I would think that that would be the bare minimum requirement to enforce a no fly zone like this, and even then it’s not nearly enough. They certainly would never do such a thing though. Regardless, it won’t stop them from manhandling and arresting those who continue to fly drones in the presence of their vehicles.

Ok, so I would argue that this is likely completely unlawful. Certainly untenable. The legal justification for the restricting flight privileges over certain government buildings is due to the security needs of a location that similarly has restricted access to your person. In other words, you need special access to go in there, and similarly you need special access to look into there, thus the justification for the no fly zone.

But a government vehicle in motion in public has no more restrictions to observation than any other vehicle in public. There is no restriction to your presence around these vehicles, nor recording them with equipment on your person. In fact, recording government operations that you have legal access to has repeated been upheld as a 1st amendment protected activity so long as you aren’t interfering. Drone footage in public airspace does not constitute any more security access than one already possesses in a public space, where security is limited basically to entering the interior of the vehicle (and nothing a drone could see isn’t in plain view). There is, therefore, no legal justification for restricting flight privileges in those spaces.

The only reason that they are trying to restrict this is because they are already violating people’s 1st Amendment right to record their activities, knocking phones out of people’s hands, confiscating devices, threatening or actually arresting those recording, etc. They don’t want to be recorded while they kidnap, assault, beat up, and kill people, and it is much harder to knock down a camera attached to a drone 100 feet in the air. I say tough shit, fascists. It should be 100% protected activity. I cant wait for this to be struck down.

But also, how in the hell can someone be in violation of a no fly zone that constantly moves and and does so without any way to track it? How are you supposed to know that your drone is within HALF A MILE of a ICE vehicle, most of which are unmarked SUVs anyway. You could feasibly be standing right next to one and not know that you are. You could be flying your drone completely legally and then the no fly zone moves over your drone, likely with absolutely no way of even knowing that. It would make flying a drone a constant danger of spontaneously and unknowlingly breaking the law. No such law could ever be considered reasonable. It is far too broad.

Make Nazis afraid again

Schumer is alllllmost ready to write that strongly worded letter. He can practically taste the envelope glue.

That’s not true. You can’t kill someone with one of those Airzooka air blasters. Damn it I’ve tried. But yeah basically everything else…

OK so two things.

1. They say “may” because it is not definitive that there is a causal link. It could just as easily be (and frankly, likely might be) a reverse cause where growing depression makes you less inclined to worry about purchasing and preparing whole foods yourself, or that the link might be correlated to another cause like financial troubles which cause both depression and more cheap and convenient food choices. Maybe the food does cause depression but that is not yet conclusive.

2. “Processed food companies are fucking criminals” so… there’s a lot to unpack here. Are you suggesting that they KNOW it causes depression and make it anyway? Or even that they intentionally make it cause depression? Because there is absolutely no reason to think that, if it even provably did. They’re guilty of contributing to the general unhealthy dietary habits and all the other ethical problems that come with a profits over people business model that applies to nearly every capitalist business. But that doesnt seem to be the source of your comment.

This is valuable research and is a step towards understanding how food and mental health may be connected. But you are jumping to all sorts of conclusions, my guy.

One of the most evil in the history of the US government. Which, frankly, it’s a high bar.

They are legally vulnerable. The problem is that libel/defamation requires several specific tests to prove, some of which often dont apply to such situations.

1. They have to make a factual assertion that is demonstrably untrue. It cant be just an opinion. (This one heavily depends on the specifics what is claimed)

2. It must be publicated or otherwise spread to a third party. (This one obviously is the easiest test in this case)

3. The claim must clearly be of and concerning the plaintiff, i.e. the one claiming to have been defamed. (Again, this one depends. When they are talking about “these people”, “the protesters”, etc. but not specific individuals, this gets very hard to prove they were even including any specific individuals)

4. If the person claiming defamation is a public figure, they have to prove they either knew their claim was untrue or that they had a reckless disregard for the truth. If they are a private figure they have to prove that they at least acted with negligence when making their claim, meaning they didnt take reasonable steps to verify information. (This can also be a sticking point as they may claim that they had “good sources,” like the federal government, that verified their claims)

5. The claim has to have caused actual damages to the person, such as if their livelihood was harmed or receiving death threats. It can’t just be their feelings hurt or people being mad at them. (Again, situational for the people, their job, their situation, and the reactions of others.

Personally I think actual damages is a bad bar because that depends on factors beyond the defamer’s actions. I think the bar should be the reasonabulity of the risk of damages, instead. Like they should’ve known calling someone a looter may lose them a job, regardless of whether the actually lose a job or even had one already, right?

But anyway, a lot of the lies they tell have just enough wiggle room to claim that it fails on at least one of these tests. Like maybe they weren’t make a specific claim of fact was demonstrably untrue, or they were stating opinion but phrasing it as fact. Or maybe they made a claim about the actions of a group that was true of some, but not all of them. Or maybe they made specific claims of criminal activity and get to claim they verified it with a “reliable” source, like the DOJ or FBI. Or maybe the person can’t prove material damages were caused from the defamation. And then of course, in all of these cases, the defamed must actually seek out justice by bringing suit against the defamers, which plenty do have the money, time or know-how to do.

I highly doubt that any justice will come at scale after this unless huge class action suits are filed, but the Supreme Court has weakened class actions too.

I follow Paula Dean’s advice when it comes to butter. And only that one subject.

You should remember that if you are in a similar situation, what the law says may or may not matter. If a law enforcement officer is going to break the law and his colleagues do not stop them right then and there, for your personal safety it is usually in your best interest to comply as minimally as possible, but protest loudly and often about it. Make it clear that you are complying only under threat of violence or arrest. If the justice system works as it should, you can hopefully get compensation for having your rights violated and hopefully consequences for the violator (though qualified immunity is a bitch, so… don’t get your hopes up too high). But if you fail to comply and have your body permanently damaged or lose your life, there’s no true compensation for that. Take care of yourself first.

The most important tip I have to ensure that your case is taken seriously in a case like this is to record absolutely everything you can. At your first possible opportunity, submit an official complaint against the officer with as many details as you can ACCURATELY recall (do not lie, exaggerate, or include any information that you arent certain about. If they have footage disputing your claims, that may be entirely damning to your case) and a FOIA request for all information and body camera footage from your interaction as well. If you were hurt, seek out medical treatment for any injuries you sustained, no matter how seemingly minor at the time, and have them thoroughly documented. Seek out legal representation (some legal organizations exist specifically to combat abuses of the state, like the ACLU. Contact them and others directly too), and actually sue. It will take up a lot of your time for months or years, but the only way you get justice is to put in the work. Spread the body came footage and your own as far and wide as possible. Contact the local news with your story, post the videos online, send the videos to police critical youtubers that have a following and can boost awareness, and generally make it impossible to ignore for the city. As bullshit as it is, you will probably have to have the backing of overwhelming evidence of police misconduct AND public outrage in order to actually receive justice.

And sometimes that doesnt matter anyway. You also have to remember that law enforcement are only limited by the law in as much as others hold them to the law. If their coworkers, leadership, and the justice system do not enforce the law against law enforcement, then nothing prevents them from breaking the law. Protect yourself accordingly. That is the most important thing.

Unfortunately, the police are often a lot of latitude on their conduct related to “officer safety”. For example, there’s a lot of what would otherwise be unlawful commands that have been carved out specifically in the name of officer safety. Such as asking a driver to “exit their vehicle”, telling detainees to “keep hands visible and out of pockets”, telling bystanders “do not approach my investigation” or “stands where I can see you”, etc.

The latitude given is a recognition that they are ostensibly agents acting in the interests of the state and that their role comes with inherent risks in the course of performing their job that they and the state have an interest in mitigating. As such, they should be able to take minimally invasive measures to control the behavior of those involved with or near their active investigations to protect themselves. Given that, without them issuing an active threat of unreasonable violence (like “say that again and I’ll kill you”), simply having their hands on their weapons, or unholtering them when approaching a residence with limited visibility that they otherwise don’t have the authority to order everyone out of is probably well within the latitude given to law enforcement.

There is an exception for cases of “hot pursuit,” like if they see somebody kill someone and run into a house, they don’t need a warrant.

Just to clarify, the person doesn’t have to have murdered someone. They just have to be a suspect of a felony. The officers have to have reasonable suspicion of the felony and have to have continuously chased them to the residence. This is called exigent circumstances, which allows for limited exceptions to the 4th amendment. Other such exigent circumstances include reasonable suspicion of imminent harm of an occupant of the residence, or destruction of evidence of a crime (does not have to be a felony crime).

The Harboring laws vary state to state, so know your local laws. In Minnesota where this happened, they were not at legitimate risk of a harboring charge. The only crime they had reason to think she was suspected of was illegal entry into the US (a misdemeanor, btw), and they had reason to believe that she was actually a legal resident as she provided her id to them. Without actual knowledge of a crime or reason to suspect a crime had been committed by her (which again, any initial suspicion was subsided by the ID), they could not be convicted of harboring. Given that, the 4th amendment holds sway and they would need a judicial warrant for the address she was occupying in order to enter without consent of the owners of the residence.

Everything that happened here was likely legal from all parties, even if the ICE agents were a bit passively threatening. The one exception may be if they actually entered their backyard, especially within the gated area without permission (the guy says they were going around back, but I didnt see any agents approaching or crossing their property from the back, so I cant confirm). That would still be criminal trespass on the agents then. They only have implicit permission to enter the curtilage of the property and approach via the most direct route to the publically accessible door to talk to the residents. This is the knocking doctrine. They have as much right to enter the property to knock on your door as any other private individual. But no more right than that without a warrant.

The report is especially scathing in its critique of agents who’ve stood in front of moving vehicles, recommending that they “get out of the way…as opposed to intentionally assuming a position in front of such vehicles.” The authors add:

It should be recognized that a half-ounce (200-grain) bullet is unlikely to stop a 4,000-pound moving vehicle, and if the driver…is disabled by a bullet, the vehicle will become a totally unguided threat… Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle can pose a risk to bystanders including other agents.

That’s the extra stupidness of this who “self-defense” claim. Even if the guy was actually in danger, even if it had actually been her intent to mow him down… the response was not defensive in the slightest. The danger was a moving vehicle that might be intended to hit him His response was to ensure that vehicle kept moving, and to now do so completely aimlessly and make it an even bigger threat, while making sure that at minimum one person died in the process. And that’s beside the fact that he voluntarily walked right into the only path her vehicle could have taken before shooting her. What a masterful defensive strategist you are.

“Well I thought the guy was gonna shoot me with his revolver, so I shot him in the face first, then I took his revolver, gave the cylinder a spin, put the barrel to my temple and pulled the trigger. When that chamber proved to be unloaded, I started flipping the gun wildly and pulling the trigger more in random directions to make sure the rest of the chambers were cleared. Thank god for my quick thinking. Defense.”

Moody wasn’t trying to kill him. He’d been kidnapped and replaced by a Death Eater in order to infiltrate the school. At the end of book 4, the deception is revealed and the death eater is arrested by the Aurors.

The real Moody returns in book 5 and serves as a loyal companion and mentor through the end of the series.

Yes, I know all that. The guy he knew as Moody originally, the only one he’d met at that point, the one he was admiring that inspired him to be an Auror, was the imposter. That’s what I was talking about.

Voldemort is just the latest in a long line of evil wizards. They’re stubbornly common place.

Not really. I mean there are evil people who are wizards, sure. But not to the level that had Dumbledore felt the need to be involved anyway.

Grindelwald fell in 1945, and it wasn’t until 1970 that Voldemort debuted himself to the world as the Dark Lord. He attempted to kill Harry 11 years later and lost his body in the process, comes fully back 13 years after that, and then is killed 3 years after coming back. We hear about no other person even attempting to rival the role that Grindelwald and Voldemort filled in that time. So from 1945 to 1997, 52 years, the only evil wizard that required a coordinated effort beyond the typical efforts of the Ministry that we ever hear of is Voldemort.

Ha. I actually enrolled in the wrong major when I went to college. Meant to do computer graphics, ended up in computer science (don’t ask, I was just an idiot). My academic advisor told me that I would have to wait a semester to change majors, that it didnt really hurt much because most of the first semester classes were humanities that count for both anyway, but to go ahead and give my intro programming classes a try in the meantime, and see what I thought. And I fell in love with it and decided to keep the major. So yea… I guess that was even more dumb than Harry’s situation.

Jesus fuck. Guys. This is the real reason. Yes, he wants the oil. Yes he wants to depose a leader that mocks him and wants to put in one that will kiss his ass. Yes it will make his political and big oil backers happy… But for real… I think this is what the motive for the entire Venezuela thing was actually about. Trump wants leverage to take the Novel Prize that he thinks should be his. That’s it. The rest is just icing on the cake. He’d have wanted to do it even without any other reason. I just… this is the worst kind of fiction. Let me the fuck off this ride.

What the actual fuck is wrong with these ass kissing, brown nosing sycophants that just do everything possible to play into and boost Trump’s ego. For the love of god, just suck his fucking dick already. You look hungry as hell. Gobble some Trump nuts and stop pretending like everyone else is weird for not craving the taste.

I just generally disagree with “Fred and George were better contributors to the resistance than the Trio,”

Oh, that wasn’t my argument at all. Definitely agree.

Well yeah, sure. But only because they didnt have the information to act on that the trio did. Had they been looped in, they’d have been right there. I’m not saying that they didnt primarily act as support. I’m saying that had they been offered the opportunity to be on the front lines with an actual mission like Harry, Hermione and Ron had, they wouldnt have hesitated. I think that would have been to the detriment of the overall cause in the end though, given the role they did take up was pretty damn useful and about as vital a role as they could have served under the circumstances.

Obviously none of that is to detract from the accomplishments and heroism of the Trio either.

TBF, Harry was on a secret recon mission for the majority of Book 7, which the twins more or less knew about and supported as best they could. They provided intelligence which is absolutely crucial to any resistance effort, and answered the call to fight as soon as they were needed.