You'd think the courts would object to that reading, but so far they've gotten away with it. Now the plan is to spy on US servicemembers for 'concerning' 'extremist' thoughts.
An extremism steering committee led by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to the secretary of defense, is currently designing the social media screening pilot program, which will “continuously” monitor military personnel for “concerning behaviors,” according to a Pentagon briefing in late March. Although in the past the military has balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections, the pilot program will rely on a private surveillance firm in order to circumvent First Amendment restrictions on government monitoring, according to a senior Pentagon official....[A possible candidate firm] has drawn criticism for its practice of buying bulk cellular location data and selling it to federal national security agencies like the Secret Service, who rely on the private company to bypass warrant requirements normally imposed on government bodies seeking to collect data.
Our FISA process has proven so full of holes that it's not clear why the government doesn't just lie to the court again to get the warrants it wants -- there appears to be no penalty for having done so. But I suppose this is easier still; they don't even have to bother to lie to get a warrant, because they no longer have to get a warrant at all.
As for lying to the courts to get warrants, that seems to depend on who you are investigating, so the government might still feel they are too hampered by that.
ReplyDeleteI mean, sometimes the suspects might not be political enemies of the larger Administrative state, and might keep some of their rights.
I hope Tex comments on this because my understanding from some of the discussions around Section 230 and social media is that case law is pretty clear the government can't sidestep constitutional protections by outsourcing activities it wants to perform.
ReplyDeleteFor armed forces personnel, however, there is probably some intersection with internal security procedures as well as long standing prohibitions on not performing certain activities while in uniform that probably makes it legal, though I would hope marginally.
This also appears to be something akin to pen register data which is protected at a lower level than the actual verbal or written communication over devices since it is something 'voluntarily' disclosed by an individual to third parties. Again, it's a stretch but it's the way the law regarding such data is written.
Freedom of expression and due process of law are being destroyed by this administration and its collaborators at an appalling speed. The only hope of stopping this process is if enough people focus on this key issue. There are too many Republicans...Peggy Noonan and Liz Cheney, for example...whose anti-Trump sentiments are too strong to allow mental bandwidth for any meaningful opposition to Bidenism. There are too many libertarians who won't vote for any candidate with a realistic chance of winning, because none of them match their ideal of a perfect political philosophy. There are too many people who say their vote won't count (because fraud) anyhow, so why bother? There are too many people actually hoping for a collapse and civil war (the term 'boogaloo' is often used in such circles) after which they think something better will magically emerge.
ReplyDeleteVery dark things are going to happen unless people wake up.
See my post Learning from Experience, Not:
https://ricochet.com/954128/learning-from-experience-not/
This is one of those 'all of the above' problems, similar to energy security. Should you drill or build pipelines to existing fields? Build nuclear or solar/wind/hydro? Electric or gas? Well, each of those has applications where it makes sense; you'll get there if you do each one where it is the best approach, and work on all of it together.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think you can't win again if you don't fix election security. That is not to say you shouldn't go vote even if you fail to do that; but it is to say that doing that has to be job one if you want any kind of democratic solution to the problems. It's also job one if you want to avoid discouraged Republicans or others who might vote for you just not showing up: being able to point to strong moves to ensure the establishment parties can't cheat will encourage them to show up.
You also should definitely be making moves in case of a collapse, which is not the same thing as hoping for a collapse. See my comments to Elise in the OODA post below. Preparations need to be in place, locally and also where possible at the state level. That will make it less likely that a bad result will occur, as well as making it more likely that a collapse will trend to some good at least where we are. In that way, these preparations are the opposite of magical thinking: they're mindful, rational, sustained approaches to preparing the ground.
It is also appropriate both to encourage everyone to vote against the evil, while engaging philosophically about trying to grasp what exactly is the good to be pursued. It may not be libertarianism (whose open border nonsense alone is worth rejecting); maybe it's possible to make room for some of their ideas, or give them ground to work with you. Philosophy is not a waste of time, though. The Founders pursued it carefully for decades before the Revolution, during the Revolution, and in the decades after the Revolution as they adjusted their governments (including moving from the Articles to the Constitution).
So there's a lot of work to do. All of it has to be done.
And also, not to put too fine a point on it, to fight for the civil rights of our servicemen and women. It’s the right thing to do, and it might hamper a political purge of the military as well.
ReplyDeleteGrim...yes, multiple paths must be pursued. I learned a lot about project management from an executive who was a master at it, and was especially attuned to avoiding circular excuses for failure, wherein each participant or group fails to feel enough urgency because *someone else's* part of the project is looking to be late.
ReplyDeleteI love it when a plan comes together.
ReplyDelete