In Gaza last week, a group of masked terrorists paraded captive women around a public square. At Columbia University earlier this month, a group of masked individuals disrupted a class with screams and banging drums.

Masks embolden agitators. In the U.S., they are being used as thinly veiled symbols of brutality and intimidation. Public protests that have devolved into hate speech, physical intimidation, destruction of property and calls for violence have one factor in common — protesters are masked.

Protesters in the U.S. are practicing their First Amendment rights — their rights to advocate for causes they believe in. Yet it is contradictory to simultaneously embrace advocacy and conceal one’s identity.

Advocacy is defined as supporting a cause on behalf of a people. So how is one representing a people if they obscure their own identity? Moreover, how is free speech a right if it blatantly and........

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