CNN's Journalists Forget How to Read

A couple days ago, the Washington Post published an article which spelled out some uncomfortable realities about tactics being used by anti-ICE protesters. Specifically, the article made clear that using a car to obstruct ICE crossed a line from standard, non-violent protest into something else . AP Photo/Ron Harris Federal court rulings say citizens can observe and record police activity in public areas as part of their First Amendment rights, and many of the observers are doing nothing more than that. But as officers and agents employ aggressive tactics, some activists have blown whistles to warn community members of approaching law enforcement, tried to follow immigration enforcement vehicles or used their own cars to block the roadways - entering murkier legal territory . Some legal experts said such behavior could in theory justify obstruction-of-justice charges, but they added that any such prosecution would be unusual... David Loy, legal director of the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, said that members of the public have the right to blow whistles or follow ICE vehicles at a sufficient distance and alert members of their community, but that protesters cannot physically stop an officer from doing his or her job. “It doesn’t create a right to commit traffic violations or physically attempt to block a law enforcement vehicle,” he said. “But there is a right to follow and document what they’re doing.” As I pointed out Monday, the Post really bends over backwards to avoid applying all of this insight to Renee Good, who had parked her car sideways in the street to obstruct the movement of ICE vehicles. Nevertheless, the outlines of the law do apply and what they suggest is that Good was crossing a legal line by creating a traffic jam as a form of protest. Today, CNN takes a stab at writing, essentially, the same story. It's titled "New documents shed light on Renee Good’s ties to ICE monitoring efforts in Minneapolis" but the gist of the article is that most of the anti-ICE tactics being recommended in documents spread at her son's school were legal protest behavior . The woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis last week served on the board of her son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training. The documents shed new light on Renee Good’s connection to efforts to monitor and potentially disrupt ICE operations - an association that federal officials have made clear is at the center of their review into the deadly incident that occurred as she partially blocked ICE agents in the street with her SUV. But four legal experts who reviewed the documents for CNN said they largely describe nonviolent civil disobedience tactics practiced at American protests for generations - far from the sinister depiction of extremism and domestic terrorism portrayed by Trump administration officials like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance. There's a bit of a gimmick here because CNN's experts are reviewing the...

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