this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 33 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The difference between protestors with masks and government licensed law enforcement paramilitary mercenaries is that the mercenaries have deadly weapons and a license to kill or maim backed by government sanctioned decrees ..... in extreme circumstances like what is happening in the US right now, the protestors are literally fighting for their lives and the lives of others.

[–] Ferrous@lemmy.ml 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yep, that's reasonable. I was just making sure since that idea seems to conflict with

If you are confident about the righteousness, lawfulness, and moral justification of what you are doing and know that the public fully supports you, you'd never have a reason to hide your identity.

Given ICE's application of stingrays, social media handing over any and all information to authorities, and ever increasing detainments, protesters have more reason than ever to hide their identities - as we see with the frog people in Seattle. Discouraging opsec could be dangerous advice in this situation, but I see now that discouraging opsec was not your intent.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 8 points 5 days ago

Protesters should absolutely hide their identity as much and as often as possible ... they are literally putting their lives on the line. They have no recourse if they are identified, the government can literally go after them once identified ... shut them down financially, legally and take their communications and connections on the internet and go after them in the night, raid their home and arrest them, or after the people associated with them.

Any government official or law enforcement person should never have the need to hide their identity. As soon as they do, it is basically a message to everyone that what they are doing is not legal, moral or justified ... and they know its wrong, which is why they hide.