Observation Is Not Obstruction—Until Power Needs Silence -- SPECIAL EDITION

Brenda Gravermoen
Jan 16
4 min read

01/16/2025 Please read Letter to the Reader first.

There is a line that separates a democracy from something darker. You can usually find it where citizens are no longer permitted to observe the government exercising power over them.

We are crossing that line now.

Across the country, people who follow Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at safe distances, record them in public spaces, or simply bear witness to their actions are being treated not as citizens exercising constitutional rights—but as threats. Agents have claimed that filming them is “interference.”

That observing them is “obstruction.” That presence itself is hostile.

This is not confusion. It is not a misunderstanding of the law. It is a deliberate reframing of accountability as danger.

And it is how authoritarian fascism operates.

Authoritarianism Is the Method. Fascism Is the System.

It is worth being precise with language, because imprecision is how dangerous systems survive.

Authoritarianism is a method. It describes how power is exercised: through coercion, intimidation, selective enforcement, and the erosion of accountability.

Fascism is a system. It is the political structure that fuses state power with ideological permission to dehumanize, suppress dissent, and enforce hierarchy through violence—often while maintaining the outward appearance of legality.

What we are witnessing is not merely authoritarian behavior inside a flawed democracy. It is authoritarianism being used in service of a fascist system.

That is why the correct term is authoritarian fascism.

Observation Is Not Obstruction—Until Power Needs Silence

In the United States, the right to record law enforcement in public has long been protected. Courts have repeatedly affirmed that filming officers—so long as one does not physically interfere—is lawful. This principle exists for a reason: power that cannot be observed cannot be restrained.

But observation becomes intolerable when an agency’s authority depends on speed, fear, and anonymity.

Under the expansive logic encouraged by NSPM-7, federal agencies are incentivized to treat scrutiny itself as a threat. “Organized political violence” becomes a flexible category—one that can be stretched to include people who document arrests, follow vehicles, or alert neighbors.

The effect is not accidental. It is chilling by design.

When agents claim that being watched makes their job impossible, what they are really saying is that their authority depends on being unaccountable.

“This Isn’t Fascism”—A Familiar Historical Refrain

Every authoritarian fascist system is initially defended the same way: this is an overreaction; you’re exaggerating; it’s about safety.

We have heard this before.

In Weimar Germany, early crackdowns on “disruptive observers” and “agitators” were framed as temporary security measures. Journalists and civilians who documented police violence were accused of undermining public order—before mass repression became explicit.

In the United States, Jim Crow–era sheriffs treated civil rights observers and journalists as provocateurs. Filming beatings, arrests, and intimidation was framed as interference. Violence followed, justified by the claim that order required silence.

During COINTELPRO, the FBI labeled activists, observers, and journalists as threats not because they committed violence, but because they exposed it. Surveillance and intimidation were portrayed as preventative security—until history judged it as authoritarian abuse.

In none of these cases did fascism or repression arrive announcing itself. It arrived through procedural language, enforced by agents who insisted they were merely doing their jobs.

The pattern is unmistakable.

Dehumanization Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Once observers are labeled obstructive, the next step follows easily: they are no longer deserving of respect.

This is how authoritarian fascism functions at the human level. The system teaches its agents that some civilians are not quite citizens. They are obstacles. Risks. Agitators. Problems to be neutralized.

This is how people holding cameras become targets.

This is how witnesses become enemies.

This is how restraint becomes optional.

Fascism does not begin with camps. It begins with permission—permission to treat certain people as less worthy of dignity, safety, and legal protection.

Why This Is Not “Overreach”

Calling this mere overreach is comforting, because it suggests correction is easy.

But overreach implies deviation. What we are seeing is system logic.

Authoritarian fascism requires:

Broad, vague security definitions
Enforcement discretion unmoored from accountability
A narrative that frames dissent as danger
Force justified by presence rather than action

When watching the state becomes suspicious, the system has already inverted democratic norms.

This is not the failure of democracy to restrain power. It is the replacement of democratic accountability with authoritarian fascist enforcement, one encounter at a time.

The Point Is Not Safety. It Is Control.

If this were about safety, agents would welcome cameras. Transparency protects everyone. Footage clarifies facts. Witnesses reduce false claims.

But cameras shift power. They invert the gaze. They remind the state that it, too, is being watched.

Authoritarian fascism cannot tolerate that. So it redefines filming as provocation.It redefines following as harassment.It redefines accountability as extremism.

And then it acts accordingly.

What Comes Next Depends on What We Accept

History is unambiguous on this point: once a government successfully criminalizes observation, the category of people who may be harmed without consequence expands rapidly.

Today it is immigration observers.

Tomorrow it is journalists.

Then organizers.

Then anyone who does not look away.

Authoritarianism is how they do it.

Fascism is why.

When the state punishes people for watching it exercise power, the system has already declared itself.

The Opinionated Observer

Watching closely. Saying it plainly.

Published Thursdays at 6:00 AM.

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Who Does the Government Serve When Citizens Stop Demanding Better?