FBI Agents Visit Anti-ICE Protester: "Your name was brought up."

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/video-fbi-agents-visit-anti-ice-protester

by CharlesW • 9 months ago

305 106 9 months ago

duxup3• 9 months ago

When you see the signs, and they’re all made out of a beautiful, beautiful paper. Beautiful, nice, stiff, very expensive paper with beautiful wood handles all the same. All the same color. They come from very expensive printing machines. These are are people that write out their signs in a basement, that believe in something. These are paid anarchists.

-Trump

This man is a child with questionable critical thinking skills. Now we have agents out running around chasing his imagination because he thinks nice paper and printing is hard to come by.

hiddencost• 9 months ago

Or one of the most accomplished liars in history intent on turning one of the most powerful democracies in history into a dictatorship...

cluckindan6• 9 months ago

Very passive choices of words considering the turning has already happened.

rdiddly• 9 months ago

It's more like an admission that they fund astroturf campaigns themselves.

oceansky• 9 months ago

What the hell is an "immigration radical"?

Is FBI being instructed that protesting ice is antifa terrorism?

This is super concerning.

duxup3• 9 months ago

Everything that isn't in lock step with the administration is "radical" or a similar verb.

elAhmo2• 9 months ago

There is no such thing as antifa

Krasnol• 9 months ago

Sure there is but it's not an organisation.

mosburger• 9 months ago

There is, but it's an adjective, not a noun.

rufus_foreman• 9 months ago

> There is no such thing as antifa

That's like saying there is no such thing as communism. There is such a thing as communism, it is an ideology, not an organization. The Communist Party USA is an organization, not an ideology.

You can fill in the rest.

acdha• 9 months ago

That’s exactly why they tried to claim there’s a terrorist “Antifa” group: since there’s no such organization or defining principles, there’s a lot of gray area to investigate anyone they find politically incorrect.

dragonwriter2• 9 months ago

Is FBI being instructed that protesting ice is antifa terrorism?

Yes, both the President and the Attorney General have been doing this openly, and explicitly citing it as the basis for their instructions to federal law enforcement. They have also been prosecuting based on false testimony of federal officers about assaults (and being forced to dismiss a stunningly high number of filed cases on that basis), and still using the numbers from those false claims as basis for asserting a huge spike in assaults on federal offficers, which also is being cited directly as justification for reallocating resources and setting enforcement prioirities.

beloch• 9 months ago

If protesting ICE is anti-fascist, what does that make ICE? Sending the FBI to the homes of law-abiding citizens who happen to be planning to protest against government actions... What's that? More Americans need to start asking themselves questions like these.

I'm in Canada, but what's going on South of the border has become highly concerning. It's starting to feel like Belgium up here.

xdennis• 9 months ago

What the hell is an "immigration radical"?

There are people who think that every person on the planet should be able to immigrate to the US (or other first world countries). This is a radical position as it couldn't possibly work.

(I don't know about this person, I'm not saying it's widespread, just saying what a radical is.)

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF3• 9 months ago

as it couldn't possibly work

This isn't what makes a position radical. It's radical for being far different to the current norm.

kcplate2• 9 months ago

What the hell is an "immigration radical"?

Probably something similar to those “domestic terrorist” parents who were investigated by the DOJ for speaking out at school board meetings in 2021?

doctorpangloss3• 9 months ago

The political part of the FBI has something LIKE a Palantir dashboard that says, here's a list of people you should talk to, every day, and then the FBI civil service has something LIKE a Jira, that tells agents to go talk to these people, and they do.

Is the FBI being "instructed?" Yes. But it gets "instructed" every day, what has changed? (1) Republicans aren't a no-regulation thing, they are a vague regulation thing. The policies and regulations exist, they just make less sense, they're less visionary, less consistent than the ones that Democrats make. (2) There is better alignment between the tools, like a Palantir dashboard that LLM-reads social media posts, and these vague policies. (3) A list of names cuts through the bureaucratic / administrative friction of vague policy.

dec0dedab0de• 9 months ago

The agents may not have learned anything from Serafini, but the visit — which took place one day before the No Kings protest — did accomplish one thing: Serafini decided against going to No Kings. He was spooked.

That is exactly the chilling effect on speech that the FBI investigating political matters risks creating.

Ugh, I might have to start caring about politics again, this is unacceptable.

kiernanmcgowan• 9 months ago

You may not care about politics, but politics cares about you.

zerosizedweasle• 9 months ago

The hour is fucking late now. Do it while you still can. People too busy pumping the stock market to see they are losing their right.

cluckindan6• 9 months ago

You are now on a list.

rolandog2• 9 months ago

That says more about the list makers.

rolandog2• 9 months ago

You should! We shouldn't let ourselves be dragged silently into the dark times. In my opinion, it's our obligation to try to understand the landscape and to make sure that everyone — across the different political beliefs — is well off... Only then do you get a system that rewards merit, instead of whatever the heck you want to call what is being dropped on us.

AnimalMuppet• 9 months ago

Well, let's see. There were 7 million people at No Kings. I don't think one-on-one FBI visits is a scalable tactic to try to reduce the numbers.

So maybe this particular visit was not just about "chilling effect"?

tzs• 9 months ago

It could not have a chilling affect on the next day's No Kings protest, except on that individual and maybe others he told about it that day.

But now the story is out, which can have a chilling affect on many people considering attending future No Kings or similar protests.

cosmicgadget3• 9 months ago

How many people do you think need FBI visits to chill those 7 million? All of them?

piva00• 9 months ago

Don't you think that a few hundred instances of articles like this could have a chilling effect?

If you keep reading articles over a few months about different people being visited/interviewed by the FBI, you'll at some point have the thought "can they somehow find out about me?".

It's Panopticon-lite, give the impression they might be able to see you even if there's no realistic capacity to watch everyone at once and you'll feel a little more paranoid, that's a chilling effect.

Now couple that with the friend of the administration Larry Ellison's quote about "if we watch every citizen they'll be in their best behaviour", and you get to a political project of control.

pacomerh• 9 months ago

not caring about politics is a crime these days. This is just one example of completely unacceptable things happening.

Steltek• 9 months ago

Actually, it seems like the opposite. Caring about politics is now a crime.

FranzFerdiNaN2• 9 months ago

“Not caring” means you are privileged enough that you could look away for a long time. Politics definitely cared about you though.

cluckindan6• 9 months ago

When you protest against the abuses of Gestapo, the SS will come for you.

xrd3• 9 months ago

I'm going to upvote everyone here, but beyond that, I don't really know what to do that I haven't already done.

Judgmentality5• 9 months ago

If you're American, go on strike. Nobody gives a shit about people holding signs and protesting peacefully. If you can't do anything to make the opposition care about you, don't expect them to do anything other than ignore you.

xrd3• 9 months ago

Ok. I'm a contractor. I live in Florida with zero protections. I have three kids. I'm 51 and have had a hell of a time finding work the last few years. I'm pretty scared of doing this, honestly.

johnnyanmac3• 9 months ago

Nobody gives a shit about people holding signs and protesting peacefully.

Do both. The person in this story clearly was not ignore.

They do in fact care otherwise they wouldn't be so beligerent about it. It takes 3% of the country protesting to get undeniable attention and last weekend was getting close to that threshold. 330m Americans or so, the threshold is around 10m. And this weekend was counted with 7m.

Your voice does matter, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

johnnyanmac3• 9 months ago

Call your Respectives, donate where you can, and if you're active on social media: boost the voices you want to hear and let them get the word out.

And of course, keep your eyes peeled for any elections in your area. No matter how minor a position. If you can donate / volunteer for their campaigns, all the better. These situations will need to be fixed bottom up in the long term, so you never know what comptroller today becomes a senate tomorrow.

mitchbob• 9 months ago

As predicted by Orwell:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministries_in_Nineteen_Eighty-...

ohhai• 9 months ago

An hour long interrogation?

Not a lawyer, but I would advise anyone in a similar situation to exercise their right to tell these goons to fuck off. You always have the right to remain silent.

duxup3• 9 months ago

I suspect this person was curious what they would ask, I would be too.

But legally I agree with the advice.

rodrodrod• 9 months ago

It's Friday, a timely reminder that you have a right to STFU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTurSi0LhJs

Or for a longer form explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

flipgimble• 9 months ago

I grew up in communist Poland before the fall of the wall in 1989 is just one story among many from this year that sounds like an echo of what my parent's told me they had to grow up with.

That so many Americans, in the self proclaimed land of the free, voted for this reality under the delusion they were against "socialism" is the most historically illiterate thing ever.

gmueckl• 9 months ago

Look at the places in the US that are favoring Trump and correlate that with the places that have the worst school systems in that country. Also have a look at which party dominated the politics in those areas in the last couple of decades and how they treated their respective school systems. There is a pattern there that is, in a way, self-supporting.

cluckindan6• 9 months ago

The continuation to that pattern is a ballroom putsch.

Waterluvian2• 9 months ago

Do we ever learn why these posts get censored or is it just going to keep fuelling conspiracies? Unless fuelling conspiracies is actually less bad for the offender because there _is_ a conspiracy!

slater• 9 months ago

Not technically censored, just off-topic.

Waterluvian2• 9 months ago

I mean, yeah, that’s one of those subjective things. I think freedom of speech topics are pretty closely embedded with tech and entrepreneurship whether we like it or not. But I appreciate if that’s not how moderators see it. As long as that kind of choice moderation made consistently. I feel like I see far more off topic posts live longer. And for sensitive topics, a short explanation might be worth it.

Moderation at scale, even HN scale, is hard!

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF3• 9 months ago

It is technically censored. The ostensible reason for it is that the story is off-topic for this forum; because of that, it is censored.

to suppress or delete as objectionable

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censor

bakies• 9 months ago

It's against the sites rules.

slg• 9 months ago

That is highly debatable. Stories about "politics, or crime" are allowed if "they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon"[1]. I'm not sure what to make of the word "interesting" there, but this is clearly a new phenomenon that is deeply concerning and worth discussing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

esseph2• 9 months ago

"The site" should look around and reconsider its self-importance.

krapp2• 9 months ago

- Some people will flag any political content they see, believing all political content to be off-topic.

- Some people support the current regime and will flag any content they consider anti-establishment.

- Hacker News is designed so that it takes very few flags to stick, so as to aggressively filter signal from noise, for as greedy a definition of "noise" as possible.

There's no conspiracy here, it's just Hacker News being Hacker News. If you want to be able to discuss these things freely, find another platform. Otherwise just accept that any "political" content will very likely be flagged at some point.

cluckindan6• 9 months ago

Everything on this site is political. YC is very much a political entity, they are simply censoring what to an outsider would be YC’s political opposition.

donkeybeer6• 9 months ago

No but there are clearly patterns in what "off topic" stuff gets flagged. Many people work in analytics here. It'd be nice if some number crunching was done.

LexiMax3• 9 months ago

If you want to be able to discuss these things freely, find another platform.

I believe it is productive to continue discussing these topics here.

Hacker News has a reputation as a place where you can have reasonable discussions with smart people in good faith. It is a facade, but tearing down this facade is done by making the attempts at censorship more visible and blatant.

LexiMax3• 9 months ago

I can tell you why. There's no conspiracy, not really.

Instead, it's an attitude of "I know what I voted for, and I'd prefer not to be reminded of its negative externalizes, thanks. Also, I'd really prefer it if this sort of news not filter out into the greater consciousness of Hacker News, because it might cause other people to reconsider their support."

One of the biggest lies of HN is that it's a place of open and reasonable debate and discussion. In reality, it is highly curated by the users who have access to the moderation tools in order to shape the conversation. There's no direct coordination or conversations, just a widespread unspoken agreement.

I don't disagree with their decision-making in a vacuum. There's nothing wrong with bias if it's something people are generally aware of, so it can be accounted for. On the other hand, I think that there's a significant moral hazard of a site that pretends to be unbiased but has an unaccountable cabal of users putting their collective thumbs on the scale, and HN very much falls into that camp.

donkeybeer6• 9 months ago

Instead, it's an attitude of "I know what I voted for, and I'd prefer not to be reminded of its negative externalizes, thanks.

I think you underestimate the amount of racetards and magas, even on this website.

JakeStone• 9 months ago

I've not had that kind of experience in over 30 years. I'm a bit older now, and I would hope that my response would be something similar to:

Me: "Am I under arrest?"

No: "I would like my attorney present before starting this discussion. Please provide me some contact information so we can schedule this."

Yes: "I wish to have my attorney present. I will not be answering any questions or discussing this matter."

Now, I don't know if I'm actually that brave, but I've at least got a plan.

cluckindan6• 9 months ago

Them: ”Have it your way”, handcuffs, car ride to black site, jumpsuit, seat in a military-leased civilian airplane, flight to El Salvador.

Freedom2• 9 months ago

That cannot happen in the US, I'm told, as it has the greatest protections by its God-given Constitution. The most beautiful protections.

johnnyanmac3• 9 months ago

At this point, being a martyr as an African American whose ancestors have been on this land longer than the US existed is probably my best contribution to countering this regime. I've always wondered if I would need to put my body on the like the way my grandfather did in New Orleans.

donkeybeer6• 9 months ago

Sometimes the second amendment must be put to its real intended use.

atm3ga• 9 months ago

When federal agents, such as the FBI, attempt to question you, it is strongly advised that you do not talk to them without a lawyer present. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees you the right to remain silent and to have an attorney. There were several instances in this account where Serafini's answers could be used to paint his involvement as not so innocent.

FranzFerdiNaN2• 9 months ago

Shame the constitution only matters when Trump or his cronies say it does. The American justice system has been broken and the cause came from within.

93po• 9 months ago

this is factually not accurate, trump's actions are constantly getting legally challenged and blocked

kcplate2• 9 months ago

When federal agents, such as the FBI, attempt to question you, it is strongly advised that you do not talk to them without a lawyer present.

Good advice but it should be any law enforcement…not just federal agents.

“I don’t answer questions without my attorney present. Leave me your card and I will have my lawyer contact you” are powerful words.

nobody9999• 9 months ago

When federal agents, such as the FBI, attempt to question you, it is strongly advised that you do not talk to them without a lawyer present.

Yes. This. James Duane lays out[0] why this is so important. I strongly encourage everyone resident in the US to view this video as it makes (IMHO) a very strong case for never talking to the police -- they are not (at least in their official capacities) your friends.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

doctorpangloss3• 9 months ago

then why do people keep cooperating? because they're stupid?

rkomorn2• 9 months ago

Some probably are. Some probably think they're smarter.

I'm guessing most are just scared/intimidated.

giardini5• 9 months ago

All of this, including the video, is hearsay. That is, it is unauthenticated. Not a single part of the title is confirmed.

Neither us nor the author apparently know whether the men shown were real FBI agents. Con men operate the same way - wave a badge and pretend to be someone.

esseph2• 9 months ago

I have 0 reason to believe this didn't happen.

People are jumping out of unmarked vehicles with masks on and grabbing people.

We are getting closer every day to violent times.

giardini5• 9 months ago

We are getting closer every day to Halloween!8-))

cosmicgadget3• 9 months ago

According to Serafini, the two FBI agents showed him photos of himself at the protest as well as several other protesters — people he knew nothing about.

All this work plus the risk of a charge of impersonating a federal agent... and they didn't ask him for money. Deep grift.

hypeatei3• 9 months ago

So these FBI imposters knew he went to a protest, where he lives, and want to ask questions? If they were criminals, wouldn't they want something from him?

This comment reads to me like you understand the implications and it makes you uncomfortable so you're deflecting with nonsense. Let's assume they're real FBI agents: what do you think of this action?

giardini5• 9 months ago

No, no, no, and not necessarily.

Didn't bother, no, no. And why should we assume anything?

No. I'm just tired of BS "news" stories.

We need better reporting and part of that is verification.

akagusu• 9 months ago

why this was flagged?

immibis3• 9 months ago

HN doesn't allow political content - it's always flagged.

FBI Agents Visit Anti-ICE Protester: "Your name was brought up."

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