The current zeitgeist seems to be that the 'good' protests should be completely unmonitored and unrestricted, and the 'bad' protests should be tightly monitored and heavily sanctioned. The same is of course true for speech.
Nobody in those Minneapolis neighborhoods (neighborhoods that were predominantly populated with african americans) wanted idiots burning down their local grocery stores or causing violence in their neighborhoods. Just like no sane person wanted a bunch of morons to break into the US Capitol building.
If you want to make a claim, own it instead of being coy.
It seems like some preparation for security at large events is necessary? But then the security is a target. Sometimes they try to keep a low profile to avoid this.
> EFF shows that the LAPD asked for video related to “the recent protests"
Given that the protest was against the LAPD's power, more or less, you can imagine that this looks much more retaliatory than it does investigatory.
The ring doorbell footage isn't used for intelligence in advance of an event. It's used for dragnet surveillance after an event has taken place.
My question about such after the fact surveillance: Is there a specific crime that they are investigating, or are they doing an investigation seeking a crime?
Why would I say this? I don't think "the bad thing" of insurrection and lying about election results has been done by both sides, and so I perceive your comment that says "but both sides" to be reductionist, in a biased fashion. Surely, one can condemn an insurrection against democracy without needing to condemn peaceful protests against abuse of power and extrajudicial murder which were coopted by violent antagonists and opportunists.
[0]: https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2020/07/federal-courthouse-...
The insurrection on the other hand has a hearty crew of deniers / supporters / it didn’t happen but if it did it wasn’t violent. Again, this is still a false equivalency being constructed.
> a hearty crew of deniers / supporters / it didn’t happen but if it did it wasn’t violent
is exactly what we all saw for months regarding Portland's protests.
I've seen it online and I've heard it in person. Exactly that way of talking about it: it didn't happen, but if it did, it would have been justified and/or nonviolent.
I'm not defending the capitol riot, nor am I condemning the BLM protestors as a whole. What I am saying is let's not pretend that either one was a group of exclusively peaceful protestors.
If we accept that there were violent crimes committed, then it follows police can and should be investigating the protests, because there were real crimes and real violence. We can debate whether they should be using Ring camera footage to do it, but some here are treating the mere fact that there's an investigation as an assault on free speech and free assembly. A more likely explanation is that they're investigating the assaults, robberies, and vandalism.
But how is that even relevant? These two events are not comparable and should not be spoken about in the same breath except for to say that the comparison is abhorrent.
The protests were a months-long event that was legitimately protesting abuse of power, regardless of who coopted the frequent, massive, public demonstration to do public damage.
The insurrection at the Capitol wasn't about anything other than disrupting the certification of the election. There can be no doubt about that. This is why well prepared and informed attackers were present and integrated with the crowd, which only existed for one day at one place that only one thing was happening at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United...
From a purely statistical standpoint, they were overwhelmingly peaceful.
From a purely statistical standpoint, WWII was overwhelmingly peaceful and Covid is only a serious risk to the compromised and elderly.
Even CNN, with it's masterful use of euphemistic language could only manage describe the protests last summer as "mostly peaceful" whist standing in front of a burning building.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/513902-cnn-ridiculed-for-...
I attended a DEI seminar at work where someone "said the thing" as he was encouraged to -- but it was the wrong thing apparently -- he was then humiliated by the organizers for wrongthink for about an hour in front of his coworkers.