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He Infiltrated a Notorious White Nationalist Group. Now, He’s Being Sued for Exposing Them
(www.rollingstone.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
690 points (98.6% liked)
politics
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Hope the lawsuit exposes them more. It should be 100% illegal to be anonymous to be part of a domestic terrorist groups our a hate group like this. Do what Germany does with nazis.
As an attorney, I would absolutely love to have subpoena and discovery power against right wing loons. I’m surprised they sued in the first place.
Since Patriot Front itself as an organization is not party to the suit how much can reasonably be gotten from them that wasn't in the leak? And I assume they've all been sanitizing their electronic devices and destroying anything remotely incriminating leading up to this lawsuit. Probably even distancing themselves from Patriot Front itself.
Heard from a friend; Just as real champagne only comes from France, only facists from Germany can be called Nazis. All others a simply sparkling facists.
c'mon, man, "sparkling white supremacists" was right there waiting for you to take it
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Your friend is Nazi.
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Not to undercut you, but a study of German police and such recently found there are a LOT of Nazis gaining power...
I heard they've naizies in the military n in their police ranks etc.. do you know/ can You verify?
I don't know this source that well, but it very recently claimed that Nazi symbols and child porn were found in police chats. I lean more towards believing it after NPR reported in 2020 about Germany investigating their own police during a noticeable rise in "Far-Right Extremism" around the country.
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It should be 100% illegal to be anonymous to be part of a domestic terrorist groups our a hate group like this.
Now, define "domestic terrorist group" and "hate group" and do so in such a way that someone explicitly looking to attack the causes you believe in can't manage to count people you support in either of those groups. Because that's the hard part.
Also the bit where you have to throw out the 1st Amendment - freedom of speech that doesn't apply to even wildly unpopular ideas isn't actually freedom of speech because only unpopular ideas ever need protecting and exactly how far into unpopular, hated, reviled and abhorrent ideas you have to go before things become illegal is exactly how strong those freedoms are. Henry Louis Mencken once wrote, “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”
Just imagine a hard right fundie christian conservative judge getting to rule whether or not a group falls under the definitions you give, and they'll rule it accurately for any hard and fast cases but also will use any flexibility you give against you.
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I mean, I hate white nationalism just as much as the next guy. But if you go around making it illegal to be anonymous or part of a particular group, whether they're considered terrorist or otherwise, that's bad. It gives the next party in power precedent to make being part of your group illegal. That's why freedom of speech is so important.
I think associating with a group that believes in the creation of an ethnostate should remain legal so that associating with a group that believes in the dismantling of capitalism remains legal.
The paradox of tolerance is real, and not all things are equal.
If you allow a group that wants to murder to organize, they will eventually murder.
Banning genocide enthusiast groups doesn't mean you also have to ban bird watchers.
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Yeah, I used to be a "free speech absolutist" too. Used to harp on about how important it is that we allow all views to be spread, regardless of how disgusting it might be... Then I grew up and realized how harmful that idea is to society.
Slippery slope fallacy isn't enough to convince me that having laws similar to Germany is going to lead to oppression or something. These ideologies have no place in modern society, and they should be given no quarter.
These people use your ideal of free speech absolutism against you, and until we realize there needs to be limits, we will never progress as a society because all of our time, focus, and resources will need to be on fighting this shit over and over and over.
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To the tune of "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"
If you're a Nazi and you're fired, It's your fault 👏👏
If you're a Nazi and you're fired, It's your fault 👏👏
You were spotted in the mob, Now you've lost your fucking job.
If you're a Nazi and you're fired, It's your fault 👏👏
Edit for spacing
You were spotted in the mob, Now you’ve lost your fucking job.
If you’re a Nazi and you’re fired, It’s your fault 👏👏
Absolutely nailed the cadence, well done
8am and my day is already fucking great having read this.
The lawsuit hinges on unwelcome public identification. Ironically, the parties here sue in their own names, filing in federal district court in Washington state and creating a public record of what the suit terms their “unpopular opinions.” By their own identification, they are:
Names listed in the article
They're not sending their best and brightest, folks
They're not sending their best and brightest, folks
Yes they are.
I hadn't even heard about this suit, barely knew Patriot Front existed, and didn't have a clue about any leaks prior to reading this article, and now due to the suit I know them by name. Nice publicity stunt?
I knew about them, but I guess my skin color makes me sensitive to any news of the existence of groups like these.
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I'm pretty sure these are their best and brightest
You know why they hide their faces. It's because they would be 'unhirable' otherwise. So much for being a patriot when you're a giant pussy white nationalist.
I agree these people are bad, but if you're on the left at a protest, hide your face also. It's not worth exposing your identity to potential employers or the police. Hiding your identity isn't just a fascist thing. Everyone should be doing it.
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"Yes, we believe Hitler was right and we want to exterminate every race other than us so that our white children can fulfill their white destinies..... But we don't want people to know our names. They might get mad."
Fuck all of these bigots.
files in court with their legal names, creating a permanent public record
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The suit decries how the left-wing activist conned Patriot Front into thinking he was a fellow traveler, “lying about his background and values,” only to expose its members through photography, secret recordings, and a massive computer hack.
The suit pulls back the curtain, for the first time, on how 400 gigabytes of Patriot Front data came to be exposed by the whistleblower group Denial of Distributed Secrets, in conjunction with the media collective Unicorn Riot in early 2022.
With this alleged hack, “Capito was able to download private chats and intercept video links” later posted in a data dump by DDoSecrets, the suit contends, and publicized by Unicorn Riot.
This leaked material showcased — among other rancid behavior — videos of Patriot Front members defacing murals that celebrate racial justice, burning LGBTQ pride flags in the woods, and thowing up Roman salutes and shouting “Sieg fucking Heil” when they thought they were off-camera.
And the group is infamous for menacing flash-mob tactics, in which shouting members march in a uniform of khakis and blue polo shirts — obscuring their identities with white face gaiters, baseball caps and sunglasses.
Five members of the group, including James Johnson, were recently convicted of “conspiracy to riot” at the 2022 Pride festival Coeur d’Alene, Idaho — where they were intercepted by FBI agents before they could descend on the celebrants.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good job 👏 bot
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It casts him as a 3-D-printed “ghost gun” enthusiast, a practitioner of the martial art of Krav Maga, a seasoned lock picker, and perhaps even “immune” to pepper spray.
They couldn't make him sound cooler if they tried
Dude sounds like how the mobsters talk about the "boogyman" in John Wick. Less discrediting and more showing how much they fear him.
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