WI State Patrol dispersing Dakota Access camps, not wearing name tags, badge numbers

17 officers from state were there for nine-day assignment.

MADISON, Wis. — Seventeen Wisconsin State Patrol troopers sent to North Dakota to help disperse an encampment of Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters aren’t wearing name tags or numbers on their uniforms during their nine-day assignment.

The state Department of Transportation says the anonymity is intended to protect the officers’ privacy in an emotionally charged situation but the decision faces criticism from civil rights advocates, the Wisconsin State Journal reported Sunday.

“When individuals are peacefully exercising their rights to free speech and assembly,” Molly Collins, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, “law enforcement should be trained and supervised so that they do not intimidate free-speech rights by covering up name tags — an implicit threat that police will engage in practices for which they do not want to be held accountable.”