USA – Public Security and Human Rights – Finding Nonviolent Paths

“The time is always right to do what is right.” When it comes to large-scale violence among crowds, the United States of America faces complicated issues, but they are not impossible to mitigate, and to choose a path with respects law enforcement, public security, human rights, and works to find nonviolent paths for de-escalation of violence.

I. Recommendations:

1. DHS and U.S. Government must identify law enforcement activities performed under Homeland Security Act of 2002, specifically, as codified in the U.S. Code, at 40 U.S. Code § 1315, “Law enforcement authority of Secretary of Homeland Security for protection of public property.”
2. Federal facilities under attack in conflict zones must prioritize de-escalation for a period of six months, including the use of teleworking where possible. The U.S. Government should relocate personnel and resources to facilities outside of conflict zones for their human rights of public security. Court cases need to be transferred to other courts. Steel/concrete barriers must be increasingly implemented outside of federal facilities in conflict zones under attack to reduce damage to facilities owned by the U.S. Government, while reducing the need for physical law enforcement engagement with violent figures.
3. Community de-escalation in conflict zones must also be a priority. Community leaders need to be engaged to urge a reduction and public rejection of violence and violent acts. Community leaders must be vocally and visibly seen as offering a path respecting shared freedom of expression, while supporting public security and equality (not privilege) under law. If no community leaders are available, then DHS must reach out to identify nationwide humman rights figures to support advocacy for nonviolence as a method of freedom of expression and support for public security.
4. U.S. Government must use electronic, unmanned vehicle, and non-physical means to report on attacks in conflict zones, limiting the use of DHS law enforcement authorities as much as possible. To discourage violence against federal authorities, those documented in attack federal facilities must be identified and federal criminal charges processed in a court facility outside of the conflict zone.
5. DHS must recognize that law gives them authority over the federal facilities, not the streets of their host cities. DHS law enforcement authorities must be fully briefed, with documented briefing on non-classified materials available for Congressional oversight, on their authorities and limitations of authority under law. This training must also clearly document education on law enforcement processes, Constitutional protections, Miranda rights documentation, and support law enforcement standard practices.
6. DHS and U.S. Government must assess effective use of 40 U.S. Code § 1315 in coordination with local/state law enforcement agencies. The U.S. Government must define a clear “perimeter” of federal facilities for movement and action by U.S. Government law enforcement. DHS must assess and document a clear “perimeter management” process to reduce U.S. Government law enforcement going outside authorized law in protecting federal buildings
7. DHS needs to identify vehicles with DHS Law Enforcement insignia, operating on behalf the DHS Federal Protective Service (FPS), with DHS FPS logos.
8. DHS needs to identify individual law enforcement personnel with DHS Law Enforcement insignia, operating on behalf the DHS Federal Protective Service (FPS), with DHS FPS logos.
9. DHS should provide unique identifying badge numbers on a database controlled specifically by the DHS FPS at the highest security classification. Given the ground circumstances of Anarchist extremist insurrectionists seeking to threaten the homes and familes of DHS law enforcement, their actual names should not be on their badges for their safety. But a unique identifying number documented in a federal database is necessary to track and monitor DHS personnel actions, and hold them accountable for their use of force.
10. The U.S. Government and DHS need to listen to local / state government authorities and law enforcement authorities and remove any members of the DHS FPS accused of abuse of authority from conflict zone law enforcement team, while an investigation into the accusations is conducted.
11. The U.S. Government and DHS must document and address clear and definable metrics for local and state government authority and law enforcement coordination regarding safety and law enforcement activities on federal facilities and personnel. It must be understood that de-escalation is not equivalent to abanadonment of federal government facilities, federal government personnel, and protections for the general public. Federal, local, state authorities must have agreed to metrics, or if agreement cannot be reached, federal authorities define metrics on public safety of federal personnel and facilities.
12. The U.S. Government must designate to local and state government authority and law enforcement that division of roles in federalism does abrogate the responsibility of the U.S. Federal Government under 10 U.S. Code § 253 (Interference with State and Federal law) and 18 U.S. Code § 2383 (Rebellion or insurrection). The priority of coordination with local and state authorities are to prevent conflict zones from escalation to a point where such extreme measures are necessary for public security.

II. Background:

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has posted this message to specifically address the issues in Portland, Oregon among large-scale protests, which have targeted federal facilities. R.E.A.L. has long called for the U.S. federal government to protect the public, and of course, federal workers, from attacks by armed individuals who defy shared law and our universal human right of public security, using FORCE as their voice.

As R.E.A.L. has many times reported, R.E.A.L. rejects the forces of violence and urges the public and our authorities to use nonviolence. Beginning in January 2016, R.E.A.L. reported during the “Sovereign Citizens” Extremists (SCE) group takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon federal refuge, R.E.A.L. urged the U.S. Federal Government to protect the public. The mishandling of this violent attack on law and public security nearly resulted in the deaths of many, with armed figures allowed to takeover federal government facilities, and then to use such facilities as a base to threaten the local public, courts, media, and schools. The SCE, led by Ammon Bundy, then sought to expand their violent takeover to other communities and parts of Oregon. It is nothing short of a miracle that there were not more deaths. The F.B.I. used what was left of its “law enforcement” authority to use F.B.I. intelligence informants to infiltrate the SCE group in Malheur, and give the extremists gun training, at an area of the refuge converted into a shooting range. The result of this disastrous handling of Malheur by its end on February 11, 2016, was that one of the extremists ultimately was killed in a shootout, and criminal charges were essentially dismissed for all of the SCE defendants in court. In simple words, it was a disaster.

But in 2020, the U.S. faces a totally different problem, with legitimate protests on human rights of black Americans as a result of public outrage over police abuse. Anarchist extremist infiltration in such protests that have stretched across the U.S. for nearly two months now has a much more serious and dangerous threat to shared human rights of public security and life. Instead of just one area of public conflict, the U.S. now faces areas in numerous areas of the country, with some extremist seeking only insurrection, not protests regarding human rights and change in public and law enforcement policy.

So four years later, in 2020, as Anarchist extremists infiltrate and corrupt protests on human rights for black Americans, it is no surprise that the FBI has not been brough back into this problem for yet another disastrous approach in handling. But a focus on using the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Protection Service (FPS) authorities has brought new problems.

DHS is using authority granted under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, specifically, as codified in the U.S. Code, at 40 U.S. Code § 1315, “Law enforcement authority of Secretary of Homeland Security for protection of public property.” This gives authority for the epartment of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Protection Service (FPS). But the DHS FPS was only designated as a small contingency of mostly “security guard” level staff to protect federal buildings, with a handful of individuals per building. The DHS FPS was never designed or resourced to handle massive crowd threats of hundreds, even thousands of individuals.

There is significant political partisan discussion around this implemenation of 40 U.S. Code § 1315, but very little focused on law enforcement and human rights. In fact, the overwhelming number of commenters don’t even seem to acknowledge that this 18-year-old law even exists, and believes that the DHS law enforcement activity is a politically invented creation of the current administration.

R.E.A.L. is not a political partisan organization, and will not address the political debate. But there are real law enforcement and human rights issues that do need to be addressed outside of the political shout fest.

Given that DHS has limited resources under FPS, it has recruited from law enforcement in other DHS components including DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel. These pick-up merger of resources from diverse DHS agencies have not worked together as a team, do not have history in team organization roles and responsibilities, and does not have documented in-place processes to deal with urban crowds involving violence and riots. Predictably mistakes will be made, even if these DHS components are also working with a (relatively small) Department of Justice U.S. Marshals Service (USMS).

The implementation of the DHS “law enforcement” team to deal with crowd crisis aggressively attacking Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Oregon has posed a specific and urgent issue for law enforcement and human rights individuals to offer guidance to de-escalate growing violence, abuse against public security, and abuse against human rights.

While Portland authorities will pretend this is only a federal problem, the reality is that the Portland Police and law enforcement has long had a problem in managing Anarchist insurrectionists infiltrated or taking the guise of “protest” issues to legitimize acts of violence and destruction. This is not a problem that began in May 2020, nor did it begin with the COVID-19 Coronavirus; this has been a problem for Portland literally for years, with a growing number of Anarchist organizations demonstrating with weapons, including automatic rifles in some parts of the nation. Portland has been a regular target for gang violence between Anarchist insurrectionists and white nationalist extremists. For too many years, the Portland Police have been directed to limit their involvement, while video after video after video has shown these violent gangs beating and fighting one another in the street – with NO Portland Police action.

The growing contempt towards public security, shared law, and law and order in Portland, Oregon has been the problem of YEARS of neglect, years of failure of local leaders to discourage and refocus frustration into positive, nonviolent methods of protests, and years of criminal literally finding that they can regularly commit violent crime without consequences. In Portland, this was a dire problem for years before the current U.S. administration came to office in January 2017. Those among the political partisans who seek to believe these problem suddenly appeared in January 2017 have simply decided to ignore facts and history.

As R.E.A.L. has previously documented, the U.S. has a history of over a century of Anarchist extremism and terrorism. Acts of violent anarchism has frequently affected the lives of Americans in terms of public security. In the late 20th century, the Anarchist Black Bloc movements sought to reinvent their identify leveraging the European “Antifa” identity. But despite the new title, the Anarchist Black Bloc violence and goals for insurrection (NOT human rights) have never changed.

So looking at Anarchist insurrectionism as simply another “law enforcement” problem with “protests” ignores what the actual problem is. There may be protesters, and there may be protesters with legitimate human rights causes. But the Anarchist insurrectionist that infiltrate those human rights protests have a completely different agenda, which is more in line with the Soveriegn Citizen Extremist (SCE) separatists, than any human rights cause.

In the current case of Portland conflict, the attacks on the Hatfield United States Courthouse and other federal buildings listed by the Acting DHS Secretary from May 31 to July 15, 2020 demonstrated 91 attacks in 26 days. This is not a problem with “unruly protests.” This is a focused effort by Anarchist insurrectionists.

We do not “protest” for “human rights” with sledgehammers, explosives, metal piples, metal baseball bats. This is not a human right protest, but the actions and tactics of violent insurrectionists. Magnified by the historical inability of Portland law enforcement to manage this local problem, the Anarchist insurrectionists have sought to intice U.S. law enforcement into overreaction to gain further rationalization for rejection of equality under law. The Anarchist insurrectionist goal is not change for human rights, but violent revolution and insurrection, which is a problem most law enforcement organizations are not prepared to address, let alone the DHS FPS, even with some additional resoruces from ICE and CBP.

As documented in detail in recommendations above, R.E.A.L. urges all parties to find a specific and clear path of de-escalation from violence.

It is essential that the U.S. Government and DHS work on a process to de-escalate conflict zones and find method and metrics of agreement with local and state government authorities to reduce the probability of conflict escalating to a point of extreme measures, which will undermine both public security and human rights.