If you live in a society that lives under mass surveilance, it is not a free society. You’re not making me think you know what protesting is. You’re describing petition, and you’re really making it sound like maybe you have access to the kinds of privilege that are hard to imagine within an overall hierarchical society. It sounds like you don’t want countries your nations companies profit from to rise up in rejection of the fossil fuel profiteering that gives you access to these things. Please realize the “free society” you live in is the same tortured society the rest of us are trying to dismantle that you’re saying don’t have enough freedom to qualify for your masks off argument.

Which is to say nothing about that this whole discussion has pulled us off the original accessibility concern immunocomprimised people experience. Your masks off argument would see these people stripped of access to the right to petition that you hold dear. When I think about it it genuinely makes me angry just how dismissive of what everyone else is saying. We’re telling you about a REAL and present threat and your response is just to say if we lived in a free society we wouldn’t have to fight for our rights. We know! We know that! That’s why we fight. But what’s frustrating is that your society isn’t as free as you’re saying. You live in a country with active neo Nazi and white supremacist factions. What are you going to do if they gain access to that mass surveilance mechanism. How are you going to tell them you don’t want the descendants of slaves in your country to get lynched? You gonna ask politely?

A surveillance camera could also prove that you were peaceful if you are caught up in a bad situation if you can be identified.

Just to be clear, you think you’re allowed to protest, but also think that you may have to prove your innocence, rather than having your guilt be proven?

It sounds like you actually realize that you’re more at the whims of the government than your claims about being free let on.

“I am going to alter my actions in order to ensure that I am as safe from false accusation as I can be” is just self-censorship because you actually do fear your government.

And what do you think I’m talking about? Cops and fascists want to hurt me for saying it’s not okay for their boys to kill a member of my community. I don’t wanna give them any opportunity to come arrest me for some made up bullshit about how I was doing disorderly conduct in public, and then resisted arrest, and then assaulted an officer. If you’re getting out in public with your face in view and not worried, congrats. You’ve won the racial lottery. Meanwhile the rest of us gotta keep our heads on a swivel because of our facial features, hair texture, and skin color depending on what the cops find to hate in us.