Security was there in yellow vests with radios. Allegedly they were supposed to be local activists who were trained by Indivisible in safety and de-escalation, but they definitely looked more like either off duty cops or feds.
They were dispersed through the crowd, and at one point they got together in a huddle to discuss some stuff near the group I was with. We kind of eavesdropped bc they seemed so sheisty, and ended up overhearing them saying they had put detail on somebody in the crowd who seemed suspicious to them.
I’m not sure they were actually with any security Indivisible had trained, but maybe? They also could have been feds who just got yellow vests and were impersonating activist security, but they definitely weren’t “local activists.” I would be curious to know what kind of security people in blue states saw at their rallies/marches yesterday?
Given the murder last time out, it’d be gross incompetence if organisers hadn’t made sure of a robust security presence.
I honestly appreciate security, and there were also uniformed NOPD there moving through the crowd.
What is concerning to me is the idea of federal agents working undercover as activists.
I say that as someone who has kind of a weird view on law enforcement, and federal law enforcement in particular (DHS and everything post 9/11 aside bc that’s a whole other story). I’m definitely not the most extreme radical leftist when it comes to law enforcement, but I’m also a realist, and I can certainly understand why people feel the way they do.
My own mom grew up in Meridian, MS and witnessed some horrific nightmare inducing shit as a kid. The FBI came in and investigated disappearances and crimes that local police refused to investigate and sometimes had been directly involved in. Even when I was growing up, and until recently, the federal government was still going into small towns, and having to intervene when civil rights were being violated. So from that perspective, I do actually have a lot of respect for what they did.
At the same time, they were just doing their jobs. Or at least that is what they’re supposed to do. The FBI itself was created by a lawless authoritarian on a power trip who always tried to claim justified reasons for violating civil rights. He even targeted, and spied on one of the greatest leaders of the civil rights movement. The FBI also murdered Fred Hampton, and even before Trump decided we didn’t need federal protections for civil rights anymore, they were still violating rights and spying on dissidents and protesters.
So even if there might be good individuals among the organization, (or at least if there used to be), the organization itself has repeatedly violated the trust of the American people. Pretending that you can just blindly trust any police or government organization is and always has been naive and foolish, and there are too many examples to prove it.
Continuing to accept deception and surveillance by the government as a necessity to keep us safe, is exactly how we got into this mess in the first place. We cannot keep giving up our own liberties in the name of safety. If the threat level at the protests honestly required federal agents to be present, then it should have been an open and honest presence.
I’m not saying that people would have been happy about it, but if the government could give people a reason to trust them (for example, by just offering to be present as a safety precaution, without having to rely on deception, or to spy or gather intel on protesters) it might actually go a long way towards addressing what people were protesting yesterday. Or at least if there was credible evidence of a threat, then it could have been shared with national organizers who definitely have the connections, and should have been able to figure out some kind of an alternative to having the government use the same tactics that continue to deteriorate trust.