He’s misunderstanding what tyranny is. Tyranny isn’t when the police state arrests you for criticizing them. Tyranny is when Peter Sweden or whoever is suspended from Twitter for being racist. (Said in a 2018 Libertarian voice).
>Keighley made no mention of Balogun’s specific actions at the rally, but noted the marchers’ anti-police statements, such as “oink oink bang bang” and “the only good pig is a pig that’s dead”. The agent also mentioned Balogun’s Facebook posts calling a murder suspect in a police officer’s death a “hero” and expressing “solidarity” with the man who killed officers in Texas when he posted: “They deserve what they got.”
Yeah he obviously does not know why they were paying attention to him!
Keighley, however, later admitted the FBI had no evidence of Balogun making any specific threats about harming police.
That's the next sentence. It's not about why they were looking at him, it's about why they arrested him, and kept him detained.
“Sometimes when you couldn’t prove somebody was a terrorist, it’s because they weren’t a terrorist,” he said, adding that prosecutors’ argument that Balogun was too dangerous to be released on bail was “astonishing”.
“It seems this effort was designed to punish him for his political activity rather than actually solve any sort of security issue.”
I'm not sure how this wasn't dismissed fairly quickly as an infringement of his first amendment rights.
"You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."
This was extrajudicial punishment for expressing anti-police sentiments. They were able to take away his freedom, job, home, vehicle, and family, without even going to trial. By the time the prosecution was forced to drop the case for lack of evidence, their mission had already been accomplished.
They abused the justice system to punish prior to conviction, all based on their perception of his unforgivable blackness.
Dude was posting on FB. In the absence of a specific threat, he's like a million other people every day saying stuff on social media. I'm sure plenty of police officers posted horrific jokes in public and private channels and they are authorized to use deadly force and are totally unaccountable.
The cops here are the brave thin blue line going after an internet poster because their posts hurt their feelings.
That's what they nailed him for. I'm 100% sure this isn't the only thing he did to be investigated. You don't end up in jail for saying "fuck the cops", otherwise half the US would be in jail for that.
> I'm 100% sure this isn't the only thing he did to be investigated. You don't end up in jail for saying "fuck the cops", otherwise half the US would be in jail for that.
So you assertion is that if this happened once, it must be happening everywhere?
For that to be true, it would mean there is absolutely no change in any of these systems, otherwise there could never be a first time.
It also means that all laws have to be applied correctly and evenly across the united states, and that exceptions can't happen, and law enforcement can't make a mistake
Because if laws are applied unevenly in some locations, or in some circumstances, or are applied incorrectly, or if this is the first (or the first of a few to get widely publicized), then it's very easy for this to be entirely about his publicized views combined with something above (or something else not covered).
I see no reason why this can't be a localized overreach, or the beginning of a new trend. I'm not sure it is, but I'm definitely not 100% sure it's not.
If you would like to see what the United States will look like in 2024, look at Türkiye in 2018. Watching it all unfold is terrifying. All major countries right now are switching from Republics to single-man rule populists.
True, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility of the US sliding into a more authoritarian regime. The President is given a surprising amount of power, all things considered.
Of course, it sounds vaguely hysterical to bring this up in the era of Trump, but if there's one thing he's proved inconclusively it's that the US political system depends on polite adherence to tradition over hard and fast rules a lot more than many of us thought.
Cultures change, governments change. The United States has different values, and cultures, and government history; but they are two sides of the same coin.
The mythology of the meritocracy of the great "American Republic" is pretty hard to defend in a post 9/11 world. Listening to Republicans glow about Donald and hide his flaws is like listening to Kemalists glow about Ataturk or AKP-supporters rave about Tayipp.
Here is what I see as the very striking similarities which are already equal or rapidly equalizing:
- Single-man rule. (In both systems decrees are almost limitless and have replaced the legislation process. In the US it's DNC/NRA^WGOP, in Turkey it's the coalition of CHP&&CHP&&IYI vs the AKP&&MHP coalition. When representatives always vote down party lines, then you really have single man rule.
- Active war against the press. America is just a few years behind this, and this article itself is a sign that Trump is emulating Putin and Erdogan. This isn't just a Trump thing, Obama's administration did the same, but just more quietly
- Religion being respected and advocated by the government
- Constant pro-war/support our troops rhetoric
- Rapidly increasing display of flags and patriotic slogans
- Unwarranted search and seizure
- Endless state of emergency (you call it the PATRIOT act)
- Violent crackdowns on protestors, supporting nationalists who attack/murder said protestors. Compare the AKP patriots in the Gezi protests to Trump's "Very fine, very nice people" in Charleston
Really, you won't notice it until you're too late, and if you support the ruling power, then you probably will never notice it, especially if you profit from it.
The only real difference I see is that Tayipp wants conservative Islam to be the primary value of the "republic", and Trump wants it to be business (but is happy to give almost unlimited power to Evangelicals).
Different authoritarian styles, but still authoritarian. Any semblance of democracy ended the day the PATRIOT act was signed.
No tradition can survive beyond the lifespan of a man, unless it is passed down to the children.
The ones who voted in 2016 are not children of the revolution. They aren't even children of the children of the revolution. They grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school, and standing for the national anthem before every sporting event.
It isn't the same authoritarian cultural tradition, but America is very authoritarian at the median. It thankfully retains a long, fat, and largely disorganized tail pointing towards libertarian, that moderates the laws and policies that are able to be enacted.
Even now, some people clamor for censorship, establishment of religion, restrictions on the press, gun control, expanded police powers, punishments without due process, abolition of the electoral college, for-profit prison labor, etc. There isn't a right crucial to liberty that some number of Americans isn't shouting to repeal and abolish. But they don't have the votes. Not yet.
More voters are being born every day, and they are being taught to believe in certain things, so they will vote their beliefs when they grow to voting age. It can happen here. It can all fall apart within a single generation.
What is the line between exercise of free speech and incitement of violence?
If a white supremacist openly advocates for the murder of Jews and helps organise armed militias, should that person be tracked by the FBI and prosecuted?
If a high school student openly advocates for the murder of teachers and flaunts his access to firearms and knives, should that person be tracked by the FBI and prosecuted?
I think you are being downvoted because you only read the headline.
I'm with you that it is ok for the FBI to track people's public comments when they fit a risk profile, and to track their private communications with a warrent.
But in this case, the problem is that this man was arrested and charged with a vague terrorism thing for what amounts to facebook posts expressing sympathy with copkillers.
> this man was arrested and charged with a vague terrorism thing
Incorrect. He was charged with illegal possession of a firearm, that's a specific and not vague thing. He was denied bail as a potential threat based on him expressing sympathy for copkillers.
His possession of firearms was legal, and the judge tossed that charge. They didn't come to his home because they suspected an illegally possessed firearm. It certainly appears that they came on a fishing expedition because he was "identified" as a threat. The FBI admitted a lack of any direct threat.
> They didn't come to his home because they suspected an illegally possessed firearm.
I was curious about this as well, the Foreign Policy article has more detail:
"In his affidavit, Keighley describes learning that Daniels placed a firearm in his checked luggage — in compliance with airline regulations, according to the defense — which was then delayed, before being returned to his home address in Dallas.
The FBI obtained a search warrant on Dec. 7, based on Daniels’s prior conviction, and the raid took place five days later."
Interesting, nice find and thanks- I was curious as well. I guess the warrant was wrongly issued and pursued then, given that the judge tossed that charge out. If that is the case, it really seems to boil down to intimidation.
Have their door kicked down at some odd hour in a show of force/intimidation? Whoever's responsible should at least get their ass chewed out by the boss and be assigned shitty jobs for a few months.
>Per their statement, Balogon was in leadership roles with Geronimo Tactical, Huey P. Newton Gun Club, and Guerrilla Mainframe. Let’s take a look at these three groups.
Geronimo Tactical:
>Instagram account, which has almost four thousand followers, is much more straight forward. It simply has a quote from the Communist mass murderer Mao Zedong that says "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun", a PayPal link, and LOTS of pictures of the group conducting paramilitary training.
Huey P. Newton Gun Club (HPNGC):
>"In essence we take responsibility for the growth and development for our community which is an element to our nationalist ideals. We understand and know we will not win every person over to our methods and practices, however we accept we must walk this difficult path towards eventual armed struggle."
>"We are servants above anything else and more than militants we employ the revolutionary ideals of nationalism. Nationalism will only organize the talents that we currently possess as a people and aid our function as a nation. The beginning of this tasks is to arm the body and minds of black people in America in which the Huey P. Newton Gun Club intends to be a part of."
>HPNGC faced a lot of scrutiny when it was revealed that Micah Xavier Johnson, who ambushed and killed five police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, Texas in 2016, may have been affiliated with the militant black nationalist group. They have also come under fire for brandishing their weapons and confronting employees at a Dallas gas station.
Guerrilla Mainframe:
>According to their website, Guerrilla Mainframe is another militia group founded in 2008 in Dallas, Texas. The organizations core foundations are Pan African with teachings from the likes of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure, both African Marxist political leaders.
>We support the abolishment of the U.S. Constitution as a political right, and favor a government based on the needs of the people.
>We want all freedom fighters/prisoners of war to be freed immediately to rejoin the peoples struggle for revolution.
>We demand the redistribution of land, power, and resources be returned to exploited people around the world. We are unified against the evils of capitalism, fascism, and imperialism in all forms.
>We believe in Revolution, by this meaning the Total overthrow of the Capitalist System by direct struggle conflict.
Some of Balogun's social media posts:
>On July, 6th 2017, he changed his profile picture to an image of Micah Xavier Johnson in honor of the one year anniversary of the day he ambushed and murdered five Dallas police officers in cold blood. On that same day he said "Comrades and Family tomorrow is #ClaimMicahXDay in memory of a great sacrifice made by a local Dallas Revolutionary! Zalute"
>On July, 7th 2017, the one year anniversary of the murders of Senior Cpl. Lorne Ahrens, Officer Michael Krol, Sgt. Michael Smith, Officer Brent Thompson, and Officer Patricio "Patrick" Zamarripa; he said "Today one year ago one Black Man brought Dallas Pig Department to their knees. #77”. On that same day he posted pictures of himself as well as pictures of Micah’s dead body with the caption “I’m wearing brown and khaki in solidarity for Micah X #77".
I literally have family (white) about as far right as that guy is left and they haven’t been arrested for their speech. Literally including violence against cops stuff except framed from the right wing angle (i.e. property rights and 2nd amendment rather than racial oppression, standard NRA/3%er fare). They’re more likely to get a visit from the NYT for a glowing interview about what’s its like to live in Real America than a visit from the FBI.
Not the say that I agree with either of those movements, but there's a big difference in terms of threat between advocating defense of constitutional rights and advocating militant overthrow of the United States government and the capitalist system (to be replaced with a black ethno-nationalist state). The latter is what the groups that Balogun is a member/leader of says it is preparing for (and has already carried out in some cases, see the article).
Okay, but what's the point? You could have posted the link by itself if you were just trying to provide additional information, so I feel like you're trying to make some sort of argument by choosing these and repeating them in your comment, but you've left that part out.
> The point is to provide some counterbalance to the Guardian's biased framing of this case.
> The excerpts are provided for the reader's convenience to quickly convey the gist of the article.
Sure, and they do that. The question was why you thought the article was worth including, and there could have been multiple answers, so I decided to ask. Perhaps you thought it was self evident, but that's often not as clear in a forums as people would like to think.
As to your reason for inclusion, I don't really see the Guardian's representation all that biased, because I think the points you referenced are for the most part irrelevant. In this country, we're supposed to have a right to free speech. He was detained for months and prosecuted for his speech. What that speech was advocating isn't really the point.
I do think it's useful information to have though, so thanks.
Looks to me from far away that in these disunited states of Amerigo Vespucci, when white people have guns, they're the salt of the earth and your president is behind them proud, and when black people have guns, they're to be hounded.
Sad!
I suspect he got the attention of the FBI by being publicly vocal about his hatred of police but was arrested for having a gun when he was prohibited because of his conviction for domestic assault.
Thank you for saving me from going on an anti-free speech tirade. And now I see the article has been flagged, presumably because the headline is misleading.
The FBI itself admitted that nothing he wrote could be characterized as a threat. However vitriolic, non-threatening speech should never, in a free society, trigger law enforcement action. And note that the gun-possession charge was evidently flimsy enough that a judge dismissed it before trial.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 18.6 ms ] threadYeah he obviously does not know why they were paying attention to him!
That's the next sentence. It's not about why they were looking at him, it's about why they arrested him, and kept him detained.
“Sometimes when you couldn’t prove somebody was a terrorist, it’s because they weren’t a terrorist,” he said, adding that prosecutors’ argument that Balogun was too dangerous to be released on bail was “astonishing”.
“It seems this effort was designed to punish him for his political activity rather than actually solve any sort of security issue.”
I'm not sure how this wasn't dismissed fairly quickly as an infringement of his first amendment rights.
This was extrajudicial punishment for expressing anti-police sentiments. They were able to take away his freedom, job, home, vehicle, and family, without even going to trial. By the time the prosecution was forced to drop the case for lack of evidence, their mission had already been accomplished.
They abused the justice system to punish prior to conviction, all based on their perception of his unforgivable blackness.
The cops here are the brave thin blue line going after an internet poster because their posts hurt their feelings.
So you assertion is that if this happened once, it must be happening everywhere?
For that to be true, it would mean there is absolutely no change in any of these systems, otherwise there could never be a first time.
It also means that all laws have to be applied correctly and evenly across the united states, and that exceptions can't happen, and law enforcement can't make a mistake
Because if laws are applied unevenly in some locations, or in some circumstances, or are applied incorrectly, or if this is the first (or the first of a few to get widely publicized), then it's very easy for this to be entirely about his publicized views combined with something above (or something else not covered).
I see no reason why this can't be a localized overreach, or the beginning of a new trend. I'm not sure it is, but I'm definitely not 100% sure it's not.
Of course, it sounds vaguely hysterical to bring this up in the era of Trump, but if there's one thing he's proved inconclusively it's that the US political system depends on polite adherence to tradition over hard and fast rules a lot more than many of us thought.
The mythology of the meritocracy of the great "American Republic" is pretty hard to defend in a post 9/11 world. Listening to Republicans glow about Donald and hide his flaws is like listening to Kemalists glow about Ataturk or AKP-supporters rave about Tayipp.
Here is what I see as the very striking similarities which are already equal or rapidly equalizing:
- Single-man rule. (In both systems decrees are almost limitless and have replaced the legislation process. In the US it's DNC/NRA^WGOP, in Turkey it's the coalition of CHP&&CHP&&IYI vs the AKP&&MHP coalition. When representatives always vote down party lines, then you really have single man rule. - Active war against the press. America is just a few years behind this, and this article itself is a sign that Trump is emulating Putin and Erdogan. This isn't just a Trump thing, Obama's administration did the same, but just more quietly - Religion being respected and advocated by the government - Constant pro-war/support our troops rhetoric - Rapidly increasing display of flags and patriotic slogans - Unwarranted search and seizure - Endless state of emergency (you call it the PATRIOT act) - Violent crackdowns on protestors, supporting nationalists who attack/murder said protestors. Compare the AKP patriots in the Gezi protests to Trump's "Very fine, very nice people" in Charleston
Really, you won't notice it until you're too late, and if you support the ruling power, then you probably will never notice it, especially if you profit from it.
The only real difference I see is that Tayipp wants conservative Islam to be the primary value of the "republic", and Trump wants it to be business (but is happy to give almost unlimited power to Evangelicals).
Different authoritarian styles, but still authoritarian. Any semblance of democracy ended the day the PATRIOT act was signed.
The ones who voted in 2016 are not children of the revolution. They aren't even children of the children of the revolution. They grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day in school, and standing for the national anthem before every sporting event.
It isn't the same authoritarian cultural tradition, but America is very authoritarian at the median. It thankfully retains a long, fat, and largely disorganized tail pointing towards libertarian, that moderates the laws and policies that are able to be enacted.
Even now, some people clamor for censorship, establishment of religion, restrictions on the press, gun control, expanded police powers, punishments without due process, abolition of the electoral college, for-profit prison labor, etc. There isn't a right crucial to liberty that some number of Americans isn't shouting to repeal and abolish. But they don't have the votes. Not yet.
More voters are being born every day, and they are being taught to believe in certain things, so they will vote their beliefs when they grow to voting age. It can happen here. It can all fall apart within a single generation.
If a white supremacist openly advocates for the murder of Jews and helps organise armed militias, should that person be tracked by the FBI and prosecuted?
If a high school student openly advocates for the murder of teachers and flaunts his access to firearms and knives, should that person be tracked by the FBI and prosecuted?
"the FBI had no evidence of Balogun making any specific threats about harming police"
Absent of any actual connections your post just sounds like whataboutism.
I'm with you that it is ok for the FBI to track people's public comments when they fit a risk profile, and to track their private communications with a warrent.
But in this case, the problem is that this man was arrested and charged with a vague terrorism thing for what amounts to facebook posts expressing sympathy with copkillers.
But in the US, it is your legal right to do that.
Incorrect. He was charged with illegal possession of a firearm, that's a specific and not vague thing. He was denied bail as a potential threat based on him expressing sympathy for copkillers.
I was curious about this as well, the Foreign Policy article has more detail:
"In his affidavit, Keighley describes learning that Daniels placed a firearm in his checked luggage — in compliance with airline regulations, according to the defense — which was then delayed, before being returned to his home address in Dallas.
The FBI obtained a search warrant on Dec. 7, based on Daniels’s prior conviction, and the raid took place five days later."
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-texas...
This indicates the warrant was indeed for illegal possession.
Prosecuted? Not unless it violates the law
Have their door kicked down at some odd hour in a show of force/intimidation? Whoever's responsible should at least get their ass chewed out by the boss and be assigned shitty jobs for a few months.
Geronimo Tactical:
>Instagram account, which has almost four thousand followers, is much more straight forward. It simply has a quote from the Communist mass murderer Mao Zedong that says "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun", a PayPal link, and LOTS of pictures of the group conducting paramilitary training.
Huey P. Newton Gun Club (HPNGC):
>"In essence we take responsibility for the growth and development for our community which is an element to our nationalist ideals. We understand and know we will not win every person over to our methods and practices, however we accept we must walk this difficult path towards eventual armed struggle."
>"We are servants above anything else and more than militants we employ the revolutionary ideals of nationalism. Nationalism will only organize the talents that we currently possess as a people and aid our function as a nation. The beginning of this tasks is to arm the body and minds of black people in America in which the Huey P. Newton Gun Club intends to be a part of."
>HPNGC faced a lot of scrutiny when it was revealed that Micah Xavier Johnson, who ambushed and killed five police officers during a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, Texas in 2016, may have been affiliated with the militant black nationalist group. They have also come under fire for brandishing their weapons and confronting employees at a Dallas gas station.
Guerrilla Mainframe:
>According to their website, Guerrilla Mainframe is another militia group founded in 2008 in Dallas, Texas. The organizations core foundations are Pan African with teachings from the likes of Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure, both African Marxist political leaders.
>We support the abolishment of the U.S. Constitution as a political right, and favor a government based on the needs of the people.
>We want all freedom fighters/prisoners of war to be freed immediately to rejoin the peoples struggle for revolution.
>We demand the redistribution of land, power, and resources be returned to exploited people around the world. We are unified against the evils of capitalism, fascism, and imperialism in all forms.
>We believe in Revolution, by this meaning the Total overthrow of the Capitalist System by direct struggle conflict.
Some of Balogun's social media posts:
>On July, 6th 2017, he changed his profile picture to an image of Micah Xavier Johnson in honor of the one year anniversary of the day he ambushed and murdered five Dallas police officers in cold blood. On that same day he said "Comrades and Family tomorrow is #ClaimMicahXDay in memory of a great sacrifice made by a local Dallas Revolutionary! Zalute"
>On July, 7th 2017, the one year anniversary of the murders of Senior Cpl. Lorne Ahrens, Officer Michael Krol, Sgt. Michael Smith, Officer Brent Thompson, and Officer Patricio "Patrick" Zamarripa; he said "Today one year ago one Black Man brought Dallas Pig Department to their knees. #77”. On that same day he posted pictures of himself as well as pictures of Micah’s dead body with the caption “I’m wearing brown and khaki in solidarity for Micah X #77".
Source for all of the above is https://farleftwatch.com/2018/01/08/far-left-militia-leader-... which itself provides proper sourcing for these claims.
The excerpts are provided for the reader's convenience to quickly convey the gist of the article.
If you want to know more or verify the accuracy of this information, you can visit the link.
> The excerpts are provided for the reader's convenience to quickly convey the gist of the article.
Sure, and they do that. The question was why you thought the article was worth including, and there could have been multiple answers, so I decided to ask. Perhaps you thought it was self evident, but that's often not as clear in a forums as people would like to think.
As to your reason for inclusion, I don't really see the Guardian's representation all that biased, because I think the points you referenced are for the most part irrelevant. In this country, we're supposed to have a right to free speech. He was detained for months and prosecuted for his speech. What that speech was advocating isn't really the point.
I do think it's useful information to have though, so thanks.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/30/is-a-court-case-in-texas...