, which starts October 1, will require Democratic senators to join with Republicans to reach the needed 60-vote threshold. This Democratic support may not materialize if Democrats believe the President and congressional Republicans will later undo, by rescission or impoundment, any agreement they sign onto.

More generally, there’s little reason for the minority party in Congress to agree to a deal when the Administration and the majority party can strip away funding they don’t like in a purely partisan way, or if the Administration may attempt unilaterally — and illegally — not to implement it at all, with no pushback from the majority party in Congress. As a result, it would be far more difficult to reach the bipartisan agreements necessary to fund the government on time and with the resources required to serve the country’s needs.

Senators should keep those consequences in mind as they consider the President’s current rescission request.

Topics: 

Federal Budget

Responding to DHS propaganda

Stephen Millers hate and ambition to reformat the US to be him and what he desires

https://www.tumblr.com/reagan-was-a-horrible-president/789081209191923712

‘They’re killing us’: Immigrants complain of inhumane conditions inside NYC holding site

Immigrants without criminal backgrounds have been among the fastest-growing groups of ICE detainees. Less than a third of ICE detainees, 28.5%, are convicted criminals, according to the data. Another quarter have pending criminal charges and the rest have no criminal histories.

https://gothamist.com/news/theyre-killing-us-immigrants-complain-of-inhumane-conditions-inside-nyc-holding-site

A masked federal agent looks directly at the camera as someone is detained and brought downstairs at 26 Federal Plaza.
MADISON SWART/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
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Immigrants being detained in federal holding rooms in Lower Manhattan have complained of being unable to bathe or change clothes, cramped conditions, sometimes being provided just one meal a day, and sleeping on concrete benches or the floor.

Some immigrants staying at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding rooms at 26 Federal Plaza also report stays lasting days at a time — as many as 10 days in one case referenced in a court filing.

“ There’s no room to sit down – standing room only,” said Rebecca Rubin, an immigration attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group, who has had at least three clients detained in the cells.

The allegations came in court papers filed by lawyers representing immigrants held at the Lower Manhattan facility and in interviews with immigrants who said they were detained there.

Congressmembers, who for weeks have been refused entry at the site on the ground that the facilities are not “detention centers” but rather off-limits “processing centers,” have also raised concerns.

“Do not go treating people subhumanly — treating immigrants, simply because they are not born here — as if they are second class, as if they are not human,” Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, told reporters Tuesday in a press conference outside the facility. “That is not what this country’s about.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement, dismissed the complaints in their entirety: “Any claim that there is overcrowding or subprime conditions is categorically false. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”

She added: “As we arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens and public safety threats from the U.S., ICE has worked diligently to obtain greater necessary detention space while avoiding overcrowding.”

In a previous statement, McLaughlin said, “26 Federal Plaza is not a detention center. It is a Federal building with an ICE law enforcement office inside of it.”

The holding areas are guarded rooms on the 10th floor of the federal government office building, just steps away from state and federal courthouses and City Hall. Those being detained include immigrants taken into custody after immigration court hearings in the same building.

The rooms used to be temporary holding areas where immigrant detainees were held for a few hours before being transferred to larger, more permanent and resourced detention centers, according to local immigration attorneys. But the lawyers said in recent months, detainees have been sleeping overnight in overcrowded facilities, some for days.

“In the past… it was sort of understood that (detainees) weren’t going to be spending any sort of meaningful time there,” said Harold Solis, co-legal director of Make the Road New York, the local chapter of the national immigrants’ rights advocacy group. “This is definitely a different reality that people are experiencing there.”

S. Michael Musa-Obregon, a New York-based immigration attorney, added, “It used to be a holding pen, like a central booking. Now it’s becoming a temporary jail.”

Several members of New York’s congressional delegation, including Reps. Nydia Velázquez, Adriano Espaillat, Jerry Nadler and Goldman, all Democrats, have tried in recent weeks to inspect the holding areas but were denied entry.

Federal law allows lawmakers to inspect detention facilities, with no notice needed. But in a conversation with Nadler and Goldman, ICE Deputy Field Office Director William Joyce said the site was a temporary “processing center,” not a detention facility and not subject to inspection.

In the June 18 exchange with the two lawmakers, recorded by Gothamist in a hallway at 26 Federal Plaza, Joyce said the holding areas were “approaching capacity.”

He added that detainees were being held overnight, but that claims of migrants staying for a week or more were “an exaggeration.”

‘These conditions are inhumane’

Immigration lawyers contend, based on ICE’s public detainee tracking system, that a detainee named Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema had been detained inside the facility for 10 days.

Make the Road NY filed a lawsuit on July 3 against the federal government, advocating for her release.

Lawyers for Chipantiza-Sisalema, a 20-year-old high school student, wrote in a court filing, “She has told her parents that her conditions of confinement are extremely distressing: she is sleeping on the floor, she is in the same clothes she was detained in and the food she is provided is inadequate.”

Chipantiza-Sisalema wasn’t allowed to call or visit with a lawyer, she wasn’t allowed to call anyone but her parents and she had spoken with her family only three times, for a minute each time, according to the court filing.

Chipantiza-Sisalema was transferred to another detention facility on Friday, according to Solis.

“These conditions are inhumane as individuals detained do not have access to beds, regular meals, or communication with loved ones or counsel,” lawyers wrote in Chipantiza-Sisalema’s case. “Detainees also report that they are not able to bathe or change clothes; that the temperature can be extremely hot or cold; and that medical care is not provided.”

Another detainee, Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, a 19-year-old high school student, was fed one to two meals a day and “forced to sleep sitting up for lack of space,” his attorneys wrote in a lawsuit demanding his release from ICE detention. Toaquiza was held for two days in a small room with over 60 people, according to the filing.

“The room was so crowded that he could not lie down and he had to sleep sitting up,” the filing said.

Enrique, 52-year-old former detainee from Peru who asked not to share his last name for fear of retaliation against his family still living in the United States, said he slept in a holding cell at 26 Federal Plaza for six days in late June.

Enrique said that when he first entered the roughly 5 by 10 meter room, there were about 30 people. Guards gave him an aluminum blanket to stay warm.

By the time he was transferred to another detention center, six days later, he said there were 100 people and not enough blankets to go around.

“We were on top of each other,” Massamba Gueye, a 29-year-old detainee from Senegal, told Gothamist. He said he was detained with about 30 men in a room for one night in early June. Gueye said while he was there, another man fainted, hit his head and started bleeding — but guards didn’t respond.

“Nobody was bothered to even try to help him,” Gueye, who has since been transferred to another ICE facility, said in a phone interview.

‘They’re killing us. My liver is killing me.’

Immigrants detained at 26 Federal Plaza and their relatives also complain about lack of medical care.

Samara Simone de la Cruz Gooden, 22, said her husband Joan Paul Alcivar de la Cruz, a 27-year-old from Ecuador, was detained at 26 Federal Plaza for at least four to five days in late June. Gooden said most of her husband’s liver had been removed before his detention and he requires a special diet, which he didn’t receive while staying in the holding cell.

“He broke down,” Gooden said. “He was like, ‘They’re killing us. My liver is killing me. I’m pooping out a lot of blood. I’m so scared.’”

De la Cruz didn’t receive any medical help while he was detained at 26 Federal Plaza, Gooden said. Eventually, he was rushed to the hospital, she said, where she wasn’t allowed to speak with him.

De la Cruz was eventually transferred to a facility in Louisiana, where he is currently being held. Attorneys at the New York Legal Assistance Group have filed a lawsuit advocating for his release.

Concerns have arisen about ICE detaining immigrants for days in short-term holding facilities elsewhere across the country.

A lawsuit filed last week in California claims that ICE is holding immigrants in another “processing center” in a basement in downtown Los Angeles — in what the lawsuit describes as “dungeon-like facilities,” with overcrowded, windowless rooms holding dozens of detainees.

Some rooms are so cramped that detainees can’t sit or lie down for hours at a time, the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit also alleges that detainees lack necessary food, medical care and access to legal counsel. New York Attorney General Letitia James and attorneys general for 17 states filed a brief in support of that lawsuit.

More detention space is coming

On Tuesday, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Goldman observed immigration court hearings and arrests inside 26 Federal Plaza.

While speaking to members of the press outside afterward, Goldman shared testimonies of migrants he said had been detained inside, who complained of overcrowded conditions and insufficient food and water.

Lander and Williams urged New Yorkers and elected officials to visit the building and observe immigration court hearings and subsequent ICE arrests. Lander was arrested last month while escorting a man away from his immigration court hearing.

Under President Donald Trump, ICE has ramped up immigration arrests, while at once contending with a shortage of detention space. As of the end of June, nearly 58,000 people were being held in ICE detention centers, according to the latest agency data — far exceeding ICE’s current detention capacity of 41,000 beds.

Immigrants without criminal backgrounds have been among the fastest-growing groups of ICE detainees. Less than a third of ICE detainees, 28.5%, are convicted criminals, according to the data. Another quarter have pending criminal charges and the rest have no criminal histories.

Trump’s signature “big, beautiful” domestic policy bill, recently signed into law, includes about $170 billion to support the administration’s immigration crackdown. That includes about $45 billion for immigration detention centers, which the American Immigration Council estimates will allow ICE to expand its detention capacity to 116,000 beds.

Jessica Gould contributed reporting.

This story was updated with comment from the Department of Homeland Security.

It’s Bastille Day in France! & More, In Peace & Justice History for 7/14

July 14, 1789
Bastille Day in France: Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops stormed and dismantled the Bastille, a former royal fortress converted to a state prison, that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchy. This dramatic action was proof that power no longer resided in the King as God’s representative, but in the people, and signaled the beginning of the French Revolution and the First Republic.

Bastille Day  for kids
July 14, 1798
A mere 22 years after the Declaration of Independence, Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a federal crime to “. . . unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States . . . or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States . . . .”
The Declaration: “…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government….”
“An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States” 
July 14, 1887
Adrian C. “Cap” Anson, both manager and captain of the Chicago Whitestockings (National League), refused to let his baseball team take the field as long as the Newark Little Giants included their starting pitcher, George Stovey, an African-American, in the lineup. “Get that nigger off the field!” Anson was heard to say. Newark refused to allow Anson to dictate the use of their personnel, but the game was ruled a forfeit to Chicago. At the time there were only 20 black players in all of professional baseball.
The same day, the directors of the International League (which included Newark) barred any of their teams from hiring black players in the future. By the following year there were only six black players left on all the teams in four leagues. All-black teams were formed, but the last of them, the Acme Colored Giants from Celeron, New York, of the Iron and Oil (I&0) League, stopped playing in 1898. No African-American would play in white organized baseball again until Jackie Robinson nearly 50 years later.
July 14, 1955
The Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 became law, the first in a series of laws that ultimately became the Clean Air Act in 1963.
This first law simply provided funding to the Public Health Service to conduct research.

History of the Clean Air Act 
July 14, 1958

King Faisal II
A group of Iraqi army officers staged a coup in Iraq and overthrew the monarchy of King Faisal II (who had ascended to the throne at age four). The new government, led by Abdul Karim el Qasim, was ousted in 1963 by a coup helped by the CIA and led by the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party—later dominated by Saddam Hussein. 
Read more 

DHS Tells Police That Common Protest Activities Are ‘Violent Tactics’

That pesky thing called the US CONSTITUTION says that the people have a right to protest the government.  The last ten or more years the federal government has been trying to restrain the rights of the people to protest or have their voices heard.  This is another example.  Hugs

https://www.wired.com/story/dhs-tells-police-that-common-protest-activities-are-violent-tactics/

DHS is urging law enforcement to treat even skateboarding and livestreaming as signs of violent intent during a protest, turning everyday behavior into a pretext for police action.

The Department of Homeland Security is urging local police to consider a wide range of protest activity as violent tactics, including mundane acts like riding a bike or livestreaming a police encounter, WIRED has learned.

Threat bulletins issued during last month’s “No Kings” protests warn that the US government’s aggressive immigration raids are almost certain to accelerate domestic unrest, with DHS saying there’s a “high likeliness” more Americans will soon turn against the agency, which could trigger confrontations near federal sites.

Blaming intense media coverage and backlash to the US military deployment in Los Angeles, DHS expects the demonstrations to “continue and grow across the nation” as protesters focused on other issues shift to immigration, following a broad “embracement of anti-ICE messaging.”

The bulletins—first obtained by the national security nonprofit Property of the People through public records requests—warn that officers could face assaults with fireworks and improvised weapons: paint-filled fire extinguishers, smoke grenades, and projectiles like bottles and rocks.

At the same time, the guidance urges officers to consider a range of nonviolent behavior and common protest gear—like masks, flashlights, and cameras—as potential precursors to violence, telling officers to prepare “from the point of view of an adversary.”

Protesters on bicycles, skateboards, or even “on foot” are framed as potential “scouts” conducting reconnaissance or searching for “items to be used as weapons.” Livestreaming is listed alongside “doxxing” as a “tactic” for “threatening” police. Online posters are cast as ideological recruiters—or as participants in “surveillance sharing.”

One list of “violent tactics” shared by the Los Angeles–based Joint Regional Intelligence Center—part of a post-9/11 fusion network—includes both protesters’ attempts to avoid identification and efforts to identify police. The memo also alleges that face recognition, normally a tool of law enforcement, was used against officers.

Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, says the government has no business treating constitutionally protected activities—like observing or documenting police—as threats.

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

“Exercising those rights shouldn’t be justification for adverse action or suspicion by the government,” Eidelman says. Labeling something as harmless as skateboarding at a protest as a violent threat is “disturbing and dangerous,” she adds, and could “easily lead to excessive force against people who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights.”

“The DHS report repeatedly conflates basic protest, organizing, and journalism with terroristic violence, thereby justifying ever more authoritarian measures by law enforcement,” says Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People. “It should be sobering, if unsurprising, that the Trump regime’s response to mass criticism of its police state tactics is to escalate those tactics.”

Fusion centers like JRIC play a central role in how police understand protest movements. The intelligence they produce is rapidly disseminated and draws heavily on open-source data. It often reflects broad, risk-averse assumptions and includes fragmentary and unverified information. In the absence of concrete threats, bulletins often turn to ideological language and social media activity as evidence of emerging risks, even when tied to lawful expression.

DHS’s risk-based approach reflects a broader shift in US law enforcement shaped by post-9/11 security priorities—one that elevates perceived intent over demonstrable wrongdoing and uses behavior cues, affiliations, and other potentially predictive indicators to justify early intervention and expanded surveillance.

A year ago, DHS warned that immigration-related grievances were driving a spike in threats against judges, migrants, and law enforcement, predicting that new laws and high-profile crackdowns would further radicalize individuals. In February, another fusion center reported renewed calls for violence against police and government officials, citing backlash to perceived federal overreach and identifying then-upcoming protests and court rulings as likely triggers.

At times, the sprawling predictions may appear prescient, echoing real-world flashpoints: In Alvarado, Texas, an alleged coordinated ambush at a detention center this week drew ICE agents out with fireworks before gunfire erupted on July 4, leaving a police officer shot in the neck. (Nearly a dozen arrests have been made, at least 10 on charges of attempted murder.)

In advance of protests, agencies increasingly rely on intelligence forecasting to identify groups seen as ideologically subversive or tactically unpredictable. Demonstrators labeled “transgressive” may be monitored, detained without charges, or met with force.

Social movement scholars widely recognize the introduction of preemptive protest policing as a departure from late-20th century approaches that prioritized de-escalation, communication, and facilitation. In its place, authorities have increasingly emphasized control of demonstrations through early intervention, surveillance, and disruption—monitoring organizers, restricting public space, and responding proactively based on perceived risks rather than actual conduct.

Infrastructure initially designed to combat terrorism now often serves to monitor street-level protests, with virtual investigations units targeting demonstrators for scrutiny based on online expression. Fusion centers, funded through DHS grants, have increasingly issued bulletins flagging protest slogans, references to police brutality, and solidarity events as signs of possible violence—disseminating these assessments to law enforcement absent clear evidence of criminal intent.

Surveillance of protesters has included the construction of dossiers (known as “baseball cards”) with analysts using high-tech tools to compile subjects’ social media posts, affiliations, personal networks, and public statements critical of government policy.

Obtained exclusively by WIRED, a DHS dossier on Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia graduate student and anti-war activist, shows that analysts drew information from Canary Mission, a shadowy blacklist that anonymously profiles critics of Israeli military action and supporters of Palestinian rights.

In federal court Wednesday, a senior DHS official acknowledged that material from Canary Mission had been used to compile more than 100 dossiers on students and scholars, despite the site’s ideological slant, mysterious funding, and unverifiable sourcing.

Threat bulletins can also prime officers to anticipate conflict, shaping their posture and decisions on the ground. In the wake of violent 2020 protests, the San Jose Police Department in California cited the “numerous intelligence bulletins” it received from its local regional fusion center, DHS, and the FBI, among others, as central to understanding “the mindset of the officers in the days leading up to and throughout the civil unrest.”

Specific bulletins cited by the SJPD—whose protest response prompted a $620,000 settlement this month—framed the demonstrations as possible cover for “domestic terrorists,” warned of opportunistic attacks on law enforcement and promoted an “unconfirmed report” of U-Haul vans purportedly being used to ferry weapons and explosives.

Subsequent reporting in the wake of BlueLeaks—a 269-gigabyte dump of internal police documents obtained by a source identifying as the hacktivist group Anonymous and published by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets—found federal bulletins riddled with unverified claims, vague threat language, and outright misinformation, including alerts about a parody website that supposedly paid protesters and accepted bitcoin to set cars on fire, despite a clear banner labeling the site “FAKE.”

Threat alerts—unclassified and routinely accessible to the press—can help law enforcement shape public perception of protests before they begin, laying the groundwork to legitimize aggressive police responses. Unverified DHS warnings about domestic terrorists infiltrating demonstrations in 2020, publicly echoed by the agency’s acting secretary on Twitter, were widely circulated and amplified in media coverage.

Americans are generally opposed to aggressive protest crackdowns, but when they do support them, fear is often the driving force. Experimental research suggests that support for the use of coercive tactics hinges less on what protesters actually do than on how they’re portrayed—by officials, the media, and through racial and ideological frames.

Dell Cameron is an investigative reporter from Texas covering privacy and national security. He’s the recipient of multiple Society of Professional Journalists awards and is co-recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting. Previously, he was a senior reporter at Gizmodo and a staff writer for the Daily … Read More

YOU HAVE THE LEGAL AUTHORITY, F*****G USE IT

One voice was yelling he was a US citizen.  The conditions are horrible.  They get their drinking water from the toilet.   Maxwell Frost is a progressive treasure.  Hugs