Speaker 1: As media. Hey everyone, it's James here. We promised that
Speaker 1: we would get you something on the changes or lack
Speaker 1: thereof after Donald Trump's series of executive orders targeting certain groups,
Speaker 1: and we reached out to a lawyer, Moe, who is
Speaker 1: a fantastic lawyer, and we asked her into you them.
Speaker 1: They said they had just done an interview with Final
Speaker 1: Store Radio, which is an excellent show, and they suggested
Speaker 1: that I take listen to that. I took listen to that,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a fantastic interview and I don't
Speaker 1: think as much as that we can add to it.
Speaker 1: So we're going to re air that interview in full.
Speaker 1: The one thing I would add to it is that
Speaker 1: there have been a number of cases recently where grand
Speaker 1: juries have not returned an indictment. That's relatively rare, but
Speaker 1: we are seeing that more frequently, and that just enforces
Speaker 1: everything that Moe says here, which is that at this
Speaker 1: time we still have sep of powers, and at this
Speaker 1: time the executive cannot simply make law. One still has
Speaker 1: to be prosecuted according to a statute by a district
Speaker 1: attorney or a USA attorney. Right they president cannot just
Speaker 1: make law in this instance pertaining to the First Amendment
Speaker 1: by executive order, that doesn't mean that they will not
Speaker 1: be harassment. And as you're here here, those two are
Speaker 1: distinct things, and I think MO gives an excellent outline
Speaker 1: on how we should think about and conceive this moment
Speaker 1: in American history. So, without any more of me taking
Speaker 1: your time, this is an excellent interview that bursted with MO.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy it, and if you would like
Speaker 1: to check out Final Store Radio, you can do so
Speaker 1: using the link that I will put below this episode.
Speaker 2: Could you please introduce yourself for the audience with any name, pronouns, location,
Speaker 2: or other contexts that would help us understand who you are.
Speaker 3: Good morning. I'm more a Meltzer Cohen. Everybody calls me MO.
Speaker 3: My pronouns are they are MO. I'm an adultists and
Speaker 3: educator and an attorney in New York. Primarily I represent
Speaker 3: people who are arrested in the course of justice struggles
Speaker 3: and do advocacy for incarcerated people and movements.
Speaker 2: So we're here to talk about the recent White House
Speaker 2: statements following the assassin I mean, I mean following the
Speaker 2: reelection of Trump, but more recently the assassination of Charles Kirk,
Speaker 2: that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization.
Speaker 4: Can you talk about what.
Speaker 2: Legally changed with the executive order of September twenty second
Speaker 2: of this year or yesterday? Is from when we're recording
Speaker 2: this National Presidential Security Memo number seven titled Countering Domestic
Speaker 2: Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. Again, it came out on
Speaker 2: September twenty fifth. What changed with those Well.
Speaker 3: Before I answer that question, the first thing I want
Speaker 3: to say is nothing that I say on this program
Speaker 3: is legal advice is in information. If you want legal advice,
Speaker 3: I vigorously encourage you to have a privileged conversation with
Speaker 3: a human attorney who is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Speaker 3: As to your overall question, what changed legally is essentially nothing.
Speaker 3: I think the top level takeaway here is that these
Speaker 3: executive orders are frightening. They are a frightening contribution to
Speaker 3: an already dangerous political discourse, and they may very well
Speaker 3: end up being quite disruptive to left movements, including I
Speaker 3: think primarily centrist liberal movements. But nothing that was legal
Speaker 3: last week is illegal this week, certainly not because of
Speaker 3: those statements, and the state cannot prosecute you for things
Speaker 3: that were legal when you did them. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I can't see the future, but as of right now,
Speaker 3: the law and the constitution have So if this administration
Speaker 3: wants to in any meaningful legal way designate anyone, any
Speaker 3: group as domestic terrorists, they can change the law, which
Speaker 3: is not going to be quick or easy, or they
Speaker 3: can dispense with the law. But under the current legal regime,
Speaker 3: there is no mechanism that would make it illegal to
Speaker 3: be and to whatever that means, or to hold anti
Speaker 3: fascist values, or to assemble or to petition the government.
Speaker 3: And you know, to be clear, not that doing any
Speaker 3: of those things or being any of those things are
Speaker 3: necessarily effective at creating social change right now, but my
Speaker 3: point really is they're not illegal.
Speaker 2: Just to sort of throw this back your way, So
Speaker 2: there was when you were responding to that, it made
Speaker 2: me think of there's a veteran who lost a bunch
Speaker 2: of his property during the Aleen hurricane that is about
Speaker 2: a year ago hit this region. He was recorded, like
Speaker 2: he went pretty viral, calling out and shouting down a
Speaker 2: state politician who had a like public meeting here in
Speaker 2: the area, just saying there's been like total like lack
Speaker 2: of support after the storm, and here are all the
Speaker 2: needs and you're just allowing politician this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: The same man, right after the executive order that Trump
Speaker 2: made about burning US flags, went out and burned one
Speaker 2: across from the White House and then he got arrested
Speaker 2: for it. Like, I thought that there was a Supreme
Speaker 2: Court decision back in the eighties that said it's not
Speaker 2: actually illegal to burn a flag. So does that make
Speaker 2: his executive orders now law?
Speaker 3: No, there is a Supreme Court decision. It's called Texas d. Johnson,
Speaker 3: and it is still law. And in fact, after Texas d. Johnson,
Speaker 3: Congress actually tried to make a federal statute criminalizing burning
Speaker 3: the American flag and it was found unconstitutional. It is
Speaker 3: astonishing and illuminating that that man was arrested for burning
Speaker 3: an American flag, which is absolutely constitutionally protected conduct. I
Speaker 3: will say, I'm not sure what he was actually charged with.
Speaker 3: Right If he was charged with, you know, creating a
Speaker 3: fire hazard, I suppose that, apart from the fact that
Speaker 3: it's clearly First Amendment retaliation, I suppose that you could
Speaker 3: be criminally charged with creating a fire hazard in a
Speaker 3: public place or something like that, but no flag burning
Speaker 3: remains protected regardless of what the President or Congress says
Speaker 3: about it. It would take either an amendment to the
Speaker 3: Constitution or a very serious change and Supreme Court jurisprudence
Speaker 3: to make five burning illegal.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, so this is the distinction I'd love for
Speaker 2: us to get back to in a moment between like
Speaker 2: legality versus what, you know, the sort of like box
Speaker 2: that that powers decide to put a thing into. Like
Speaker 2: I know, I've I've definitely been detained not for being
Speaker 2: an annoyance to the cops, but within my legal rights.
Speaker 2: But they'll say, ah, but your shoes untied on a
Speaker 2: Tuesday whatever, and then waste my time.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that, And because I do want to
Speaker 3: talk with more specificity about these specific executive orders and
Speaker 3: statements and also about what legal mechanisms do exist that
Speaker 3: are and can be and have long been used to
Speaker 3: surveil and disrupt and target the left. But actually, before
Speaker 3: we do that, why don't we talk about sort of
Speaker 3: some of the categories that are playing in playing here
Speaker 3: and be really clear about definitions or at least understand
Speaker 3: that there are differences between these categories, right, because there
Speaker 3: is a difference between the law and political discourse. And
Speaker 3: there is a difference importantly between law and power. And
Speaker 3: there's certainly at least some daylight between the legal constraints
Speaker 3: on state power and the state's power to ignore those constraints.
Speaker 3: And then I think what will be significant to this
Speaker 3: discussion is there is a significant difference between antifa, which
Speaker 3: is a set of practices or beliefs that are not
Speaker 3: necessarily even all that well defined, and what this administration
Speaker 3: refers to when it uses or deploys the word antifa.
Speaker 3: And there is yet more difference between the booking man
Speaker 3: that is being invoked by that and the individuals and
Speaker 3: organizations that the administration actually intends to target. There's a
Speaker 3: difference between political targeting, surveillance, disruption, and prosecution, right, those
Speaker 3: things are all different, And there's a difference between prosecution
Speaker 3: and conviction. And there is an important difference between someone's
Speaker 3: political beliefs and associations which are and remain protected by
Speaker 3: the First Amendment, and politically motivated conduct that means illegal.
Speaker 3: So you know, executive orders and these kinds of statements
Speaker 3: on national security are policy statements. They don't in and
Speaker 3: of themselves make things happen, they don't in and of
Speaker 3: themselves change the law, and an executive order that is
Speaker 3: inconsistent with the constitution or the existing law at least
Speaker 3: ought to be unenforceable.
Speaker 2: Okay, but yeah, but recognizing that that distinction, you know,
Speaker 2: cops are going to cop, investigators are going to investigate,
Speaker 2: and those processes are disruptive for people whose lives they're affecting.
Speaker 2: They can affect your job prospects, they can affect your
Speaker 2: housing stability, they can affect whether or not some unhinged
Speaker 2: person decides to attack you because they've heard some conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory about you. But so that distinction of like, well,
Speaker 2: you might get exonerated by a court after you've been
Speaker 2: held in pre trial for a year, I guess that
Speaker 2: is an important distinction, right, because it means you're not
Speaker 2: spending you know, an extra thirty years or twenty years
Speaker 2: or whatever behind bars.
Speaker 4: With the terrorism enhancement.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that is also called comfort. I'm really
Speaker 3: not trying to be dismissive. I think it's important to
Speaker 3: recognize what these distinctions are and the primarily because I
Speaker 3: want people to understand what exactly we need to be
Speaker 3: prepared for and what we need to be worried about
Speaker 3: and what tools we have and what tools are effective
Speaker 3: at resisting what's coming down the pike. And in order
Speaker 3: to do that, we need to know what's coming down
Speaker 3: the pipe. We need to know who actually has power
Speaker 3: in this situation. The fact that an executive order doesn't
Speaker 3: change the law does not mean an executive order will
Speaker 3: not result in a lot more state repression, or that
Speaker 3: it won't disrupt movements or even ruin lives. It doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that Trump is not going to accomplish the thing
Speaker 3: that I think he's actually trying to accomplish here in
Speaker 3: the immediate short term, which is broadcasting to his base
Speaker 3: that non state action against people identified as or perceived
Speaker 3: to be part of the despised group you know is
Speaker 3: desirable by this administration will be condoned by this administration.
Speaker 3: I think that is important to recognize. Saying that it
Speaker 3: doesn't change the law does not mean it isn't dangerous.
Speaker 3: I just want to be very precise about I think
Speaker 3: the ways in which it is likely to be dangerous
Speaker 3: and some of the ways that it might not might
Speaker 3: not be. And again I'm not trying to be dismissive
Speaker 3: but state repression exists all the time. State repression against
Speaker 3: leftists and anarchism in particular has been ongoing the whole time.
Speaker 3: This is not a Trump thing. And in fact, I
Speaker 3: think it's important to note that the executive who's probably
Speaker 3: most responsible for having laid this groundwork is Biden, who
Speaker 3: set forth a policy strategy that focused on funding the
Speaker 3: federal targeting of what at that point he was calling
Speaker 3: political extremists, which was a label that was being applied
Speaker 3: to groups on the left as well as neo Nazis
Speaker 3: and all right groups. So this administration has already been engaged,
Speaker 3: and not just this administration, right, we have centuries at
Speaker 3: this point of targeted disruption of left movements. The way
Speaker 3: that it's currently being rationalized is a little bit different,
Speaker 3: the way that it's being broadcast normalized is a little
Speaker 3: bit different, but it's I will say, I don't think
Speaker 3: this is actually anything all that new or different, And
Speaker 3: the difference in how dangerous it is is one of
Speaker 3: scale maybe rather than it's a difference in scope rather
Speaker 3: than nature.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think that's an important distinction. I
Speaker 2: think that like sometimes people in the center and even
Speaker 2: sometimes people on the left, will look at in particular
Speaker 2: things that Trump administrations do because they are obfuscatory, they're
Speaker 2: like confusing, and they're bombastic, and there's a part of
Speaker 2: us that that we'll say like, no, but that's that's
Speaker 2: not what's actually happening. That's not what actually was the
Speaker 2: motivation for that person or like that person voted you know,
Speaker 2: Republican in the last election.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 2: And so I think that that distinction that you're making
Speaker 2: of you know this, this may not this may be
Speaker 2: like an approach to motivate the base, it may prove
Speaker 2: not to be legally like standing, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that it doesn't have an impact on people. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: what we should be able to looking for out of
Speaker 2: this is a projection of not only like a call
Speaker 2: to action or red meat for the base or whatever,
Speaker 2: but also like a clear proposition of that's meant to
Speaker 2: chill us and chill some society, that these are the
Speaker 2: intentions moving forward. This is the narrative, and this is
Speaker 2: the story that they're going to be going with.
Speaker 3: Right absolutely, And I think it is important to point
Speaker 3: out right now we're seeing a lot of people pointing
Speaker 3: out the hypocrisy and sort of the fact that these
Speaker 3: rationales are really untethered from factual reality. And I suppose
Speaker 3: that's true and important to note, but pointing out the
Speaker 3: hypocrisy is not going to be particularly useful. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think it's part of the point, right. Manipulating the facts,
Speaker 3: making narrative claims that are totally unsupportable, and muddying the
Speaker 3: waters in this really fundamental way is part of the project.
Speaker 2: There was a German jurist I guess who became the
Speaker 2: highest jurist during the Nazi regime in Germany, but continued
Speaker 2: writing theory like was writing it before as a member
Speaker 2: of the Conservative Revolution that they called it, and then
Speaker 2: afterwards he survived the war and continued living in Germany
Speaker 2: writing Karl Schmidt, who talks a lot about like the
Speaker 2: limits of liberal approaches towards legality and liberal governance, with
Speaker 2: a belief that it makes sense to push it to
Speaker 2: its limits and beyond break it and recognize that governance
Speaker 2: is about the imposition of power and the sheltering of
Speaker 2: those who are under the controller or in the protected
Speaker 2: community of the state, with a consideration of war through
Speaker 2: the state's power against internal enemies as well as external enemies.
Speaker 2: And this is the devil's bargain that we make. It's
Speaker 2: like Hobbes on steroids. And it feels like a lot
Speaker 2: of the stuff that the Heritage Foundation and Project twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five has been pushing was that they have this.
Speaker 2: I know that there are some theocrats in that movement.
Speaker 2: There's the unitary executive theory that a lot of them
Speaker 2: have been pushing, and they'll play with this idea like
Speaker 2: the Trump administration will play with this identity of the
Speaker 2: King King Trump or whatever the Dawn as it were,
Speaker 2: like making these executive decisions and being unbeholden to anything else.
Speaker 2: And they've actually been, like you know, saying to courts,
Speaker 2: you can't stop us from deporting these peoples who with
Speaker 2: unsafe third country whatever, stop us. I wonder if, like
Speaker 2: I wonder if you have any comments on this, if
Speaker 2: I'm coming out of left field or what.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I'll say it is for Karl Schmidt as
Speaker 3: opposed to the Heritage Foundation, he was at least intellectually honest. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 5: We are in this moment where they're trying to normalize
Speaker 5: what we Schmidt would have called like a state of exception,
Speaker 5: where they're sort of unbridled executive power, the sort of
Speaker 5: suspension of any constraints on state power.
Speaker 3: Right. And it's funny because I've been in conversations over
Speaker 3: the last months where and talking with a bunch of
Speaker 3: my friends, none of them are particularly enamored of the
Speaker 3: current legal regime, and we're talking about how dangerous it
Speaker 3: is that the administration is dispensing with the rule of law,
Speaker 3: you know, And it's sort of amusing for a bunch
Speaker 3: of anarchists to be like, oh, no, the rule of
Speaker 3: laws collapsing. But when I'm talking about the rule of
Speaker 3: law in this way, I'm really talking about constraints on
Speaker 3: state power, and those are what's collapsing. And that's exactly
Speaker 3: what Schmidt envisioned and argued for Frankly, and I do
Speaker 3: think we're seeing that. I think one of the things
Speaker 3: that I've noticed in some of these eos, especially the
Speaker 3: couple of statements from the last few days, is he
Speaker 3: keeps talking about things like love of God and Christian
Speaker 3: anti Christian sentiment, which is I mean, you know, this
Speaker 3: is entirely incompatible with the First Amendment, which provides no
Speaker 3: state shall establish our religion, right. I mean, we really
Speaker 3: are outside the contours of recognized you know, legal norms,
Speaker 3: constitutional norms, and I think a lot of this stuff
Speaker 3: is functioning and is meant to normalize this kind of
Speaker 3: discourse and to inject it not only into the exercise
Speaker 3: of government power, but to normalize it in terms of
Speaker 3: what people understand to be legitimate legal discourse.
Speaker 2: Kind of shifting a bit like let's get into some
Speaker 2: of the implications of this. So if it hasn't changed law,
Speaker 2: but we recognize that practices and culture are being shifted.
Speaker 2: I've heard of a bunch of people getting fired and
Speaker 2: getting docxing attention. There's a website now I think called
Speaker 2: like who Killed Charlie Kirk? The People who Killed Charlie
Speaker 2: Kirk or something like that, and maybe an app. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like the post Charlie Kirk assassination version of
Speaker 2: Canary emission. Does this mean that police are coming after
Speaker 2: people for sharing memes? Is that happening? Is that what's
Speaker 2: happening in these cases?
Speaker 3: I mean police have always been coming after people for
Speaker 3: sharing memes. I would say I get calls at least
Speaker 3: every month from people who have been visited by federal
Speaker 3: agents because they said something on the Internet that was
Speaker 3: upsetting to somebody else and then they reported it, and
Speaker 3: the FBI is just following up on a tip. But
Speaker 3: that said, this doesn't vitiate the First Amendment. Let me
Speaker 3: say that in human language, thank you. This does not
Speaker 3: undermine the First Amendment. The First Amendment still exists, and
Speaker 3: all of the legal framework around having the right to
Speaker 3: say things as long as those things are not true threats,
Speaker 3: that still exists. So it is not unusual for people
Speaker 3: to be targeted or monitored or visited by law enforcement,
Speaker 3: but typically that stuff doesn't actually really go anywhere. I
Speaker 3: am concerned about people being subject to doxing and having
Speaker 3: negative social consequences and fallout from this kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and it certainly is you know, can be life ruining. Again,
Speaker 3: I don't mean to trivialize the effects of this kind
Speaker 3: of retaliation social retaliate, but it is not the same
Speaker 3: thing as a criminal prosecution or a criminal conviction. It's
Speaker 3: a different set of mechanisms. Now, one thing that I
Speaker 3: do think is interesting is that these eos and the
Speaker 3: statement that came out on the twenty second and yesterday
Speaker 3: particularly identify certain modes of that kind of social conduct
Speaker 3: that you're talking about, like doxing swatting rag, which is
Speaker 3: making false report of like an ongoing violent crime, so
Speaker 3: that a swap team shows up and raids somebody's.
Speaker 2: Home, which can be deadly right, this is very.
Speaker 3: Dangerous and interestingly to me anyway, there are these specific
Speaker 3: behaviors that are identified and condemned in those statements, and
Speaker 3: those specific behaviors are largely tools of the right. People
Speaker 3: on the left are not notably interested in sending law
Speaker 3: enforcement to someone's house. So there is a perverse way
Speaker 3: in which this may end up being sort of protective,
Speaker 3: I suppose, because I think it would be very difficult
Speaker 3: for the government to go after the people who are
Speaker 3: exposing ICE agents, which again is not illegal right now.
Speaker 3: Even if it were to become illegal, it isn't right now,
Speaker 3: and it would be very hard for them to go
Speaker 3: after those folks and not also go after the folks
Speaker 3: who are running that silly website about people who say
Speaker 3: something mean about Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess to me, And this is the speculation
Speaker 2: outside of like legal advice or anything. Not that we're
Speaker 2: giving legal advice, but outside of like the legal framework.
Speaker 3: Definitely not giving legal advice.
Speaker 2: I mean, it kind of points to a thing that
Speaker 2: already this this hypocrisy or this difference between what it's
Speaker 2: called when one party does it versus what it's called
Speaker 2: when another party does it, like outside of the fact
Speaker 2: that the government gets to do what it wants to
Speaker 2: until the government stops itself from doing a thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it feels like it's a part of the creation of
Speaker 2: a differentiated subjectivity. Like there's the subject of the state
Speaker 2: that falls under the values that are being attacked Christianity, whiteness, heteronormativity,
Speaker 2: these like patriotism in these certain ways versus the people
Speaker 2: that are doing these same things but are corrupt, are dirty,
Speaker 2: are outside our internal enemies, are Soros funded. However we
Speaker 2: want to like yeah that, but yeah, I guess that's
Speaker 2: not I mean, that's this is nothing new.
Speaker 4: It's just an amplification of that same right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much. And you know what is changing a
Speaker 3: little bit, although all of these threads have been present,
Speaker 3: is that this administration is rationalizing this particular kind of
Speaker 3: targeting with respect to in particular Palestine solidarity movements, gender
Speaker 3: nonconforming people and what they're calling anti buzz. So you know,
Speaker 3: we're seeing we've been see congressional investigations, the allocation of
Speaker 3: funds to federal law enforcement, purging not just individuals, but
Speaker 3: whole agencies that the administration feels are insufficiently aligned with
Speaker 3: its priority replacing federal law enforcement. That and I mean
Speaker 3: ranging from FBI agents on the ground to doj with
Speaker 3: people who will enthusiastically and blindly pursue these priorities, and
Speaker 3: using a lot of resources to target the nonprofit text
Speaker 3: status and funding of groups identified as being aligned with
Speaker 3: any of the disfavored movements. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that they're doing is kind of it's this real spaghetti,
Speaker 3: you know, throwing everything at it, and it's very overwhelming.
Speaker 3: It's overwhelming for movement infrastructure, it's overwhelming for legal for
Speaker 3: people on the ground, and it's all happening at once,
Speaker 3: and I think it's all being it's mutually compounding, it's
Speaker 3: mutually reinforcing, it's demoralizing, and in particular, the stuff that's
Speaker 3: happening with immigration is so devastating. And because immigration is
Speaker 3: so wholly under the control of the executive that is
Speaker 3: an area where he's able to sort of make a
Speaker 3: policy and make it so and have it be carried
Speaker 3: out by FIAT, and he has made his own private
Speaker 3: army with ICE. And I think one of the effects
Speaker 3: that I in just in my observation, that that has
Speaker 3: had is that people see that happening and assume that
Speaker 3: he has that level of control over everything else. And
Speaker 3: I do want to point out again it's absolutely devastating
Speaker 3: to see what's happening in the immigration space, but in
Speaker 3: fact he does not have that level of control over
Speaker 3: the rest of government and over non immigration laws, and
Speaker 3: I think that's really important to remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems about pushing boundaries and experimenting. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people that have talked and not to get
Speaker 2: too far down the road with this, but like with
Speaker 2: the like attempt to normalize sending national guard or sending
Speaker 2: active military to different states, or federalizing national guards to
Speaker 2: be present from different states in these places. Almost like
Speaker 2: if it's constant and overlapping enough, then eventually just military
Speaker 2: being on the streets, generally rousting houseless folks is going
Speaker 2: to be a normal thing.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm in New York. There's military people in all
Speaker 3: sub price like that got very normalized post nine to
Speaker 3: eleven in certain places, and so you know, again this
Speaker 3: is not to say that it's okay, but it isn't new.
Speaker 2: So take it back to antifa. Sure, Antifa, Antifa. How
Speaker 2: is the administration identifying Antifa and the left and what
Speaker 2: are they actually dismantling and attacking. I'm thinking, like, let's
Speaker 2: talk about bilfunds or like lgbt QI, a youth advocacy
Speaker 2: organization's secularist groups, like yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is this is where things get really fun.
Speaker 3: Most of the groups that are actually being targeted are
Speaker 3: not remotely related to antifa. George Soros is not Antifa,
Speaker 3: the various legal defense funds are not Antifa. Antifa is
Speaker 3: the rationale, but not the reality. So one of the
Speaker 3: interesting issues here is that a significant group of the
Speaker 3: people who really need to be very worried are people
Speaker 3: who work in the nonprofit sector, in extremely normal and
Speaker 3: liberal community advocacy organizations and NGOs. And these are people
Speaker 3: who have nothing whatsoever to do with Antifa, by any
Speaker 3: stretch of the imagination, who are being attacked, whose funding
Speaker 3: is being attacked, who are primarily I would say at risk,
Speaker 3: not because they have engaged in anything approaching unlawful conduct.
Speaker 3: And frankly, I think the biggest risk for many of
Speaker 3: those people is the anticipatory compliance of their funders. We
Speaker 3: have seen a really similar thing happen with universities, where
Speaker 3: universities have been targeted by the state, by the federal
Speaker 3: government and have been accused in particular of anti Semitism,
Speaker 3: and frankly, I think it would be the work of
Speaker 3: an afternoon for general counsel at any of these universes
Speaker 3: cities to point out that in fact, there is a
Speaker 3: legally established difference between anti Semitism and anti Zionism, that
Speaker 3: criticism of the nation state of Israel is in fact
Speaker 3: entirely legally distinct from criticism of or threats against Jewish people,
Speaker 3: And if any of these universities actually bothered to challenge
Speaker 3: these allegations, I think that they would win in court
Speaker 3: on the law. And what we're seeing instead is the
Speaker 3: universities declining to challenge these allegations, settling out of court,
Speaker 3: paying large amounts of money to the allegedly aggrieved parties,
Speaker 3: and capitulating in ways that are unnecessary, unwarranted, not legally justified, irrational,
Speaker 3: and seed more ground, not just more ground than is
Speaker 3: legally called for, but more ground than is even being
Speaker 3: asked for in these cases. And so you know, this
Speaker 3: is to me one of the great dangers of normalizing
Speaker 3: these discourses is that these large institutions are engaged in
Speaker 3: acts of self preservation that actually undermine civil society, when
Speaker 3: even a small amount of courage would go a very
Speaker 3: long way to preserving it.
Speaker 2: I think we also sort of saw this in the
Speaker 2: early days of the administration, with legal firms that had
Speaker 2: brought challenges to the administration in the past backing down
Speaker 2: or refusing to offering their fealty or whatever to the administration.
Speaker 2: And we're seeing it now also with some of these
Speaker 2: large media corporations silencing some of their pundits or whatever,
Speaker 2: or in some cases, I mean it's clearly quid pro
Speaker 2: quo because they've got, you know, a merger that's being
Speaker 2: discussed by the FCC at the moment.
Speaker 3: Well, what we've seen, though, we have seen a lot
Speaker 3: of that sort of craven capitulation. But what we've also
Speaker 3: seen is when we fight, we win. Now, I'm not
Speaker 3: trying to be a Pollyanna about this. What I'm trying
Speaker 3: to say is the demands that are being made by
Speaker 3: this particular administration are actually so far beyond the pale
Speaker 3: that based on our legal regime as it currently is,
Speaker 3: when we fight, we win, and so I think it
Speaker 3: is very worth reminding people that, however imperfect the law, is,
Speaker 3: the current state of the law forbids much of what
Speaker 3: this administration is doing, and it is actually worth standing
Speaker 3: up to it. There are other groups of people similarly
Speaker 3: who are not related to Antifa, and one of those
Speaker 3: groups is coasters, like including boomers, who are on Facebook
Speaker 3: and Twitter making jokes about how the right it's so
Speaker 3: hip critical, and those people are getting targeted, and I
Speaker 3: would just gently remind everyone that the First Amendment does
Speaker 3: still exist and that the solution to repression is not
Speaker 3: self censorship but courage. And also, as I have said
Speaker 3: many times, including to you on this program, discretion is
Speaker 3: the better part of valor, and not everything needs to
Speaker 3: be said on the internet, So maybe think about it
Speaker 3: before you post something that you would not like to
Speaker 3: hear read back to you by a humorless prosecutor. Then
Speaker 3: we have these other groups that are engaged in exposing
Speaker 3: law enforcement, which I referred to a minute ago, and
Speaker 3: I think the groups that are you know, exposing ice
Speaker 3: are definitely going to be targeted have already been targeted
Speaker 3: for that activity, but it sort of remains to be
Speaker 3: seen how that can happen while also protecting Canary mission.
Speaker 3: Right then, we have groups that are being perceived as
Speaker 3: or identified as Antifa. Who are the people who are
Speaker 3: like doing food not bombs and community gardening and cooperative
Speaker 3: bookstores and prisoner letter writing, all of which are extremely
Speaker 3: First Amendment protected activities and all of which are not
Speaker 3: only likely to be highly surveiled, are already highly surveiled.
Speaker 3: And this is the group of people who I think
Speaker 3: are actually probably most used to this and best prepared
Speaker 3: for it, and also might be really hard to prosecute
Speaker 3: effectively because they're not doing crimes and you know, like
Speaker 3: the NGOs that we were talking about. The biggest point
Speaker 3: of exposure for all of these groups is likely to
Speaker 3: be financial. We can certainly anticipate that the state is
Speaker 3: highly interested in looking at all of our bank records,
Speaker 3: to the extent that our bank records exist with all
Speaker 3: the money we have, right Like, we're all handing around
Speaker 3: the same staff of twenty singles to each other. But hey,
Speaker 3: you know wirefraud. What I can say is that you know,
Speaker 3: something like a bail fund, and you know, community support
Speaker 3: funds do need to be very cautious. That has already
Speaker 3: always been the case, and this is a really good
Speaker 3: time to hire a CPA to go over your books
Speaker 3: and to make sure that you have kept really meticulous records,
Speaker 3: to make sure that if you have raised money for something,
Speaker 3: you have only used it for the thing that you
Speaker 3: said it was going to be used for. And this
Speaker 3: is once again something that largely is a feature of
Speaker 3: far right organizing. Right. I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 3: but Steve Bannon was actually prosecuted for wire fraud because
Speaker 3: he was raising money to do something.
Speaker 4: Build the wall, Build the wall.
Speaker 3: He was raising money to build the wall, but not
Speaker 3: using it for that purpose, which is wirefraud. Right. So
Speaker 3: if you run a bail fund, presumably you already know
Speaker 3: that you have to be very careful about how you
Speaker 3: raise that money and how you monitor and track and
Speaker 3: use that money. So most of the people, I would say,
Speaker 3: the overwhelming majority of people who are sort of going
Speaker 3: to be subject to this kind of monitoring A have
Speaker 3: already been subject to it, and b haven't actually done
Speaker 3: anything unlawful. And you know that doesn't mean this won't
Speaker 3: be disrupted. It just means, look, I'm not naive enough
Speaker 3: to say that your innocence will protect you, but it's
Speaker 3: a good start. And then we have folks who maybe
Speaker 3: actually do engage in unlawful conduct or revolutionary action, or
Speaker 3: people about whom that claim could somewhat credibly be made.
Speaker 3: And that's actually just a different a different group, right,
Speaker 3: And those things were illegal last week and they're illegal now,
Speaker 3: and they're not more illegal because they're politically motivated. Right,
Speaker 3: Although you know there are terrorism enhancements and sentencing enhancements
Speaker 3: and things like that, the fact is, like, you know,
Speaker 3: it can't be more illegal to spray paint Free Gaza
Speaker 3: on the side of a building than it is to
Speaker 3: spray paint I Love Trump on the side of a building. Right.
Speaker 2: I mean, what whether or not this like pans out
Speaker 2: in the courts, right is one thing. But I know
Speaker 2: that like, say, for the library case that happened here
Speaker 2: where people were arrested because some people were filming in
Speaker 2: this like Palestine related workshop in a public library and
Speaker 2: they were asked to stop filming and then a scuffle
Speaker 2: broke out and a phone got knocked to the ground
Speaker 2: and people got apparently dragged outside. Again, I was not
Speaker 2: there for this, but like now the people are facing
Speaker 2: like people who were in the crowd, who are not
Speaker 2: the people who were filming or facing charges of ethnic intimidation.
Speaker 2: That's a very specific case in a different jurisdiction from
Speaker 2: where you are practicing law. But it's not just about
Speaker 2: like what's being charged against them isn't about assault per se.
Speaker 2: It's this enhanced, politically driven statement based on the rhetoric
Speaker 2: that's based on the politics.
Speaker 3: Right. Absolutely, And I'm glad you pointed that out because
Speaker 3: I certainly do not want to suggest that politically motivated
Speaker 3: prosecutions don't happen. They absolutely happen. These reset statements don't
Speaker 3: change the way in which they happen, right, And there
Speaker 3: are ways of targeting people for prosecution based on their politics,
Speaker 3: and those have those are again not new. I think
Speaker 3: the point that I'm trying to make is that I
Speaker 3: don't think this has changed substantively. Yeah, like the fact
Speaker 3: that the President said Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization
Speaker 3: just doesn't really change the legal landscape. This has been
Speaker 3: the targeted surveillance of the left, whether you call it Antifa,
Speaker 3: whether it's the Green scare, whether it's the Black Liberation Army.
Speaker 3: This has been a priority for decades of administrations. More
Speaker 3: and more legislation has been developed to criminalize garden variety
Speaker 3: protest conduct. We saw that a lot around Standing Rock
Speaker 3: and BLM. More and more resources are allocated to testing
Speaker 3: creative strategies for monitoring and criminalizing political activities. You know, again,
Speaker 3: state repression and the tools that are used in the
Speaker 3: service of state repression are just not new. And the
Speaker 3: fact that you put out these statements is maybe a
Speaker 3: good reminder that we should be circums fact and aware
Speaker 3: of repression and prepared to bear up under it.
Speaker 2: So is the RICO sixty one Atlanta case a model
Speaker 2: for what we see moving forward at a federal level
Speaker 2: in relation to these domestic terrorism charges conspiracy, racketeering, the
Speaker 2: focus on bail funds, and other abolitionist infrastructure, civil liberties organizations.
Speaker 2: Section H of that September twenty fifth statement refers to
Speaker 2: the Attorney General pursuing quote, politically motivated terrorist acts such
Speaker 2: as organizing docs and campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault,
Speaker 2: destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder like
Speaker 2: I know, those are all things that you know, they've
Speaker 2: already got charges attached to them. It's just these are
Speaker 2: now being framed within the framework of being terrorist acts.
Speaker 2: But you know, you said, like these practices of attacking
Speaker 2: adjacent like supportive movement and civil society organs. It's not
Speaker 2: in and of itself new, but it seems like the framing,
Speaker 2: especially with the Atlanta case, where the prosecutors brought up
Speaker 2: at the beginning ernark like they gave a Merriam Webster
Speaker 2: Dictionary definition of anarchism and then said, all these people
Speaker 2: fall under this umbrella because they all have this ideology.
Speaker 2: Therefore they are a conspiracy. Is that what the administration
Speaker 2: is trying to do? And is that different from what
Speaker 2: they've already done at a federal level.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, I do think that that's very
Speaker 3: likely that they will try. I think this is signaling
Speaker 3: a real interest in that. I don't think that's particularly new,
Speaker 3: but I think that it's clearly being prioritized. So let's
Speaker 3: talk about RICO. RICO, let's talk about RIGO. Briefly, is
Speaker 3: the Racketeer, Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and it was
Speaker 3: enacted in I think nineteen seventy to go after the mob. Right,
Speaker 3: it was to go after crime families, but it's been
Speaker 3: used against so called gangs and other politically motivated prosecutions
Speaker 3: for a long time, and so RICO has really used
Speaker 3: to kind of criminalize whole communities. But it requires that
Speaker 3: an actual crime has happened. Right, association or ideology in
Speaker 3: itself is not sufficient. So it requires an actual crime
Speaker 3: has happened. And it also requires an quote an enterprise,
Speaker 3: like a coordinated enterprise. And because the first Amendment for
Speaker 3: text association and a large diffuse group of people sharing
Speaker 3: values is not an enterprise, you know, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: It's not a straightforward path to say we want to
Speaker 3: use rego in a politically motiv motivated way and to
Speaker 3: actually be able to have I'm sure this group under
Speaker 3: a net. Right. That's like, you know, saying we want
Speaker 3: to go after Antifa is like saying we want to
Speaker 3: go after people who like cats. Right, there are people
Speaker 3: who like cats, but they certainly aren't coordinating together. I
Speaker 3: suppose that there are actually people who would say, like, yes,
Speaker 3: I identify strongly with this set of values, but it's
Speaker 3: not a membership organization, and it would I think be
Speaker 3: very difficult to mount a prosecution or to mount a
Speaker 3: successful prosecution on the basis of what are clearly First
Speaker 3: Amendment protected beliefs and associations. And there's pretty good law
Speaker 3: on this point, actually, and it comes from an effort
Speaker 3: to prosecute a bunch of anti abortion protesters under RICO
Speaker 3: and the court said you can't do that. The fact
Speaker 3: that there's a large group of people who happen to
Speaker 3: believe the same things does not mean that they are
Speaker 3: an enterprise. So look, get me wrong again, this would
Speaker 3: be hugely disruptive, but it would be very difficult to
Speaker 3: sustain an effective prosecution or obtain a conviction if there
Speaker 3: was one competent investigator, prosecutor judge or jury member anywhere
Speaker 3: along the way. But yes, hugely disruptive if if they
Speaker 3: managed to do it. I would like to note something
Speaker 3: about the stop coup City Rico. That's important. So first
Speaker 3: of all, yay, those all those charges, those ricos were
Speaker 3: dismissed for legal reasons of being utter bolts. And I
Speaker 3: know that you know there's some concern that that will
Speaker 3: be appealed, but I think it is worth noting and
Speaker 3: celebrating that when we fight, we win. But sort of
Speaker 3: more to the point in this context, I do want
Speaker 3: to note that Georgia's RIGO statute is different from the
Speaker 3: federal reco statute, and it's actually even worse than the
Speaker 3: federal RICO statute, and it still couldn't be effectively used
Speaker 3: in this way. And also federal RICO has often failed.
Speaker 3: Right efforts to use federal RICO in a politically motivated
Speaker 3: way have also failed. So if you look up like
Speaker 3: the Ohio seven, which was a fairly early effort to
Speaker 3: bring a politically motivated RICO that did not go great
Speaker 3: for the government. So yeah, I think that's important to
Speaker 3: note about RICO.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned this like FBI designation earlier, it had
Speaker 2: been for a while. I think under I thought this
Speaker 2: came up under Obama, but maybe it came up under
Speaker 2: Biden for the prosecution of January sixth. But anti government extremists,
Speaker 2: which included militia movements and also anarchists, it's been shifted
Speaker 2: to far left extremists in the verbiage of the DOJ
Speaker 2: and who they're pursuing. Anti law enforcement and anti conservative
Speaker 2: attacks have been framed as you know, of considered effort
Speaker 2: by far left extremists in the media, and also like
Speaker 2: by these institutions as they're you know, moving forward before
Speaker 2: they actually make any arrests or whatever, and through their
Speaker 2: prossecutution sometimes using terms like you know, antifa or trantifa
Speaker 2: or whatever sort of motivations they're giving. I also wonder
Speaker 2: if you could say a thing specifically about this sort
Speaker 2: of framing that is being given.
Speaker 4: Again, that is like.
Speaker 2: Like I was thinking about this before more recent mass
Speaker 2: shooting events that have happened, or before the hullabaloo around
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk's assassination and the shooter the alleged shooters relationships
Speaker 2: to other people, that there seems to be this concidered
Speaker 2: effort around clinically framing and politically framing transness as a
Speaker 2: mental health issue but also as a political extension of
Speaker 2: woke gender ideology that's coming for your children. And it's like,
Speaker 2: it's it's interesting because like, in order for people in
Speaker 2: a lot of cases in the US to be able
Speaker 2: to gain access to medical care that they desire or
Speaker 2: need around maybe gender dysorio or some some other experience,
Speaker 2: they often have to use these like clinical terms for
Speaker 2: what they are experiencing and why they need medication for it,
Speaker 2: and not faulting people for making that approach because you
Speaker 2: need the medicine that you need.
Speaker 4: But now this is.
Speaker 2: Being turned around and reframed as therefore, if people need
Speaker 2: this stuff and they're making this argument, therefore they have
Speaker 2: some sort of mental deficiency or some sort of issue
Speaker 2: which is being used in order to challenge people's right
Speaker 2: to keep in bear arms under the Second Amendment, or
Speaker 2: saying that people are like because of their transnits being
Speaker 2: motivated towards this attacks like, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: have anything to again, not exactly like, not exactly a
Speaker 2: legal issue.
Speaker 4: But I don't know if you have any observations.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I guess when it comes down to it.
Speaker 3: Just to be very clear, the DSM makes it very
Speaker 3: clear that or that being trans is not a mental illness.
Speaker 3: That gender dys for you is distress cause by discrepancy
Speaker 3: between the assigned gender and your actual gender, which would
Speaker 3: exist if any cisperson were being treated as a gender
Speaker 3: that they didn't identify with right that would be a
Speaker 3: distress that would arise for any person. I think that
Speaker 3: there are real problems with the sort of clinicization or
Speaker 3: medicalization of gender affirming care. But I do want to
Speaker 3: be very clear that that does not have to and
Speaker 3: does not formally or officially include pathologizing trans identity. That's
Speaker 3: something that's being imputed and being imposed, but it has
Speaker 3: no basis in clinical practice. Not that that necessarily matters
Speaker 3: to the government, but I do think it's important to
Speaker 3: point that out. I think given that previous efforts to
Speaker 3: restrict gun ownership on the basis of previously diagnosed mental
Speaker 3: illness have not been super successful, I don't know that
Speaker 3: this one will be either. But again, this is an
Speaker 3: issue of power and less an issue of law or
Speaker 3: logical coherent legal philosophy.
Speaker 2: So this term has been coming up a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, with Trump or the administration talking about domestic terrorists,
Speaker 2: there's been a lot of pushback from the legal community
Speaker 2: or from civil libertarians, saying, what the hell are you
Speaker 2: talking about? Can you talk about like what it means
Speaker 2: to be called domestic terrorists? What changes that makes in
Speaker 2: like how the law approaches he or how you can
Speaker 2: be convicted?
Speaker 3: Yeah, gladly. So, at this point, what it means to
Speaker 3: be called a domestic terrorist is actually nothing. There is
Speaker 3: no legal procedure for designating a domestic terrorist group, for
Speaker 3: designating a domestic group a terrorist organization, and given the
Speaker 3: current law on the matter, even with this Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: I think it would be very, very difficult to change
Speaker 3: the law in the way it would have to be
Speaker 3: changed in order to make that designation. There are ways
Speaker 3: to freeze the assets of a domestic group. There are
Speaker 3: ways to posit or show a connection between a domestic
Speaker 3: group and a designated foreign terrorist organization, which is a
Speaker 3: real thing that has legal effect. There is a way
Speaker 3: to financially designate a group or an individual, as you know,
Speaker 3: having this kind of relationship to foreign terrorist organization or
Speaker 3: an FTO. So, but there's no legal mechanism for designating
Speaker 3: a domestic terrorist group. That's not a thing. So this
Speaker 3: is a place where the government could simply dispense with
Speaker 3: the law. But I do not think this is a
Speaker 3: place where the government can use the law to create
Speaker 3: a category of domestic terrorist organizations. Just to like explain
Speaker 3: ftos a little bit, there is a category of organization
Speaker 3: that are designated by the State Department as quote, foreign
Speaker 3: terrorist organizations ftos are designated by the State Department, and
Speaker 3: they are listed on the State Department website. Right, it's
Speaker 3: not a secret who they are. You're not going to
Speaker 3: suddenly find out that you know, you gave money that
Speaker 3: to I don't know the Greek equivalent of the ACLU,
Speaker 3: and now it's you know, it turns out it's an FTO.
Speaker 3: There are certainly cases where the government has successfully claimed
Speaker 3: that a connection between a domestic group and an FDO exists,
Speaker 3: even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 3: And if you have a connection to an FTO, you
Speaker 3: can be prosecuted for what's called material support for terrorism.
Speaker 3: And it's a very serious charge. It's a very frightening charge,
Speaker 3: and it does criminalize a lot of things that most
Speaker 3: people understand to be protected by the First Amendment.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: It criminalizes providing things like medical care to certain groups.
Speaker 3: It criminalizes providing education or legal support to certain groups
Speaker 3: that are designated foreign terrorist organizations. And frankly, this is
Speaker 3: the idea that underpins material support for terrorism charges is
Speaker 3: offensive to many people because it does feel very much
Speaker 3: incompatible with constitutional norms under the First Amendment. It's an
Speaker 3: important thing to be aware of, but it would be
Speaker 3: very surprising to me if the government were able to
Speaker 3: successfully make broad claims connecting quote Antifa to foreign terrorist organizations.
Speaker 2: I was when you were saying that that had me
Speaker 2: thinking a little bit about the Holy Land five case.
Speaker 2: I was trying to remember that example. I guess like
Speaker 2: to belabor this. Can we talk about the distinction between
Speaker 2: domestic terrorist organization, which is a classification that doesn't exist,
Speaker 2: versus the charge of committing terrorism because people who get
Speaker 2: terrorism enhancements at least like the Maryus Mason one example
Speaker 2: that comes to my mind, right, who is a member
Speaker 2: of cell that was associated with the Earth Liberation Front
Speaker 2: like so that that person got over two decades in
Speaker 2: prison based on being convicted of crimes that existed and
Speaker 2: then getting enhancements based on the definition that those were terrorists,
Speaker 2: amplifying the amount of time.
Speaker 3: Right. The difference is the difference between criminalizing conduct or
Speaker 3: defining conduct as being terroristic, and criminalizing a group. The
Speaker 3: First Amendment protects freedom of belief, association, and expression, and
Speaker 3: that means that however much we might be targeted for
Speaker 3: our beliefsciations, and expression, we cannot be prosecuted criminally for
Speaker 3: anything besides our conduct our actions. And so there can
Speaker 3: be terrorist offenses and enhancements for sentencing on the basis
Speaker 3: of conduct that you are convicted of. If you engage
Speaker 3: in certain illegal acts and a judge determines that those
Speaker 3: acts were motivated by desire to do terrorism, that the
Speaker 3: penalty for engaging in those acts can be enhanced. But
Speaker 3: you cannot designate a group of belief or an expression
Speaker 3: as being a crime in itself unless there is conduct
Speaker 3: associated with it, because we don't criminalize people's identities. I mean,
Speaker 3: we do criminalize people's identities, but it's impermissible to prosecute
Speaker 3: people for having those identities.
Speaker 2: I guess I have note as I understand the terrorism
Speaker 2: enhancements that the prosecutors are pursuing in the Luis gim
Speaker 2: Angioni case have been dropped.
Speaker 4: Is a thing that I heard, yes.
Speaker 2: Which I mean at the same time, this is referenced
Speaker 2: in one of those documents that came out from the
Speaker 2: White House as being a terroristic act. So yes, what
Speaker 2: do the courts know? Okay, thank you for making that
Speaker 2: distinction more clear. All right, So how might those of
Speaker 2: us on the left or in justice movements as you
Speaker 2: stated it, conceive of the state's view of us? How
Speaker 2: do we rally support for our identities and positions, what
Speaker 2: are some good practices understanding, Like, having had this conversation,
Speaker 2: the terrain on which we're operating.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So I guess what I'd say about best practices
Speaker 3: is understand whether you are at risk, even if you're
Speaker 3: somebody who has not traditionally been at risk, even if
Speaker 3: you're someone who has lived your whole life believing that
Speaker 3: the system works and that this particular administration is like
Speaker 3: an aberration. I would say, Look, this administration is preoccupied
Speaker 3: with the funding streams for very mainstream liberal causes, and
Speaker 3: the fact that it's sort of lumping everything under the
Speaker 3: banner of antifa, you know, is probably a big surprise
Speaker 3: for some of these groups, like you know, suburban white
Speaker 3: moms against guns or whatever. But they are very focused
Speaker 3: on things like wirefraud and money laundering and stripping nonprofits
Speaker 3: of their tax status if there's even a whisper of
Speaker 3: the possibility that those nonprofits are pursuing goals that are
Speaker 3: in any way antagonistic to state interests. So, if you
Speaker 3: are in a group that has a bank account or
Speaker 3: raises money, the best practices here haven't changed. Keep very
Speaker 3: precise track of your funds. If you raise money, use
Speaker 3: it for that they knew said you were going to
Speaker 3: use it for. Have an accountant, you know, be very
Speaker 3: very careful about your money. And again, the best practices
Speaker 3: for the rest of us also haven't changed. This is
Speaker 3: political discourse that reaffirms what we already know about targeted surveillance,
Speaker 3: and we have for a long time known how to
Speaker 3: deal with this. If you are approached by law enforcement,
Speaker 3: remember that the Fifth Amendment protects your right not to
Speaker 3: speak to them. You have no obligation to speak to
Speaker 3: law enforcement. It is a crime to light of federal agents,
Speaker 3: and that means that it is safest not to say anything. Besides,
Speaker 3: I'm represented by counsel. Please leave your name a number,
Speaker 3: and my lawyer will call you. There is truly never
Speaker 3: a compelling reason to speak to federal agents before consulting
Speaker 3: with an attorney. The Energy Anti Repression Hotline can be
Speaker 3: reached at two one two six seven nine two eight
Speaker 3: one one. You can call to have a free, privileged
Speaker 3: conversation about your rights, risks, and responsibilities and to be
Speaker 3: connected with appropriate legal resources in your area. And at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, we keep ourselves safe by
Speaker 3: refusing to submit to this fear, refusing to comply in advance,
Speaker 3: refusing to second guess whether we actually have rights, and
Speaker 3: more importantly, we persist by being confident in the fact that,
Speaker 3: no matter what, our communities are going to rally around
Speaker 3: and care for each other.
Speaker 2: I think that would be a great place to tie up.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having this conversation and for
Speaker 2: the insights that you shared, and for the work that
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 3: MO. You're very welcome. It's always a pleasure. It Could
Speaker 3: Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For
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