Politics

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Amazon Selling Fake ICE Jackets to Customers Who Want to Scare Immigrants (www.showbiz411.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat to c/politics

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[–] spit_evil_olive_tips 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

unfortunately, "is such-and-such a crime?" is an overly simplistic way of looking at it

a) is there a law that forbids it?

b) are there law enforcement agents who are willing to enforce that law, by arresting people who break it? (or writing citations / court summonses)

c) is the rest of the criminal legal system (prosecutors, judges, etc) willing to pursue charges against those people?

the answer to A, in this case, is very clearly yes - from 18 U.S. Code § 912:

Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

and that basically doesn't matter. if some right-wing chud wants to cosplay as an ICE agent for the purpose of terrorizing immigrants, the FBI is not going to lift a finger about it, and the US Attorneys (federal prosecutors) working for the Trump-controlled DOJ certainly wouldn't bring charges if they did get arrested.

[–] SouthEndSunset@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Thanks mate. I was forgetting the broader details of the situation that the USA is in and that they would be absolutely fine with this.