Your the one who said "act would make wearing a mask at a protest punishable by up to 15 years in prison." If you meant something else you should have said that to begin with...Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:20 am Anything that makes it easier to punish protester makes it harder to oppose evil in power.
So it answer my own question, this section parallels the already existing Chapter 13 of title 18 section 241, the relevant bit of which is
So it is already as illegal for two or more people to in disguise deprive people of their rights (presumably the legislators of the new law are here thinking of antifa disrupting fa protesters), on a highway or on private property (not clear does this basically mean anywhere or would there be lots of places that people protest that are not a "highway" or "premises of another"). This law would make it so you only need only one person in disguise and add five years to the penalty (assuming no killing, rapes etc.), not nothing but not a huge difference, given that most masked protester work in groups of n where n is larger than 1. Although I guess I am not a law guy person, so this is just a guess based on reading the relevant statute. The other bit adds 2 years to a what looks to be an already 5 year sentence.Chapter 13 of title 18, sec. 241 wrote: If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
That being said when they name their law "Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018" suggests a certain preoccupation of the legislators and I would tend to agree it suggests a worryingly narrow focus of their concerns and so on. I think that is way more worrying than the actual penalties of the law, which don't seem like a huge addition to existing penalties.
