Judge rules New York can’t ban federal agents from wearing face coverings
New York can’t ban federal agents from wearing face coverings or require that they wear visible identification, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The ruling comes after a federal judge earlier this year blocked a similar law in California that was enacted after the Trump administration aggressively worked to increase immigration arrests.
For the Northern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino wrote that while New York “appears to be well-intentioned in its pursuit of transparent policing,” that’s not what the court is deciding.
“The issue now before the Court is about constitutionality—not transparency or preferable policy decisions,” she wrote.
25 replies
If all you need is an unmarked SUV while wearing your own choice of warfare-like clothing complete will face masks and guns to abduct people off the street, how long until ICE agents and/or their families are being outed and abducted? I am not advocating for people to do this, only pointing out that once all the checks and balances of a civilized law-based society are removed, no one is protected.
Look up how northern states gave the middle finger to slave enforcement by the federal government in the past. Look up how New Hampshire gave the middle finger to George fucking Washington to protect Ona Judge from him. If the law is unjust, fuck the law. Come on yanks, learn from your own goddamn resistance history.
Great to know that legally no one can be banned from wearing face coverings, so you don't have to comply when told to show your face based on this ruling.
Hopefully no masked people find this judge...
So weird how it was the end of civilization as we knew it when people were masking up (to protect others) during Covid. The Karens just about clawed their own eyes over it as they wailed and gnashed their teeth over this.
And now we have unidentified government thugs, with masks as part of their uniform, kidnapping and disappearing people, because FREEDUMB!
And all the Covid Karens are strangely silent.
Ok, so you could – mere theory – dress up as ICE agent, shoot an ICE agent because they abducted a family member, change clothes again (as long as you're not on camera), and they would have no way to tell who of them it was, sowing mistrust inside the organization?
Ok, Agent 47.
Usually you could say it wasn't official because no bullet is missing. But this is about the USA, so that index is probably useless 😁
Okay, then arrest them for impersonating law enforcement until they provide proper identification.
Sadly, blue wall of silence will surround this problem. Police will not intervene
More will start the more psychopathic they get
Someone doesn't understand how cops work...
There's enough cops watching ICE have no guard rails and they are honestly probably jealous. The cops that are dumb enough to wear Punisher logos without any sense of irony.
I'm not so sure. These fat, untrained losers ICE hires might not register as in-group to all cops. If the state administration will protect cops from the government, I think there will be more than a few willing to take ICE on.
Have you seen cops at anti-ICE protests? Have you seen police unions putting out statements of offense over an armed and poorly trained secret police force from outside the community racially profiling residents and breaking the 4th amendment? Have you seen conscientious cops resigning from police forces that support and cooperate with ICE?
No. There's no police outage at the outrageous perversion of law enforcement. If their theoretical ideals and beliefs in justice meant anything they'd be the profession most upset about this.
In reality, half are MAGA already and the rest don't think of the job as serving a higher ideal. Ask any of these assholes to do something legally questionable (legally being what these deferential courts say) and you'll get complaints about not politicizing their job, all while they stand watch to make sure the citizens of their community don't make life difficult for the air dropped army cosplayers from the organization using Nazi slogans.
They don't even need to put themselves in legal jeopardy. They could be out there right now pulling over every car without a license plate driving around suspiciously in a residential neighborhood. They could be IDing, every one of them to "verify they were federal agents" so all this lawbreaking is ok, requiring them to unmask so you can match their face to the ID, and recording it all on their body cameras. They get plenty creative about how to harass citizens. But they don't do anything like that to ICE. Because ACAB.
Cops in most cases are legally prevented from using their positions to make political statements, so that doesn't work as a test for where they stand on the issue. I don't expect cops to give up their livelihood to make a point any more than workers in any other job.
I fully admit that police unions all skew right and so do most cops, but I'm not willing to write them all off. They have to take orders from their superiors and ultimately the local government. They can't just unilaterally decide to take down ICE. It's about as realistic of an expectation as asking why protestors don't storm ICE facilities to free the prisoners.
Yes, ACAB, but I don't want to write off potential allies until we are sure which side they are on.
Cops make political statements all the time. They are happy to make their displeasure known. They regularly endorse candidates and proposed laws, both individually and through their unions. They grumble about marijuana, about prosecutors, and about any attempt at oversight. There is no legal prohibition against them speaking their mind. It might not be in the form of a strike, but when cops are unhappy there are plenty of news entities happy to spread their displeasure.
And this isn't a case of a random unrelated policy. This is directly about their profession and theoretically the ease with which they do their job. I don't expect bus drivers to take a stand about data centers, but I do expect them to stand up when policy makes their job dangerous to themselves and their riders.
Cops should be biased against this. They should be the friendly neighborhood officers there to protect the community of which they are a member. But they don't do anything. Because they wear the same Punisher skulls and desaturated flags the fascists love and wish they could just crack skulls without consequence as well.
They aren't fucking allies. If they were they'd have said or done literally anything to establish their opposition. They're not out there in numbers during their off time. Instead it's random people putting their bodies on the line, often at the tender mercies of these supposed allies in waiting. We know what side they're on, or at the very least which side they're not on.
Genuinely, I hope you're right.
I’m with you, not holding my breath but it would be cool to see these bigots have to fight the police apparatus they made so unimpeachable
Not only that but it's the kind of thing you can try to affect, to make fewer and fewer cops think of them as their in group.
I think someone masked who could be impersonating law enforcement should make state and local police fear for their life.
At the very least cops won't like the bad PR. ICE is mainly hitting liberal cities and those police have been trying really hard to recover some sense of public trust.
They just need to change it that state agencies can't work with federal agencies that do these types of policing. Not much different than what states like Texas have been doing with things the right don't like..
Those rules already exist and, since they have no real enforcement mechanism, are constantly ignored.
The fascists really like playing together, okay? They don't care if they have to break some rules to do so.
See what happens when you assume…