Federal and local officials should now be planning to conduct mass arrests and prosecutions for participants and especially organizers of a planned insurrection called “ShutDownDC.”

The very name and announced intentions of the group would be, if carried out, illegal. It is blatantly illegal to impede traffic deliberately (without a permit), force business closures, and harass residents. If some of the group’s implied threats to “escalate” to possible violence are carried out, the offenses would be even worse, and they should be punished as harshly as the law allows.