House Speaker Mike Johnson has promised to release more than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from Jan. 6 to the public, with one major caveat: The faces of some individuals who participated in the storming of the Capitol, a violent attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election, will be blurred out.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson said that “the release of the January 6 tapes is a critical and important exercise, we want transparency … we trust — House Republicans trust — the American people to draw their own conclusions.”
Johnson added that the party is going “through a methodical process of releasing them as quickly as we can” and that they “have to blur some of the faces of the persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against, and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other, you know, concerns and problems.”
It’s either foolish or malicious to deliberately misrepresent the actions or motivations of these ass-hats just because they’re ass-hats.
The DOJ already has unredacted footage and the blurring of faces is meant to avoid retaliation by “non-governmental actors”, i.e. vigilantes, not to save anyone from arrest.
I disagree. These people broke the law in a serious way. There is no “light treason” when it comes to attempting to obstruct the public vote. We all should know who they are.
There have already been well over 1,000 arrests, a few hundred sentenced, etc. (https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases) and you can look up names/details of those who’ve gone through due process. That’s the system at work, like it or not. I don’t think it’s up to you or me to convict, or harass, or whatever else. You can maybe ID folks whose images are posted by the FBI requesting information from the public. I just hate to see crappy headlines and social media posts distorting what’s happening when it seems pretty simple to verify through non-extreme media outlets.
I say this all with respect.
I hope everyone who gleefully rampaged around the capital gets what is legitimately coming to them.
I understand your point, and appreciate your respect too. If this were petty crime, e.g. shoplifting by some individuals, then I’d agree on keeping the video sealed until due process has, well, processed.
What do we do with several thousand people attacking the core of our democratic process? How do we keep historical accuracy for the future as well, we need to teach people what happened.
I’m conflicted, personally, because I’m glad our representatives see that they’re not untouchable. Maybe it’ll keep them interested in serving those ordinary citizens outside the vaunted halls of the capitol. On the other hand, I strongly disagree with the reasoning behind the traitors’ attempt, and find both the timing and the method suspiciously well planned, by someone who I generally find despicable on multiple levels.
I’ve seen your comments here. I don’t believe you.
I don’t think you have, unless you want to share what you think I’ve said and refresh my memory. The only political topic I’ve engaged on Lemmy had to do with landlords, so I’m not sure where you’re coming from.
Is this the part where we start up the rumours again that Mike Johnson is anti-MAGA by trying to protect the FBI from Trump vigilantes by only blurring out the faces of informants, and just seeing what happens? Chaos for the sake of chaos?
I like this plan. Sign me up.
Or blurring the faces of antifa?
The guy literally said it was to stop the DOJ from charging them. It’s in the quote in the original post.
Why would a self-proclaimed patriot be against charging literal insurrectionists?
Yeah, my fault. I read about this in an Axios article that I linked above. That only makes the rep’s comment more absurd when, again, we know the DOJ has the unedited footage, which is also acknowledged in the Rolling Stone article.
Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right?
Sometimes hypocrisy is reason enough, but deterrence is good too
“I’ve got nothing to hide.” and other misunderstandings of privacy.
Wrong, I think. The ol’ nothing to hide line is one we can only be comfortable with when it’s not being wielded against us.
“nothing to hide” is a common quip espoused by cops and right wingers. The fact that it doesn’t make any sense is irrelevant to it being a) the view that they hold and b) something that they are hypocritical about
I may be confused about your point. It seems like you’re acknowledging that it’s a bad argument, but supporting using it against those whom you despise, no?
It’s not a good argument (nothing to hide), and I think it gets deployed by whomever is trying to lean on someone else. It’s not great to be a hypocrite, but hypocracy doesn’t invalidate an argument.
This is all aside from what I meant to be my main point though, which is that this original post is, in my view, meant to gin up more outrage by misstating what the speaker said. Turning discourse into an exchange of inflammatory bumper stickers is social media’s most toxic influence.
Talking through “nothing to hide” and its ramifications is worthwhile and on point though. Kudos!
Yeah I see the confusion, that was all just hyperbole meant to poke fun at them for being hypocrits. My main point was the word “deterrence”.
If the faces were shown unblurred, it would be a deterrent to others who might think about engaging in insurrection in the future as they wouldn’t be able to hide behind privacy measures … [And back to the poking fun] the very same measures that they disavow when others are subject to them because “if they have nothing to hide …”
They are related, which is why I said both rather than one or the other
you mean the faces that are already posted by the FBI for everyone to see ?
We should immediately edit the footage with AI to “unblur” the faces with the correct suspects. Then, tag Johnson in every repaired clip we post online.
Unblur their faces; I just want to talk
I think everyone involved in Jan 6 should be in jail, but after reading your comment I think blurring faces makes sense. Remember when Reddit caught the Boston bomber?
Yes, although someone else here pointed out to me that the Speaker actually did say he wanted faces blurred to protect those folks from DOJ, which is absurd 1) because I agree that those clowns need to face consequences, and 2) it makes no sense given that DOJ already has the raw footage.
Still, I’d hate to encourage reddit-style vigilantes even if that seems at odds with the fact that the FBI posts images explicitly looking for help in identifying certain suspects.
I still use “We did it reddit” at least once a week, in response to someone fucking something up
I think he means so that anyone in John Q Public can’t recognize any neighbors or coworkers in the vids and report them to DOJ. So, still obstruction.
Well, no, I don’t think that’s obstruction. He’s not hiding them from DOJ, since they already have the footage. Choosing to not publicize faces for John Q Public won’t get in the way of their prosecutions.
FBI has their list of most wanted including pictures.
So this is perhaps not helpful at worst, and avoiding vigilante justice at best, is what I’m thinking.