That's not what they said at all... Did you even read the statement?
I did. Let's all read it, shall we?
"While the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) respects every American’s right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated. Violent anarchists have organized events in Portland over the last several weeks with willful intent to damage and destroy federal property, as well as injure federal officers and agents. These criminal actions will not be tolerated.
I'm going to leave aside the fact that even an active peaceful protest movement can easily be defined as "civil unrest", since it usually reflects - shockingly - a lack of restfulness among a section of the populace. This statement is otherwise fine. It's kind of the job description for the forces of law and order to uphold the law, which usually doesn't permit violent attacks or toppling statues or the like.
CBP agents had information indicating the person in the video was suspected of assaults against federal agents or destruction of federal property. Once CBP agents approached the suspect, a large and violent mob moved towards their location. For everyone’s safety, CBP agents quickly moved the suspect to a safer location for further questioning. The CBP agents identified themselves and were wearing CBP insignia during the encounter. The names of the agents were not displayed due to recent doxing incidents against law enforcement personnel who serve and protect our country.
So what they said was.... someone (Pettibone, unless this statement was about
another video of someone getting snatched off the street) was suspected of assaults against federal agents or destruction of federal property. Which was part of my earlier statement. They said a "large and violent mob" interfered with their arrest. Again, part of my earlier statement. They went on to state their agents did identify themselves and wore insignia. Which, if true, would alleviate
partially my concerns (since they're still pulling unmarked van snatch jobs of people off the street). Finally, they justify the agents not showing their names due to doxxing incidents. I can understand their desire to protect their agents. OTOH, unidentified federal agents who can't be named, even if their agency can be, sort of undermines the whole "accountability" thing that's supposed to be a check on their behavior, so I'm a little worried about the precedent regardless.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components will continue to work tirelessly to reestablish law and order. The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is the lead government agency that CBP personnel are supporting. CBP personnel have been deployed to Portland in direct support of the Presidential
Executive Order and the newly established DHS Protecting American Communities Task Force (
PACT). CBP law enforcement personnel have been trained and cross designated under FPS legal authority 40 U.S.C. § 1315."
And the justification for their conduct with the relevant laws, with their current employment being justified by that bane of our constitutional system, the Executive Order (and no, I didn't like Obama using them either).
So, you accused me of not reading it. I did. What, pray tell, did I miss? Did you object to my conclusions, or my remark about their failure to press charges? If yes, sure, we can debate that. It'd have been nice if you did instead of accusing me of not reading the material.
I seriously doubt this was an attempt at intimidation; because if they were going to do it, why now, after this has been going on for months, and they've refused to do anything to stop them? And why in such a roundabout manner instead of, say, directly confronting the rioters?
Trump's only recently sent in federal authorities to Portland, apparently. Confronting the protestors with only federal authorities on hand is likely unviable for reasons of sheer numbers, and if most are just peaceful protestors, going after them would make more harmful headlines.
Depending on how much you trust their statement and the news articles, it's possible they figured they had a ringleader or something, but once they had him in custody they realized they were terribly wrong (the Oregon press article has Pettibone claiming one of them remarked "This is a whole lot of nothing" when inspecting the items in Pettibone's possession) and ultimately released him.
Ultimately, my problem remains that this entire method is just messed up. It's skeevy as hell, and even Trump supporters should be leery of it both because of how it might blowback on him and the precedents it might set (one day the shoe will be on the other foot, does anyone want a Democratic president declaring right-wing protestors to be domestic terrorists and federal agencies snatching them in unmarked vans?).
WTF I love the Feds now. This is absolutely the right thing to do with communist terrorists.
....
mokusatsu.
I see someone forgot about the fact Antifa were deemed domestic terrorists not too long ago.
This is the whirlwind Antifa types have sewed for themselves.
I didn't forget. But 1) it assumes Pettibone and anyone else picked up in this way are actually Antifa and 2) it presumes that this is an acceptable way to arrest suspected members/participants in terroristic Antifa activities.
Because, uh, no, I don't consider jit an acceptable way to deal with it. You've got a suspected member of Antifa or someone suspected of committing a crime against federal property or agents? Maybe try arresting them in a way that doesn't seem like it came out of a movie about a dictatorship!
