President Donald Trump issued a “striking” national security memo recently that would allow the administration to go after American citizens using the same tools the country uses to protect itself from foreign adversaries, according to one analyst.
Ryan Goodman, a national security expert and law professor at New York University, discussed the recent memo, called NSPM7, on a recent episode of “The Bulwark Live” with Bill Kristol, the outlet’s editor-at-large. Goodman was visibly stunned as he recalled some of the impacts Trump’s memo could have on American citizens.
“It’s using the national security apparatus in such a way that’s focused domestically; one can only assume that Steven Miller is empowered by this,” Goodman said. “It’s connecting it up with national security frameworks and then imposing it domestically.”
The directive calls on the National Security apparatus to go after anti-fascist groups on the left. It also calls on law enforcement to “[investigate] all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them.”
Goodman argued that the language sounded too familiar.
“I have to assume that [Miller] wrote a large part of it,” Goodman said. “I mean, it just looks like it comes out of his mind in a certain sense and his rhetoric around this.”
Probably a really great illustration as to why we shouldn’t permit this to be used domestically with pure Executive Branch discretion.
The Church Committee pulled domestic surveillance out of the CIA baliwick for similar reasons.
Sounds like something to go on the list of things that need some future restrictions to be imposed.
I don’t think we have that much time before they start using this as part of their new “safety” campaign for American cities. Actually seems like they’ve already started.
This Time article mentions the Joint Terrorism Task Force, (JTTF)
That sounds a lot like the weird ass task force they rolled out in Memphis last week which also happens to include the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and a ridiculous number of federal, state, and local agencies.
Stephen Miller was addressing this task force last Wednesday when he gave that insane unhinged speech basically giving them the federal government’s blessing to violate rights.
Hundreds in the city have already been arrested by the task force, and yesterday a military helicopter followed a small peaceful march protesting the federal occupation along a historic route taken by MLK during the civil rights movement.