THE FEDS INVADE PORTLAND.

• Author: Ciaramella, C.J.
• Position: POLICY

MOST OF THE time in conversation, when libertarians warn about masked government agents snatching folks off the street in unmarked vans, people politely change the subject. This past July, reality caught up with our dystopian imaginations.

The Trump administration deployed more than 100 federal law enforcement officers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to Portland, Oregon, to quell weeks of unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The administration claimed it was simply protecting a federal courthouse.

News reports and videos, though, showed something different. First, federal law enforcement officers, many of them from a Customs and Border Protection tactical unit, shot a protester in the head with a non-lethal munition, fracturing his skull. The man was hospitalized and required facial reconstruction surgery. Then videos emerged of anonymous federal agents in camouflage and body armor quite literally abducting protesters off the streets and dragging them into unmarked vehicles. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that one detainee was taken by federal authorities, interrogated, and then released about 90 minutes later with no charges.

The federal government has the authority to protect federal property, of course, but civil liberties groups and legal observers said the operation stretched the legal limits of that authority. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon called the street abductions and detainments "flat-out...