That would be a hoot.
It’ll be interesting to see how this lawsuit turns out because it looks like a slam dunk, however the government can pull tricks out of a hat on stuff like this.
There’s an inherent problem with lawsuits against the government. A paradox that the government is *willing* to break the law, because if they lose a lawsuit, the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill, not the offenders.
This really came to the fore when protesters were protesting against various international financial gatherings in the US, and the police were told to violate their civil rights. So they put electrical tape over their badge numbers, some dressed in civilian clothes, especially if they weren’t local police, attacked citizens almost at random, those protesting and those onlooking, used *lots* of excessive force, arrested without cause, etc.
They knew there would be litigation, but were told that it didn’t matter. The suits would take six months to a year or more, and any settlements were both petty and fully funded by taxpayers. The important thing was that they were able to disrupt the protest, *now*.
In effect, they were authorized to have a “police riot”.
And even though the people they busted up were not entirely sympathetic, like anarchists, the point is that this has become the government attitude towards *all* the people. If they face no personal punishment, they *will* break the law.
This problem has been many years in coming, so it is important that when conservatives are in power, they put an end to such abuses. They would do so by creating a threshold on “the color of authority”, to distinguish honest error from criminal abuse.
Until federal, state and local officers, bureaucrats and appointed and elected officials end up behind bars, such nonsense will continue.