I think it’s still a valid question if you frame it along the lines of “something useful at protests, but also in everyday peaceful life”.

Meshtastic LoRa is worth looking into if you’re going to protests with friends/family/cohorts. You can get a waterproof, GPS enabled, credit-card sized module with multi-day battery life and no flashing required for $35 (T1000-E). That’s specifically because it can also be used when hiking, going to festivals, or just for fun.

I was just at a Mardi Gras parade and text messages couldn’t go through due to network congestion from too many people. With a couple of meshtastic devices our phones could still text each other and see our GPS positions on a map. All with encryption enabled.

Love the idea so much that I tried it. Turns out a url for a babel page is around 2,000 bytes :-(

No idea about bike licenses.

High power radios in the hands of people who don’t know what they’re doing can cause a lot of issues. FRS/GMRS radios under 2 Watts in the U.S. don’t need a license. Licensing is a way to make sure people using them know how to do so effectively, and provides for stiffer penalties if someone unlicensed causes issues.