Speaker Mike Johnson says he's blurring Jan. 6 footage so rioters don't get charged
Speaker Mike Johnson says he's blurring Jan. 6 footage so rioters don't get charged
"We don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ,” the House speaker said. His office later noted that DOJ already has the raw footage.
That sounds an awful lot like obstruction of justice.
You’re right, it does. I guess since various law enforcement agencies already have the footage, they can get away with it… but yeah, since public volunteers helped in so many cases, the end result is the same.
Blurring the faces of the protestors may not break the letter of the law, but it definitely violates the spirit. I’d like to see a skilled legal team make an official complaint.
"We don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ,” the House speaker said. His office later noted that DOJ already has the raw footage.
So he's blurring faces the DOJ already have and simply claiming he's doing it to protect them... the dishonesty runs deep in this "christian."
Well that’s pretty blatant
I'm against doxxing in all of its forms. Privacy's a right and we should protect it, even when it makes it harder to punish the bad guys. So I'm not really mad about the outcome here. Not that I'd feel particularly bent out of shape about it if their images WERE revealed because it was pretty fucking easy to not be in that crowd inadvertently.
But we all know that's not why he's doing this. Mike Johnson doesn't believe in privacy or any other rights. He's a true conservative harnessing the apparatus of state to give comfort to his tribe and punish outsiders. He's using power to enforce his preferences and values on others. He's giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States because he approves of the attempt to undermine democracy and execute a fascists takeover of the nation. Because he's a traitor.
I'm against doxxing in all of its forms. Privacy's a right and we should protect it, even when it makes it harder to punish the bad guys. So I'm not really mad about the outcome here
I don't know that I'd agree with characterizing this as doxxing; I'd say it's more in line with reporting. Especially considering many of the terrorists involved in this attack are still at large.
What outcome? The article notes that the DOJ already has the footage unblurred. So Johnson is just doing performative wankery here.
That was my initial thought, but then I read the article.
DOJ does have that footage. But online sleuths have proven to be an extremely valuable resource in identifying Jan. 6 participants, using the CCTV footage to determine which rioters entered the building and then building a database with the clearest photos of those suspects. They have often used facial recognition for leads and have aided in hundreds of cases against Jan. 6 defendants.
Blurring the footage isn’t the empty gesture I thought it was. All he’s doing is exposing the layout of the building while protecting insurrectionists. Bear in mind that the building was deliberately designed in a confusing way for security purposes.
Fuck this guy.
The main objective of releasing unblurred images publicly would be to assist with identification and investigation, right? To recruit the larger American audience to help the cops identify people.
Progressives are suddenly VERY enthusiastic to be deputized as cops when it comes to Jan 6.
You can have privacy in your private residence or at a private business. If you are in a public space you have never, ever had any expectation of privacy. This is as bad an argument as saying social media removing or censoring posts is against the right to freedom of speech.
That's a cop brain argument. Just because you're out "in public" does not give anyone permission to freely do with your personal information, such as images of you, however they so please. Utter horseshit. Your right to privacy in your affairs travels with you, and having a major political official post images of you which people may use to figuratively and literally attack you for political reasons without due process is about as major a violation as I can imagine, ignoring any other factors or details around that release.
You can make an argument that, this being an honest-to-god protest, maybe these people were conducting them in a fully-public way. I'd maybe buy that. But the burden needs to be pretty damn high on that, and so it's not a stupid little fucker like Mike Johnson's authority to make that decision.
Just because (US) law says that it is OK doesn't mean it is OK. Rights have supremacy over law and when the law stands in the way of rights, the law must change, not the rights. I'll remind you that in other places (e.g., Germany), this "out in public" distinction essentially does not exist.
Removing your rights requires due process, period. The (theoretically) proper agencies to follow that due process have the unredacted footage and so they can go through the procedures to release it justly if they feel it is necessary. Mike Johnson does not get to act as the judge, jury, and executioner in a case like this, no matter how much I expect anyone harmed by that act would be human shit.
We'll have no privacy rights at all in the near future if people keep uncritically accepting the arguments the cops make for when and where privacy exists.
Law & Order, Thin Blue Line etc.
So he's admitting they were committing crimes then.
Cool... Cool...