This evening a Federal judge restrained Federal police from interfering with the legal activities of journalists and legal observers in Portland, prohibiting (pdf) them from “arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force” against them.

[T]he point of journalists observing and documenting government action is to record whether the “closing” of public streets (e.g. , declaring a riot) is lawfully originated and carried out. Without journalists and legal observers, there is only the government’s side of the story to explain why a “riot” was declared and the public streets were “closed” and whether law enforcement acted properly in effectuating that order.