Okay, sports fans. These two stories have chilled me to the bone.
Serious question: should we – those of us who condemn trump and his B.S. loudly on this board and possibly elsewhere – be braced for the metaphorical knock on the door (more likely the email notification tone)?
Watching Rachel Maddow last night got me thinking about this topic and then these two stories showed up on the board this morning. I’m not on other social media platforms (FB, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) but it would be a simple task for AI (“A-1” hehe) software to stumble on this board and find lots of unkind statements about Fearless Leader stopping just short of… well… intervention by Acts of God (if there is a God).
Are wisps of fear starting to lick the back of your brain about your own or someone else’s (family, friend, colleague) vulnerability to sudden snatching off the street with no access to a lawyer or the other lawful protections that we routinely see on every episode of Law & Order?
They’ve been coming for us for the past century and a half, if you’re an empathetic person who defines “us” expansively enough to include the people they’re coming for. If they’re coming for people, it shouldn’t matter which people they’re coming for.
I have wondered though, if, say for example, some governmental authority wanted to find out who one of us actually was in order for some ‘simple questioning’, how anonymous are any of us actually on this board? What would the process look like-- would some sort of warrant be issued to the parent company who owns the SD, and then the company would have to choose to either capitulate and hand over the identity info, or fight it in court?
As a practical matter, we don’t really have much identifying information about board members. We could (I leave aside the questions of “would” or “should”) provide law enforcement with email addresses, say, but then law enforcement would still have to find some way to connect those email addresses with individuals. They’d stand a much better chance of finding identities through searching up what individual posters have said about themselves, but that would take a lot of work for a dragnet approach. For that matter, it would take a long time before a dragnet approach even noticed an online community as small and insular as ours: They’d be going after the biggies like Xitter, Reddit, and Instagram.
If Trump goes full-Putin on dissidents here, I’m afraid trying to hide and be anonymous might be the worst strategy. I think we’ll have to stand up in mass numbers and take to the streets.
I thought of that, so I checked which email address I have on file in my profile, and unfortunately I used an email that contains the URL of an old side hustle company of mine that would easily lead anyone right to me. Should probably swap that out with a more anonymous email address.
It could happen someday that a “good guy with a gun” witnesses an ICE operation and mistakes it for a regular non-sanctioned kidnapping. At any rate, WTF are ICE agents masked and bereft of ID?
In the past, the ability for law enforcement to remain anonymous has been justified with “fear of reprisal” arguments. There are a patch work of state laws to withhold the names of law enforcement officers under certain circumstances. This can be seen in things like when a cop shoots someone, the cop’s identity may be kept secret pending an investigation.
The other answer is of course intimidation and police state tactics.
I would say….it depends. I use a pseudonym on the board but I don’t make a lot of effort to conceal my real identity because I really don’t care. It would be trivially easy to figure out who I am.
I don’t really think the government is going to start hunting me based on my posting history here. I’m slightly more concerned about being targeted for my political donations, which are public record.
I am still wondering about this. A US citizen who received such a letter might think it’s some sort of scam or clearly a mistake. They might think they have nothing to fear. I could see that they might just ignore it.
They might “kill” you in the Social Security system like they’ve been trying to do with some immigrants. Which has been a nightmare to correct in the past when the SSA was fully staffed. Who knows how long it would take now…
To add to this, here is the Bluesky account of Nicole Micheroni, a Massachusetts immigration attorney who herself received a letter of removal. She says, “I never took DHS’s scary-sounding notice that I had 7 days to leave the country too seriously, because it was obviously some kind of mistake.” That’s what I expect most US citizens would do if they received such a notice.
She also says, “It appears that mass emails like the one I received have gone out to everyone who processed their parole through CBP One.” So that may be how they collected the email addresses to which to send these notices.
An American put it another way to me, roughly, they could not believe how many people around them (real life people who they work and chat with) have shown that they would probably dotingly turn in Anne Frank to the authorities for not even a pat on the head.
Normally deportation isn’t considered punishing, people are sent to their country of origin where they are free to live their lives…however now I hear that Americans are sending people to some ultra prison in El Salvador from which they can never get out? What in ever loving fuck! How crazy and insane have things gone down there?!
You yanks need to grab control of your government back from these fucking fascists. They will not stop.
There’s probably enough information about me on the Dope for a person who is really, truly determined to find out exactly who I am to do so (besides the one person here who is a Facebook friend, a site where I use my real name).
I’ve read stories about Florida residents who posted anti-DeSantis things on assorted social media getting knocks on their doors, and that was before the Mango Mussolini was re-elected.
I also think that if TPTB want to ship “those people” to El Salvador to start with this one.