 FBI Director, Kash Patel (Center). Official White House Photo by Molly Riley. Yes, you – and us, and everyone else. We may all soon be tracked in the FBI’s proposed database for domestic terrorism. As Ken Klippenstein reports, buried inside the administration’s 2027 budget “is a new FBI-led center dedicated to ‘proactively’ hunting Americans the government classifies as so-called domestic terrorists.” It’ll be a busy place, by the looks of it, operating as a joint mission center where 10 federal agencies watch out for any hint of the following beliefs: · anti-Americanism · anti-capitalism · anti-Christianity · support for the overthrow of the U.S. government · extremism on migration · extremism on race · extremism on gender · hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family · hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion · hostility towards those who hold traditional views on morality With the exception of overthrowing the government, this is a highly subjective list, capable of being interpreted (or added to) as any current or future administration of any stripe sees fit. It could include any atheist or agnostic, any supporter of Bernie Sanders, anyone who has leftward views on gender and the family. These standards, of course, could be inverted by the next administration to make suspects out of people who are critical of progressive policies, restrictive gun laws, or big government. Today, we target atheists. Tomorrow, the FBI could once again target “radical traditional Catholics.” The free speech implications alone are beyond chilling, but as a privacy matter, it’s draconian. It blurs the distinction between George Orwell’s “thoughtcrime” and actual terrorism. And to work, it must rely on artificial intelligence crunching vast amounts of social media data in ways that reduce the Fourth Amendment to an afterthought. No less concerning, when this database is paired with the personal data these same federal agencies obtain by purchasing Americans’ digital records from third-party data brokers, you can see all the elements of a total surveillance state falling into place. It is hard to imagine that such broad categories can yield meaningful intelligence about real terrorists. But it may be just enough for the government to build a dossier on you. Comments are closed.
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