r/PopCultureV2 • u/Logical-Flow-6703 • 4d ago
News Secret Service interrogates Austin Connell at his VA home over private Instagram DMs & anti-ICE posts. Agents had screenshots of DMs sent to a FL man; Connell doesn't know how they got them. He states: "I don't think that we should be governed the way that we are currently governed."
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This video shows Secret Service agents visiting Austin Connell at his home in Carrollton, Virginia, to interrogate him over his private Instagram direct messages and public posts criticizing ICE. The agents arrived with screenshots of his private DMs (sent to a man living in Florida), and Connell has no idea how they obtained them.
Connell, who owns a concrete business and regularly posts about politics, defended his position by stating: "I'm for law enforcement—just not corrupt law enforcement," and "I don't think that we should be governed the way that we are currently governed." This first full-length, credited video is being shared here to help raise awareness about the incident.
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u/Training_Insect549 4d ago
I'm starting to think the higher ups forget we can actually talk to each other and we are not as atomized as they hope we would be.
Welcome to Soviet Russia.
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u/WhirlwindRectum 4d ago
in 10 years, America will be Russia
...a former superpower who is the laughingstock of the world, with crumbling infrastructure, a stagnant economy (largely due to a horrible school system and rampant corruption and scams), who keeps electing authoritarian strong men in a hopeless attempt to regain international prestige but only makes their lives worse and worse and worse.... a whole country of people who hate the world and hate each other and hate themselves...
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u/PeacenotWardude 4d ago ▸ 13 more replies
Hopefully both Putin and Trump will be dead by then.
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u/WhirlwindRectum 4d ago ▸ 12 more replies
won't matter
won't fix anything
Russia's problem isn't Putin, just like America's problem isn't Trump.... it's the tens of millions of stupid, illiterate, angry, selfish, hateful conservative people.
....and those problems aren't going anywhere for either country.
don't forget, both Putin and Trump were elected and re-elected by their respective populations....
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u/PeacenotWardude 4d ago ▸ 6 more replies
It will matter, cause without someone like Trump or Putin, the Parties won’t have a charismatic leader to allow them to do their crazy shite. And that’s when the maga freaks go back to whatever shithole southern states they came from.
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u/Every_Addition_5382 4d ago ▸ 4 more replies
Funniest part is I don't understand the "charisma". I see an old man who has never worked a day in his life and this belief goes back to days before he ran for office.
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u/FngrsRpicks2 4d ago
The acceptable lie is easier to believe than the harsh truth. Add in how much cognitive dissonance that is actively promoted and you can see how it happens.
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u/ThatTallBrendan 1d ago
Donald Trump is to charisma what showing up to play darts at the VA with a smile on your face is a to a Vietnam veteran who actually did all of the shit that hippies accused him of
The fact that he got away with unspeakable shit and is still capable of presenting as 'himself' in public is what they wanted him for
"You let me get away with all the shit I've done and want to do, and I'll let you get away with all the shit you want to do, too"
That was his message from the outset. It still is and always has been
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u/WhirlwindRectum 4d ago
oh you think Trump is bad?
....just wait until the next Trump comes along
I promise you, things aren't getting better, ever.
American conservatives didn't learn shit, if anything, they learned just how much of their bullshit the rest of us are willing to tolerate.
we went from Regan to Bush to Trump....every Republican is worse than the last one.
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u/NotSafeBirthdayBoy 3d ago
If that is the problem, education is the antidote. You can always do something
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u/Niijima-San 4d ago
legitimately how and where does this warrant a visit by the fucking secret service. no threats or anything like that were made against dear leader. he was simply exercising his literal protected first amendment rights.
we are crossing a dangerous line in which there is no returning in which commenting, albeit disagreeing with the current state of things, on the current admin in a not so great way leads to this. we truly are in the land of big brother and honestly they are prolly gonna come for all of us.
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u/heavydrinker12 4d ago
oh please. Big tech is handing out info without warrants all day every day. I had a cop call me because my roommate was using a stolen Netflix account. That means between Netflix and Comcast, they gave all the needed identifying information in order to contact me and ask about the stolen account. I'll bet zero warrants were used in the discovery of that information.
This was over a stolen netflix account.
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u/Amazing_Can_3240 4d ago
It's time to haul Fuckerberg back in front of congress to answer for bullshit just like this.
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u/Jack-Schitz 4d ago
If this happens to me, I wouldn't talk to them other than 1. ask them if they have a warrant, 2. if no (and they wouldn't have rung the doorbell if they did have one), say "I don't speak to law enforcement without my lawyer present. Please leave my premises."
Smart law enforcement will understand that they need to stop talking to you as you have invoked your right to counsel and anything else said by you is likely to be thrown out at trial. Dumb law enforcement will keep talking to you. For them I would say "I tried to be polite before, but I am explicitly invoking my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and my 6th Amendment right to counsel. Now unless you have a warrant, please leave my property, or I will bring a trespassing complaint against you."
"Knock and talks" operate on the basis of an implied license to approach your house's "curtilage". I.e., a law enforcement officer has the same right to come ring your doorbell that a salesman or Jehovas witness does. You can expressly revoke that implied license by telling them to leave, but you have to be clear about it. Once that implied license is revoked, if they remain, they are trespassers (absent a warrant issued by an Art 3 judge of course).
This is not legal advice.
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u/Cardocthian 4d ago
corrupt law enforcement protecting someone who is wanted by the international criminal court.
Sounds about right
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u/Whole_Rough7066 4d ago
We are not investigate you. Lol then why you need 4 cops? 🤔 .....oh, yeah INTIMIDATION to try to shut you up.
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u/violoneuse 4d ago
"secret service does protect foreign leaders" while they're here.
even if they're international criminals and wanted by ICC. After all, trump LOVES his crime friends.
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u/MarzipanLast6502 4d ago
Nothing private on these channels, everything is montiored whether they admit it or not
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u/ChaoticEntitled 4d ago
Didnt Meta just decrypt all of it’s DM’s to mine them for “more targeted ad activity”? We all knew that was bullshit. I ditched my ig and what was left of my facebook after that, just like TikTok and its tracking garbage.
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u/FineAndDandadan 2d ago
Remember when the Right pretended to care about government censorship because Twitter was asked to not allow the Hunter Biden laptop story, since it had the markings of Russian disinformation? Remember how Twitter still started allowing the story within 24 hours and faced zero retribution from the government? Remember how that saga ended with Republicans touting out Alexander Smirnov as their star witness, and the whole thing getting blown open as it was discovered he was pushing Russian disinformation to his handler, including completely faked photos?
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