I never thought I'd see the day, but here it is - we now have a secret police force in America, te sign of an authoritarian, fascist government.
What is going on in Portland is outrageous. The feds have the absolute right to send personnel to protect federal property - I have no quarrel with that. What they do NOT have the right to do is to roam the streets dressed in tactical gear with no identifying insignia, refuse to identify themselves or their authority, and use unmarked vehicles to snatch American citizens off the street without cause or warrant. Americans don't get disappeared on American soil, at least until this administration.
If this doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should. We don't know who these federal officers are, other than that the US Marshall's Service says it's not their people. The best guess at this point is that they are CBP. The question is, why do they have no insignias on their uniforms to identify their authority? Who authorized them to do this? What act of Congress suspended the 4th Amendment?
A DHS spokesperson said they were targeting "extremely violent Antifa", but that's a lie. In most cases, the people snatched were bystanders. The "extremely violent" who were caught were charged with... wait for it... graffiti. Graffiti. I come from the NYC area, where graffiti is an art form. Apparently, in Portland, it's an act of extreme violence.
Neither the Governor of Oregon nor the Mayor of Portland asked for federal help. The Mayor has demanded that the federal personnel either confine themselves to the federal property they are there to protect or leave the city. It is NOT the job of federal troops to patrol an American city, and it is definitely not their right to snatch American citizens off the street for no reason.
This has to stop, and Congress has to act immediately to make sure it never happens again. We cannot allow a secret police force to exist in America.
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