When you've lost the Cato Institute...

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/14/2322408/-When-you-ve-lost-the-CATO-Institute?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

When you've lost the Cato Institute...
Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 9:41:08p EDT
Ruff Havill


snip//

What really caught my attention though was the Cato Institute article from May 12, 2025:

ICE Agents Routinely Mask Up When Seizing People—That’s Wrong

Leave aside the question of when, if at all, it is proper to prosecute bystanders under these circumstances. Why is it considered acceptable for ICE enforcers to wear masks to hide their identity in the first place? They did so last week, a video shows, when they arrested Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka as he protested at a detention facility. A casual search reveals that ICE agents have worn face coverings, ski masks, and the like in raids and stops reported from around the country (Westminster, MD; Douglas County, CO; Great Barrington, MA; Bellingham, WA). Federal agents wore masks when they abducted Turkish grad student Rümeysa Öztürk off a street near her Boston-area home. (She was freed by a judge last week.) The Trump Department of Homeland Security appears to have made it standard practice.

At what point will we as a nation find ourselves with a secret police?

People who mask themselves before street confrontations ordinarily do so to avoid legal and public accountability, especially when they are up to no good.

When you’ve lost the Cato Institute….

[exboyfil]

1. Papers please if you have brown skin

[LiberalArkie]

2. Coming soon to Asian folks, later this year the White folks.

[rsdsharp]

3. Papiere bitte.

[Shipwack]

4. I have a question...

Say someone in civilian clothes and masked up tries to question me or try to detain someone. They refuse to present ID, warrants, or even give a name or organization.

My understanding is that if I refuse to comply, or help someone else, I can be charged with all sorts of things if it turns out they are law enforcement or federal government employees. Am I correct?

Even if I acted legally and in good faith, law enforcement has a super powerful legal immunity so that even if I didn’t know they were police officers, I’m still screwed. True?

Of course, there is a difference between what is legal and what is moral. It all depends on how well I want to sleep at night…

[Qutzupalotl]

6. Non-lawyer here, but my understanding is

since masked “federal agents” are indistinguishable from bank robbers and kidnappers, there is no obligation to comply with any agent that does not show identification.

My advice (again, IANAL) is, if confronted by a masked person claiming to be a federal agent, to ask for their name and agency. If they refuse, I believe they are committing a felony, and you are not under obligation to comply with their demands.

Of course, with this administration, these hired goons could be under orders to mask themselves, even though I believe it is unlawful.

[FakeNoose]

13. Many of them seem to be sub-contractors, not directly employed by Uncle Sam

So the many rules concerning "federal agents" don't apply to them. That's awfully convenient, isn't it?

[WyLoochka]

25. Hoodlums rushed into the jobs with little training

And few rules. A recipe for escalating use of violence.

[Dave Bowman]

14. It's almost inevitable that someone being in that type of situation will pull out a gun on them.

Cops wear badges and don't hide their faces for a reason .

[drmeow]

18. That person

will be crucified by this administration - but I can't say I would blame them! Suddenly all those "stand your ground" laws won't apply!

[DENVERPOPS]

5. Their secret police are already here

and have been for sometime.........brought in for the Portland BLM demonstrations....soldier "types" with no form of identification on uniforms, no markings on black vans, and no license plates. And that was all started by Trump in his first "occupation" of the White House...

[sop]

7. It's become a fashion statement for most of these roided up special ops cosplayers.

They want to emulate their movie heroes by wearing full battle rattle while taking down a breastfeeding immigrant woman. You never know when a complete set of combat gear and equipment - everything a real warrior needs to operate in a combat zone, including automatic weapons, flak jackets, body armor, extra ammunition and the obligatory face-hiding balaclavas - might come in handy.

[Hope22]

8. It's a secret non-police.

People can be nabbed by unmarked cars, unidentified people and taken to an unnamed destination. Not police at all…but kidnappers.

[eShirl]

9. "At what point will we as a nation find ourselves with a secret police?"

Try to keep up.

[BurnDoubt]

10. Rule of Law, Due Process, Habeas Corpus

When these are abandoned, it won't be so noticeable that we have ceded our Freedoms to Russia, and the transition will go a lot more smoothly. It's a process: Project 2025. Have a Felicitous Yahr Null!!!

[IronLionZion]

11. Do those agents even have badges and ID?

Anyone can buy ICE looking gear online and cosplay as agents.

[Paladin]

12. The Cato Institute, flirting with present-day reality.

Don't expect this to last very long...

[ReRe]

15. Why do ICE Officials mask up?

For all the world, it looks like plain old vigilantism to me. If this rounding up of "illegals" is itself legal, why mask up?
Otherwise, it looks like what we have here is a band of white illegals rounding up people for no other reason than having darker skin color. This rounding up business is wrong on it's face! They are rounding up people who don't look like them. WTF are we dong???
WE need to nip this in the bud, like Barney Fyfe used to say on Andy Griffith. Stop it now! More power to the judges who are working on this, setting up their case to take to the Supreme Court. Have faith, People!. The train of justice is moving as fast as it can to stop the real illegals. Uphold Due Process, the LAW!

[travelingthrulife]

24. Puppy Killer Noem said in Congress that it was because they were on other cases

and were undercover. She was, of course, lying.

I hope the group that identified the J6 insurrectionists would begin to identify these thugs.
I am betting a lot of them are J6 insurrectionists and others to whom he gave 'get out of jail' cards. He has them for life.

[ReRe]

26. I agree.

Lying, obfuscating, anything but the truth is going to come out of her mouth.

[Mopar151]

16. Standard Swat (ish) cop gear is straight black, no insignia at all

But big Velcro patches for I.D and bonafides - as it should be. I've been lectured by a sort-of-a-cop about blocking a town road (unloading a car into the gararge) who thought he was so extra-cool that he need'nt be identified as an officious pain in the ass! Once one of my helpers yelled" If you'll get out of the way, he'll get the truck out of here!" he came to his senses a little, which left the town cop car in the road!
He coulda been anybody - had NO ID anywhere I could see! Same problem with these jerks - in fact, they look like the old "blac bloc" "protesters" who turned marches into riots and broke windows to order!

[ret5hd]

19. those "black block protesters" who rioted...

and broke windows were cops too.

[Mopar151]

20. Or worked for the glass company! nt

[ret5hd]

22. no, they were cops.

[Skittles]

17. oh FUCK THEM

they are OH SO CONCERNED that the monster THEY HELPED CREATE is running rampant???

FUCK THEM

[RainCaster]

21. Remove the masks, take photos, post to social media

This is how we combat such dangerous cosplay. Disarm by discovery and exposure.

[wolfie001]

23. They militarized KKK members

White supremacists. Same difference. All are the worst America has to "offer".