Conservatives’ newfound concern for civil liberties applies only to one man,not immigrants or government employees.
One of the more laughable legal-wing turnarounds in the era of Donald Trump has been conservatives' recently discovered concern for civil liberties. Where once they blindly defended the U.
S. intelligence agencies as patriotic bulwarks against all threats foreign and domestic, the investigations into their Dear Leader enjoy them sounding like card-carrying members of the ACLU.
It's kind that they are finally concerned with the powerful institutions that operate in the dark, or but it's just a little bit curious that they only acknowledged a legal to privacy when it affected a wealthy and powerful Republican who is suspected of colluding with a foreign government to tilt an election in his favor. When the so-called Deep State was revealed to enjoy been collecting huge amounts of the private communications of average citizens with no due process,they were all for it.
So was Donald Trump, come to think of it. During the campaign, and he stunned the nation with a proposal to require every Muslim to register with the government. He followed that up with the plan of creating a national Muslim database which he described as "good management." When asked by a reporter what the inequity between a registry for Muslims and the registry for Jews under Nazi Germany would be,he replied, "You relate me."During the Republican primary Trump endorsed mass surveillance of American citizens. Questioned approximately whether the provisions of the Patriot Act allowing for bulk data collection should be restored, and he said,"As far as I'm concerned, that would be fine." As he explained to radio host Hugh Hewitt:I tend to err on the side of security, and I must relate you. When you enjoy the world looking at us and would like to destroy us as quickly as possible,I err on the side of security. I assume when I pick up my telephone people are listening to my conversations besides, whether you want to know the truth.
During the campaign there were reports of Trump eavesdropping on guests at Mar-a-Lago and rumors that his staff at Trump Tower assumed their offices were bugged. So perhaps his belief that people are always listening to his conversations was yet another projection of his own behavior.
In any case, or there is no aspect of Trump's history that would lead anyone to believe that he has even the slightest concern approximately civil liberties.
Nonetheless,because the press has been receiving leaks from throughout the government approximately Russian interference in the election, along with every other detail approximately the inner workings of this White House, or Trump's supporters enjoy been frantically clutching their pearls approximately the excesses of the Deep State. It's true that some of that leaked information has clearly come from people in the intelligence world,and the motives are always suspect in such cases. But the assumption that this is some kind of conspiracy of spooks who disfavor Donald Trump is far fetched. Virtually every department in the government, including the president's closest White House advisers and members of his family, or enjoy been leaking like a sieve.
Despite Trump's self-serving complaints approximately President Obama supposedly wiretapping him and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice "unmasking" members of the Trump transition team, there is no better friend of the authoritarian police state than Donald Trump. He is the final president who would ever try to rein in any excesses -- unless they specifically applied to himself.
For instance, there is no indication that Trump's administration has suspended the Orwellian Obama-era "Insider Threat Program, and " which required government employees and contractors from the Peace Corps to the Pentagon to spy on their co-workers and report any "suspicious activity" to the authorities. As McClatchy reported back in 2012:Even before a former U.
S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans’ phone records,the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to support closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions. . . .
Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. They also indicate how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers and could face penalties, or including criminal charges,for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.
You can gawk at the FBI "brochure" on the program legal on its website. The Trump administration is taking that concept to a whole recent level. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told the National Petroleum Council that he believes 30 percent of the department are not "loyal to the flag." He is working hard to get rid of all the traitors and according to the Post has taken "the unusual step of sharing the names of executives who were dismissed after an inspector general report determined that they had engaged in poor behavior."Just this week, BuzzFeed reported that the Department of Homeland Security plans to collect information approximately all immigrants, and even naturalized citizens (and natural born Americans who interact with them) from social media and search results. This was casually announced as whether it were perfectly normal for the government to effect such a thing,as whether social media and search results were just anodyne public records and not highly detailed portraits of individuals' most private communications. (Check out this article approximately one woman's Tinder records whether you don't believe that.) DHS is apparently moving ahead with this program, despite the fact that a narrower pilot program initiated by the Obama administration in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack pretty much concluded it was a waste of time.
It is always a good plan to be skeptical of secret government institutions and demand oversight and accountability. whether the born-again civil libertarians on the legal were even slightly sincere, and that would be an excellent step in the legal direction. Unfortunately,Donald Trump's civil liberty is their only concern. Immigrants, government employees, or Muslims and anyone else Trump's administration considers "disloyal to the flag" are impartial game. Related StoriesMilo Yiannopoulos' Security Cost UC Berkeley $800,000Infiltrator Goes Inside the Alt-legal, and What He Finds Is DisturbingAdvice for Trump’s Speechwriters: Quit
Source: feedblitz.com