I don't think access to equipment is a good qualifier. Nor should "vulnerable" and "protected" be conflated.
More important is whether membership in the group is based on something that harms others. Let's protect people who want to be left alone so they can pursue their passions in peaceful ways. As for those who want to be left alone so they can kidnap and bully--lets ensure they're as vulnerable as possible until they change their ways.
Who has access to tanks _and_ needs to be protected from citizen reports on their activity?
I'm not conflating the two - Google told 404 Media they were a vulnerable group, while Apple applied a guideline that has previously been used on protected classes, which it seems Migrant Insider interpreted as:
>The decision effectively treats federal immigration agents as a protected class — a novel interpretation of Apple’s hate-speech policy that shields one of the most powerful arms of government from public scrutiny.
It sounds like you're saying that they are not vulnerable. But that's just defeatist. Just because they have tanks doesn't mean they don't have vulnerabilities. When they go home from work they shop at the same grocery stores that we do, walk in the same parks, etc... There are plenty of opportunities to make them feel uncomfortable about what they're doing that we can and should be taking advantage of.
Whether they deserve legal protections from such activity is a totally orthogonal issue. I don't think they should--not in excess of any protections that the law offers anyone else. But that assessment has nothing to do with whether they drive a tank when they're at work.
I'm not sure exactly what kind of armored vehicles ICE has. I'm pretty sure some of them would qualify as tanks at least in WW1. The war to end all wars... if only.
There are actually valid reasons for BORTAC to be armed to the gills, but they're meant to point all that firepower at organized crime (cartels) in the border zone, not Americans in Chicago.
But fair argument - words matter. I was being glib with "tanks". What I really mean is that anyone backed by the power of the US government to extrajudiciously kidnap people and deport them without due process is not a vulnerable group (by definition) and should not be a protected class (in my opinion).
Except there were no shotguns in the Trojan Wars, and there were tanks in WW1, many less armed and armoured than today's IFVs/APCs.
Regardless, the parent poster was right - I cannot find any proof of ICE having modern tanks, just some lighter equipment. And regardless of that, I think my point stands - ICE is emphatically not a vulnerable group, and Google is saying they are because they want Most Favored Company status with our increasingly fascist regime.
