Facebook Warrant Targeting Student Journalists in Puerto Rico Prompts Fear of Political Surveillance

If the prosecution of the students and the surveillance that surrounded the 2017 protests were intended to intimidate people and discourage dissent, that has largely failed. “What’s interesting is that that hasn’t stopped people. The biggest protest that has happened in Puerto Rican history happened this summer,” Rivera told The Intercept. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in July and successfully demanded the resignation of the corrupt governor Ricardo Rosselló. “And if you look around the world, no matter how much these neoliberal governments crack down on protest and crack down on activism, what we are seeing, in the whole world, is that activism gets stronger. The way a lot of these governments have acted toward dissent has basically been like gasoline for people.”