New York can’t ban federal agents from wearing face coverings or require that they wear visible identification, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The ruling comes after a federal judge earlier this year blocked a similar law in California that was enacted after the Trump administration aggressively worked to increase immigration arrests.
For the Northern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino wrote that while New York “appears to be well-intentioned in its pursuit of transparent policing,” that’s not what the court is deciding.
“The issue now before the Court is about constitutionality—not transparency or preferable policy decisions,” she wrote.
Cops in most cases are legally prevented from using their positions to make political statements, so that doesn’t work as a test for where they stand on the issue. I don’t expect cops to give up their livelihood to make a point any more than workers in any other job.
I fully admit that police unions all skew right and so do most cops, but I’m not willing to write them all off. They have to take orders from their superiors and ultimately the local government. They can’t just unilaterally decide to take down ICE. It’s about as realistic of an expectation as asking why protestors don’t storm ICE facilities to free the prisoners.
Yes, ACAB, but I don’t want to write off potential allies until we are sure which side they are on.
Cops make political statements all the time. They are happy to make their displeasure known. They regularly endorse candidates and proposed laws, both individually and through their unions. They grumble about marijuana, about prosecutors, and about any attempt at oversight. There is no legal prohibition against them speaking their mind. It might not be in the form of a strike, but when cops are unhappy there are plenty of news entities happy to spread their displeasure.
And this isn’t a case of a random unrelated policy. This is directly about their profession and theoretically the ease with which they do their job. I don’t expect bus drivers to take a stand about data centers, but I do expect them to stand up when policy makes their job dangerous to themselves and their riders.
Cops should be biased against this. They should be the friendly neighborhood officers there to protect the community of which they are a member. But they don’t do anything. Because they wear the same Punisher skulls and desaturated flags the fascists love and wish they could just crack skulls without consequence as well.
They aren’t fucking allies. If they were they’d have said or done literally anything to establish their opposition. They’re not out there in numbers during their off time. Instead it’s random people putting their bodies on the line, often at the tender mercies of these supposed allies in waiting. We know what side they’re on, or at the very least which side they’re not on.