[ExI] rubber bullets

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2020 at 4:17 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Is anyone concerned that rubber bullets and tear gas are being used
> against peaceful protesters exercising their 1st Amendment rights?  Are the
> police immune to lawsuits claiming denial of constitutional rights?  If so,
> that is one of the things we need to change.
>

Many police believe with good reason that they are in fact immune, at least
within the US, so long as the exact thing they did - down to every detail -
has not been previously found illegal.  That's not "fire tear gas at
protestors" but "fire this specific brand of tear gas under these exact
weather conditions at this range (and so on for pages) at protestors".
Look up "qualified immunity".  It seems to be getting used a lot more as a
legal defense these days.

Note that the Supreme Court just today declined to hear a number of cases
seeking to overturn qualified immunity.

I agree, it is among the list of things that urgently need changing.

It may be small compensation that, after this was done in DC, there was a
string of high brass in the DOD stepping forward to say they had no part in
authorizing it.  (In fact, it wasn't the military at all, but U.S. Park
Police - with some evidence the order may have come from AG Barr.  The
incident happened on ground that apparently has the legal designation of a
national park, which would give the USPP jurisdiction.)
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