You may remember Erik Prince's mercenary outfit Blackwater from such crimes as deliberately murdering Iraqi civilians on multiple occasions, impeding investigations into those incidents, and...wait for it...threatening to murder a State Department investigator looking into the matter. The ensuing scandals led to Blackwater changing its name to Xe, then changing it again to Academi (its current name).

In light of the news that the Trazi regime will be employing a private goon squad and secret police force - one operating outside of law enforcement procedures and answering only to Trumpler personally - one has to wonder at Prince's sister Betsy DeVos being given a top Cabinet position. Trumpler never does anything for another person unless he gets a lot more in return, so the association should be setting off alarm bells.

Will Prince be commanding the New SS (let's call it that for now) behind the scenes in exchange for this boon to his family, or merely providing it with the resources to get away with murder and treason? The matter is urgent to those inside Washington as such characters are the likeliest successors to Nixon's "plumbers," although almost certainly going far beyond burglary this time. Kidnapping, torture, and murder of journalists and opposing politicians is likely given the personalities involved and the unprecedented steps being taken, ticking off the Prelude to Dictatorship checklist one by one.

For the rest of us, the question is more academic, but does carry one relevant and very helpful fact: The New SS is a private organization and will not have any law enforcement authority or political immunities, meaning the following:

• Outing their identities is legal. They are not covered by laws protecting undercover operatives of government institutions, nor do they have any reasonable expectation of privacy.

• If they claim to be law enforcement or falsely wear law enforcement uniforms, they will be committing a crime.

• While events on private property give some ambiguity, in general they do not have a right to physically engage other people unless a credible threat is presented, meaning that citizens can legally defend themselves if threatened or attacked by them.

Distinguishing New SS thugs from Secret Service details that do carry law enforcement authority may be difficult - a fact that will certainly be exploited by the former - so protesters should exercise caution. But they should also be aware that not everyone in a black suit with an earpiece has legal authority to act against them.

Activist groups should develop new rules of engagement in consultation with their attorneys, because private security operating in parallel to the Secret Service while outside of its command structure is unprecedented (or should we use Trumpler's term, "unpresidented"?) at this level. The goon squad already has an extensive history of violence and will only become more arrogant with power, so the necessity for adapted tactics is clear.

Those brave citizens intending to exercise resistance through close-proximity protest must be aware of the new situation and understand that self-defense is an applicable factor. Attacks on protesters and journalists by the New SS will probably escalate beyond assault into kidnapping and murder, especially if a Byzantine piece of work like Erik Prince is involved. A new level of discipline among protest organizers may be necessary.

One thing that citizens can do immediately is comb through campaign videos and records relating to past assaults on protesters in order to identify New SS figures for future reference. Until the regime consolidates power, their goons will likely do everything they can get away with to impersonate the Secret Service - up to and including criminal impersonation - so knowledge is key.

Over the long term, we can expect that the New SS will eventually either replace the Secret Service's protective details entirely or the regime will force the Secret Service to hire them so they can usurp the institutional authority. But for now the key is distinguishing the two. Only one is law enforcement; the other are personal employees of Herr Trumpler with no more authority than any other random criminals.

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Freedom Forever

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This has been a communique from the Allied democratic resistance at This Is Not A Game