Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and local lawmakers introduced a legislation on Monday that targets participants in "violent or disorderly" protests.

It is a move that may help rally law-and-order Republicans ahead of the presidential election in November. DeSantis called the plan the "boldest and most comprehensive" bill on violent protests. He said it would be the highlight of the Florida legislative session next year.

The legislation is called the Combatting Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act. DeSantis said the proposal would make disorderly assemblies a third-degree felony. 

Incapacitating a road would also be a felony, according to the bill. Organizers could be held accountable for protests that turn violent. The legislation also "prohibits state grants or aid to any local government that slashes the budget for law enforcement services." 

Meanwhile, drivers would be exempted if they hurt or kill a demonstrator with their vehicles while fleeing from the scene.

Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the proposal was an attack on protesters.

Kubic said that DeSantis has chosen to respond to this moment by unveiling an undemocratic and unconstitutional bill that would freeze free speech. Kubic noted that this would instill fear into people who have been advocating against injustice.

She added that the plan to strip protesters of the right to bail until their first court appearance would remove "fundamental due process." DeSantis is a close ally of President Donald Trump.

Florida's protests have not reached the size of many others happening across the country.

In Portland, protests resumed once again on Friday night after pausing for roughly a week due to wildfires. One local civil rights leader said demonstrations were not going to stop because of the fires.

Rev. E.D. Mondaine, president of Portland's chapter of the NAACP, said that fire would not smoke them out. Until Friday, Portland streets had remained quiet due to the smoke-filled air.

"The fires started last week, and the air started getting so bad, it made street protests impossible," Olivia Katbi Smith, co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America Portland chapter, said in a report.

Meanwhile, videos that recently spread online showed some federal agents in Portland without clearly visible identification rounded up protesters and loaded them into unmarked cars. 

Congress was prompted to demand the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to disclose information about the operation. However, the DHS never opened up to the public about the full extent of its intelligence operations in Portland.

Its operations reportedly consisted of clandestine activities such as interceptions of protesters' phone calls done by a task force that included federal agencies aside from the DHS.

Previous reports said that the DHS's intelligence division generated intelligence reports on several prominent journalists covering the protests.

Shortly after the Congress' probed, DHS shocked the national security by removing its high-ranking undersecretary as chief of I&A, Brian Murphy.

Murphy had served as a member of the rarefied Intelligence Community and is authorized to handle highly classified information about security threats to the country.

"He did not get reassigned over some unclassified program. That is a convenient story, but that isn't what's going on," a former senior DHS I&A intelligence officer, who has served under Murphy, said in a report.

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