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Australia’s New AUKUS Protest Police, and the Quiet Redefinition of Dissent

28 January 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Denis Hay  

AUKUS protest police: FOI documents reveal the AFP’s Orcus Command and how protest is being treated as a national security issue in Australia.

Introduction

Public discussion of AUKUS has focused on submarine delivery dates, strategic alignment, and cost blowouts. Far less attention has been given to how the Australian government is preparing for domestic opposition to the agreement.

Freedom of Information documents obtained by transparency advocate Rex Patrick and reported by Michael West Media reveal that the Australian Federal Police has quietly established a new unit, Orcus Command, dedicated to protecting AUKUS-related defence facilities. The documents show this unit is also planning for public order management, including protest and political dissent connected to Australia’s growing role in US and UK military operations.

This matters because protest is a cornerstone of democratic accountability. When dissent is framed primarily as a security risk, the balance between public order and civil liberties shifts in ways that deserve close public scrutiny.

What has received far less attention is how the government is preparing to manage Australians who oppose it.

Internal link: “Australia’s AUKUS agreement”.

Editor’s note:

This analysis is based on Freedom of Information documents obtained by transparency advocate Rex Patrick and reporting by Michael West Media. All claims in this article are drawn from released documents, budget papers, and publicly available statements. Care has been taken to distinguish between documented facts, lawful policing powers, and broader democratic implications.

What Is Orcus Command


Orcus Command is a specialised AFP unit created to provide protective security for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program, particularly at strategically significant defence bases such as HMAS Stirling in Western Australia.

FOI documents show that:

  • The unit was created with minimal public disclosure.
  • It has a mandate extending beyond physical asset protection.
  • It is embedded within the Department of Defence, not a civilian oversight body.
  • Its planning includes public order and protest activity.

This institutional placement is significant. By situating Orcus Command within Defence rather than a civilian agency, protest management around AUKUS is treated as a national security issue rather than a matter of routine democratic policing.

Internal link: “Defence influence in Australia”.

Protest and Dissent as a Security Issue

Internal AFP documents explicitly reference the monitoring and response to political opposition and protest activity linked to AUKUS and the expanding US military presence in Australia.

This reflects a broader shift in Australian governance. Over recent years, most states have introduced or strengthened laws restricting protest, increasing police powers, and imposing harsher penalties for disruption.

Rather than being framed as a democratic expression to be facilitated and protected, protest is increasingly framed as a risk to continuity and order.

The Orcus Command documents indicate:

  • Planning for escalation scenarios
  • Proactive monitoring of protest groups
  • Coordination with state police
  • Anticipation of increased protest intensity

Internal link: “right to protest in Australia” 

Why is Protest Being Framed as a National Security Issue Under AUKUS?

The documents state that Orcus Command has Commonwealth responsibility for protecting the nuclear submarine program under existing legislative powers.

This places protest activity in the same conceptual space as counterterrorism and critical infrastructure protection. While such powers are lawful, their application to political dissent raises difficult questions.

When a protest is absorbed into a national security framework:

  • Thresholds for intervention are lowered.
  • Decision-making becomes less transparent.
  • Oversight mechanisms are weakened.
  • Civil liberties are more easily subordinated to strategic objectives.

This does not mean that protest is automatically criminalised. It does mean that the lens through which protest is viewed has changed.

Internal link: “national security frameworks”.

One of the most sensitive revelations in the AFP briefing material is the inclusion of lethal force within Orcus Command’s armed protection planning.

Lethal force authorisations are standard in many armed federal policing and counter-terrorism contexts. Their inclusion alone is not unlawful or unusual. However, the context matters.

These provisions appear within documents that also discuss protest and public order management. This signals that scenarios involving political dissent are being contemplated within a framework that allows for the highest level of force available to federal police.

This does not suggest protesters will routinely face lethal force. It does show that dissent around AUKUS is being planned for within a security paradigm where extreme outcomes are legally contemplated.

That distinction is important, but it should not be dismissed.

Reassuring Allies, Managing Citizens

FOI emails reveal that Australian authorities are keen to show to the United States and the United Kingdom that protest activity will not disrupt or delay AUKUS operations.

This highlights a core tension: Australian policing resources are being used not only to keep domestic order, but also to reassure foreign military partners.

The documents emphasise:

  • Proactive responses to identified protest risks.
  • The importance of continuity for allied operations
  • Minimising disruption to US and UK interests

Internal link: “Foreign policy dependence“.

Budget Allocations Signal Long-Term Expansion

Funding figures reinforce the seriousness of the operation.

  • $73.8 million allocated to Orcus Command in late 2025.
  • Funding rising to $125.2 million in 2026.

This near doubling suggests the government expects expanded responsibilities and sustained operations, rather than a short-term security task.

Budgets reflect priorities. In this case, substantial public funds are being committed to a policing unit designed to manage both infrastructure security and anticipated dissent.

Internal link: “public money priorities”.

Secrecy, FOI, and Democratic Oversight

AUKUS is one of the most secretive projects in Australia’s modern history. While some confidentiality around defence capabilities is legitimate, secrecy has expanded far beyond technical details.

The government has:

  • Refused a comprehensive public inquiry.
  • Limited parliamentary scrutiny
  • Relied heavily on national security exemptions
  • Restricted public access to key information

Without FOI requests and investigative journalism, the existence and scope of Orcus Command would remain unknown.


The Broader Democratic Context

The creation of Orcus Command does not occur in isolation. It sits alongside:

  • Tightened protest laws across states
  • Expanded police powers.
  • Increasing surveillance of activists
  • Reduced tolerance for disruption

Taken together, these trends suggest a gradual rebalancing of the state’s relationship with citizens, particularly where dissent intersects with powerful economic or strategic interests.

Why This Matters for Democracy……………………………………………………………………………………. https://theaimn.net/australias-new-aukus-protest-police-and-the-quiet-redefinition-of-dissent/

January 30, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

Australia’s Lack Of Speech Protections Means We Should Be MORE Hostile To Speech Regulation

Caitlin Johnstone, Jan 25, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/australias-lack-of-speech-protections?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=185687870&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

A normal, healthy person would look at Australia’s lack of free speech protections and say “Hmm, Australian leaders should be extremely resistant to new laws and policies which restrict speech then, because it would be very easy for those restrictions to become abusive.”

Australian leaders look at our lack of free speech protections and say “See? This means we get to take away your right to protest genocide!”

Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than the repeated statements from New South Wales premier Chris Minns saying it’s fine to silence Australians because we don’t have free speech rights.

Over and over again Minns has defended his promotion of authoritarian speech crackdowns in his state by claiming it’s okay to stomp out dissident speech of Australians because Australians don’t have the same speech protections as Americans, saying “we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that” and similar statements in recent weeks.

To be clear, Minns is being repulsively tyrannical when he says this, but factually speaking he isn’t wrong.

As Joe Lauria wrote for Consortium News following the passage of Australia’s frightening new “hate speech” bill:

“Unlike the United States, Australia has no Bill of Rights in its Constitution protecting freedom of speech, assembly and other rights. Much as Israel would want it, a law such as this adopted in Australia would still be difficult to pass in the U.S. on paper, despite the Israel Lobby’s hold over the U.S. Congress.”

If Australians had the same speech protections that they have in the United States, we could appeal tyrannical new laws on First Amendment grounds. Because we have no such protections, it is much harder to oppose authoritarian speech restrictions once they are in place.

As I often remind readers, Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no national charter or bill of rights of any kind. A tremendous amount of faith has been placed in state and federal legislators to simply do the right thing, which has proved foolish and ineffective. Professor George Williams wrote for the Melbourne University Law Review in 2006:

“Australia is now the only democratic nation in the world without a national bill of rights. Some comprehensive form of legal protection for basic rights is otherwise seen as an essential check and balance in democratic governance around the world. Indeed, I can find no example of a democratic nation that has gained a new Constitution or legal system in recent decades that has not included some form of a bill of rights, nor am I aware of any such nation that has done away with a bill of rights once it has been put in place.”

It has been clearly and conclusively established that this system does not work. State and federal governments are working frenetically to shred the right of Australians to oppose the actions of the state of Israel, with their assault on our civil rights disguised as an effort to fight “antisemitism” in our country and help Jewish Australians feel more safe. The fact that this happens to advance the information interests of the western power alliance, we are told, is purely coincidental.

The evidence is in and the case is closed. The Australian system does not work. We need a national bill of rights, and we need free speech to be enshrined in our constitution.

In the meantime, we need to be aggressively opposed to laws and policies which assault our freedom of speech. We need to be more aggressive in our opposition than Americans would be, because we have fewer safeguards against tyrannical abuses.

It’s so disgusting how these freaks are telling us right to our faces “Yeah well you guys don’t have any rights, so I’m going to silence you and oppress you and I make no apologies about that.”

That kind of arrogant, abusive authoritarianism deserves nothing but ferocious defiance.

January 27, 2026 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

Gun vs Keffiyeh. One kills, the other gets you death threats.

by Member of Jews Against the Occupation | Dec 18, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/gun-vs-keffiyeh-one-kills-the-other-gets-you-death-threats/

A Jewish woman wearing a Keffiyeh as well as the Star of David was escorted off Bondi Beach by police. The resulting social media storm led to death threats to her and to her friend.

I am writing this knowing it will likely result in more death threats.

That is not a metaphor. It is a statement of fact, based on what happened to my friend Michelle and me this week, and what happened next when we sought protection from the state.

On Monday, at the Bondi memorial for the victims of the mass killing the day before, Michelle – a Jewish local and member of Jews against the Occupation ‘48 – was surrounded by a hostile crowd shouting “get her off”. She was escorted off the beach to the sound of applause by approximately forty police officers, whilst trying to explain her position to the surrounding reporters, and taken to Bondi Police Station, where she was told she couldn’t go back to Bondi Beach for 6 hours.

Her “offence”? Wearing a Keffiyeh.

Whether one agrees with her politics or not is beside the point. The memorial was dominated by Israeli flags – the flag of a state currently accused of genocide and whose leaders are wanted for war crimes. Michelle wore the keffiyeh because she objected to a moment of mourning being politicised. But it is not a crime. Nor is it a provocation warranting mob intimidation.

What followed should concern anyone who believes the rule of law applies equally.

After video footage of Michelle circulated on X, under a post by journalist Hugh Riminton, the abuse escalated rapidly.

Facts ignored

What was not mentioned – despite Michelle wearing a visible Star of David and explicitly stating to the press that she is Jewish – was that she is a Jewish local who grew up in Bondi. That omission mattered.

I replied publicly on X to clarify that Michelle is Jewish, that she is my friend, and that she is part of JAO48. While those responses received hundreds of supportive comments, they also unleashed some of the most extreme antisemitic, misogynistic, ageist and Islamophobic abuse I have encountered in years of public advocacy.

I can deal with online abuse on social media. The block button is my friend.

Threats arrived in my email inbox – not via social media, but via my direct contact form and messaging linked to my business. One message stated that Michelle was “now wishing she had stayed home” and warned, “I would not want to be her”.

The individual who contacted me used the name “Brenton Tarrant”, the name of the Christchurch mass murderer, writing that I “deserve a bullet in the head”, and that Michelle would be “hunted down”, and that because her address was doxxed, it would make “putting a claw hammer in her skull even easier.”

This was enough intimidation for me to call 000 and for two members of the Chatswood station to attend my home. The expressions on their faces when they read the messages were of shock and disgust.

No police report

More concerning was that Michelle’s home address had been published online in response to Riminton’s post. On Monday night, she went to Maroubra Police Station to report she’d been doxxed.

And nothing happened. She wasn’t contacted the next day or given a case number. Nothing.

When we returned to Maroubra Police Station two days later to ask what action had been taken regarding the doxxing and threats, the attending constable.

‘could not even find a record of Michelle having gone there on Monday night.’

There was a record of the death threats I received from Chatswood Police Station, but that doesn’t help someone whose life is in danger in Maroubra.

A Jewish woman, escorted by dozens of police officers, detained at a police station under threat of violence, had no record in the system days later. Had something happened to her in the intervening period, there would have been no official trace of her presence or vulnerability.

This is not a paperwork error. This is a systemic failure.

Irony of doxxing laws

The irony is sharp enough to cut. NSW’s doxxing laws were introduced following sustained lobbying about online threats directed at Zionist Jews. Those laws were framed as urgent protections against harm.

Yet here we have a Jewish woman who is anti-Zionist, whose address was published, who received death threats, and whose case appears to have been ignored entirely.

Only after I explicitly raised the double standard to a young constable – only after pointing out how differently this would have been handled had Michelle been a Zionist Jew – was a report finally entered into the system. I also demanded that police investigate the instigator of the doxxing. Whether the individual can ultimately be identified is beside the point. The absence of effort is the issue.
This failure is made even more disturbing by the broader amplification of risk.

Identity matters

The omission of Michelle’s Jewish identity among all the abuse matters. Not because her Judaism should confer protection or legitimacy – it should not have to – but because it fuelled a narrative that made her a target. The implication was clear:

‘she was an outsider, an agitator, someone deserving of removal.‘

It should not matter who she is. It should not matter what she believes. Wearing a keffiyeh is no more illegal than waving the flag of a state accused of mass atrocities.

What should matter is this: no one attending a memorial should be threatened with death, have their home address exposed, or be left unprotected by the police.

If that standard only applies to some Jews, then it is not protection at all. It is political preference enforced by the state.

And if writing this results in more threats, then that fact alone tells you how broken our public discourse – and our institutions – have become.

Tragedy should have united the country

Fifteen people are dead. Around forty are injured. Families and communities are grieving. But within hours, the event was weaponised.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the Albanese government. Jillian Segal linked the massacre with the March for Humanity on the Harbour Bridge.

Josh Frydenberg re-emerged, positioning himself as a future Prime Minister on the back of mass death, although suggesting this is the case is “highly offensive” to him.
I guess to Josh, it’s irrelevant that the father in the father/son terrorist team arrived in ’98 when Howard was PM, he gained his gun license in 2015 when Abbott was PM, and the ASIO investigation into the son was dropped in 2019 when Morrison was PM.

And now, as a result of this horrific terrorist attack on Sunday, the calls to ban pro-Palestine protests are louder than ever.

If anybody can possibly think that Palestinians, Muslims, indeed even humanitarians who object to genocide had anything to gain from a mass shooting, “they’ve got rocks in their head”, as we say in Australia. If anything, the events of this week

‘show precisely why dissent must be protected.‘

When anti-Zionist Jews can be threatened with death, doxxed, misrepresented as terrorists, and left without protection by the state, the danger is not protest – it is repression.

If writing this results in further threats, that fact alone will confirm the point.

It is not safety for all that is being prioritised in this country. It’s not even safety for all Jews that is being prioritised. What dark days we are living in.

December 26, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

How reporting facts can now land you in jail for 14 years as a terrorist

Jonathon Cook Blog, 22 December 2025

Starmer’s government has set the most dangerous of precedents: it can now outlaw any political group it chooses as a terrorist organisation – and thereby make it impossible to defend it

The moment the British government began proscribing political movements as terrorist organisations, rather than just militant groups, it was inevitable that saying factual things, making truthful statements, would become a crime.

And lo behold, here we are.

The Terrorism Act 2000 has a series of provisions that make it difficult to voice or show any kind of support for an organisation proscribed under the legislation, whether it is writing an article or wearing a T-shirt.

Recent attention has focused on Section 13, which is being used to hound thousands of mostly elderly people who have held signs saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” They now face a terrorism conviction and up to six months in jail.

But an amendment introduced in 2019 to Section 12 of the Act has been largely overlooked, even though it is even more repressive. It makes it a terrorism offence for a person to express “an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation” and in doing so be “reckless” about whether anyone else might be “encouraged to support” the organisation.

It is hard to believe this clause was not inserted specifically to target the watchdog professions: journalists, human rights groups and lawyers. They now face up to 14 years in jail for contravening this provision……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

the reality is that social media is awash with posts from people echoing outrageous official disinformation. This spreads unchallenged because to challenge it is now cast as a terrorism offence.

In truth, since proscription, any statements about the political aims of a deeply political organisation like Palestine Action occupy a grey area of the law.

Is it a terrorism offence to point out the fact, as I have done above, that Palestine Action targeted Elbit factories that send killer drones to Israel for use in Gaza. In doing so, may I have “recklessly” encouraged you to support Palestine Action?

Can I express any kind of positive view about the hunger strikers or their actions without violating the law?

The truth is that the law’s greyness is its very point. It maximises the chilling effect on those who are supposed to serve as the public’s watchdogs on power: journalists, human rights groups, lawyers. https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2025-12-22/reporting-facts-14-years-jail/

December 26, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Notes On Bondi Beach And Free Speech

Caitlin Johnstone, Dec 22, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/notes-on-bondi-beach-and-free-speech?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=182280999&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

The dumbest thing we are being asked to believe today is that pro-Palestinian protests caused the Bondi shooting. It’s self-evidently moronic. No one sincerely believes it. They’re just pretending to believe it to get protests banned and criticism of Israel outlawed.

Nobody actually believes pro-Palestine protests caused the Bondi shooting. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

Nobody actually believes “globalize the intifada” means “kill all Jews”. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

Nobody actually believes pro-Palestine demonstrations are “hate marches” or that pro-Palestine speech is “hate speech”. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

Nobody actually believes there’s a soaring epidemic of antisemitism in our society that is caused by anti-genocide demonstrations. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

Nobody actually believes opposing the state of Israel is the same as hating Jews. They’re just pretending to believe that to promote the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

Israel supporters are liars and manipulators. They support genocide and apartheid. Of course they will lie about what they believe, and pretend to think things that they don’t actually think. They’re defending a mass atrocity that can only be defended using lies. They’re bad people. Bad people do bad things

It’s crazy how the Bondi shooters got radicalized by the anti-genocide protests from 2023 to 2025 and then invented a time machine and went back to 2019 to join ISIS.

That’s the claim that’s being made when people say the mass shooting in Sydney was caused by pro-Palestine protests, you know. In 2019 Naveed Akram was on an Australian intelligence watch list because of his ties to an Islamic State terror cell, so the claim that the Gaza protests caused or incited the shooting necessarily requires an element of time travel. Call their story “The Terrorists and the Time Machine”.

We’re being asked to believe that ISIS were a bunch of cuddly wuddly snuggle bears until Australians started protesting an active genocide.

Continue reading →

December 24, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

If You’re Not Free To Oppose A Genocide, Your Society Is Not Free

Caitlin Johnstone, Dec 21, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/if-youre-not-free-to-oppose-a-genocide?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=182228375&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

If the right to free speech does not include the right to oppose an active genocide using strong and unmitigated language, then there is no freedom of speech.

This is exactly the sort of thing that freedom of speech is intended for: times when the government is doing something wrong which needs to be ferociously opposed. That’s the primary reason it’s an enshrined value in our society. Freedom of speech is for holding the powerful to account.

If you only have freedom of speech when you’re agreeing with your government and saying nothing which inconveniences the powerful, then Saudi Arabia has free speech. Every tyrannical regime that has ever existed has had freedom of speech by those standards. You don’t measure a society’s freedom by how much its citizenry are allowed to agree with their government, you measure it by how much they’re allowed to disagree.

And right now we are being told we’re not allowed to disagree. We’re being told the protests need to stop, the anti-genocide chants need to be criminalized, and everyone needs to shut up and obey — all justified by the completely baseless narrative that the words and actions of pro-Palestinian activists were somehow responsible a terrible massacre that was committed in Sydney last week.

And these policies just so happen to serve the interests of the very same western powers whose genocide-enabling actions were being forcefully opposed these last two years. Government officials constantly being protested and questioned about their facilitation of Israel’s genocidal atrocities. Politicians who are consistently confronted by anti-genocide demonstrators during their public appearances. Wealthy arms manufacturers whose profit margins are being harmed by direct action from activist groups. Plutocratic media institutions who are becoming more and more discredited in the public eye as the Gaza holocaust exposes them all. Billionaires whose empires are built upon the political status quo that gave rise to the genocide in question.

If the powerful are shutting down speech rights to advance their own interests in your society, then your society is not meaningfully different than the dictatorships the western world tries to contrast itself with. All our stories about living in a free society have been just that: stories. Fairy tales.

That’s what they’re telling us with this mad rush to stomp out freedom of speech this past week. They are telling us that we do not live in the kind of society we were taught about in school. They are telling us that the only reason we were allowed to speak as we pleased in the years leading up to the Gaza genocide is because we were a bunch of compliant sheep who were not meaningfully challenging the interests of the powerful, and now that we are meaningfully challenging them the facade of freedom and democracy is falling away.

As Frank Zappa once said, “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

December 23, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties | Leave a comment

Outrage after footage of Israeli soldiers executing two Palestinians in Jenin goes viral.

Human rights organizations call the killing of two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin by Israeli soldiers an “extrajudicial execution.”

By Qassam Muaddi  November 28, 2025, https://mondoweiss.net/2025/11/outrage-after-footage-of-israeli-soldiers-executing-two-palestinians-in-jenin-goes-viral/

The killing of two unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has provoked international outrage after video footage of the incident went viral on Friday. Credited to the local Palestine TV station, the footage shows two young Palestinian men surrendering to Israeli soldiers and lying on the ground in front of a garage under soldiers’ instructions. They then appear to be directed by the soldiers to go back inside the garage, where one of the troops is seen aiming and shooting at him as he lies on the ground.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the victims as Muntaser Billah Abdallah, 26, and Yousef Asaasah, 37. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the killing in a statement, calling it “a war crime” and a case of “extrajudicial killing.”

The Israeli army and border police said in a joint statement on Friday that Israeli troops “operated to apprehend wanted individuals” allegedly affiliated with a resistance network in the Jenin area, and that after they exited, “fire was directed toward the suspects.”

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, under whose jurisdiction the border police operates, voiced his “total support” for the Israeli soldiers in question, asserting that they “acted exactly as expected of them: terrorists must die.”

The footage has drawn widespread condemnation from rights groups, with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem stating that “the execution documented today is the result of an accelerated dehumanization process of Palestinians” and calling on the international community to “put an end to Israel’s impunity.”

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the killings, saying in a statement that “killings of Palestinians by Israeli security forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank have been surging, without accountability, even in the rare cases where investigations are announced.”

A pattern of extrajudicial execution

While the latest killing in Jenin was caught on video, Palestinians have remarked that it is not an isolated incident. In 2022, the Palestinian Human Rights Association documented 38 cases of the arbitrary killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces between August 1 and November 4. Yet the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank has sharply risen since October 2023, with at least 1,030 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the past two years in the West Bank.

The killing of the two Palestinians in Jenin comes two days after the Israeli army announced the launch of a new wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank, which began with a large raid into Tubas. The operation comes almost a year after Israel’s previous “Iron Wall” offensive in the northern West Bank, during which Israeli forces displaced over 40,000 Palestinians from their homes in refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem.

Jenin city and its adjacent refugee camp have been at the center of Israeli military raids since late 2021, as it became the center of Palestinian armed resistance groups such as the Jenin Brigade. After October 2023, Israel launched a protracted military campaign to dismantle them.

December 4, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

It’s Just Wall-To-Wall News Stories About The US And Its Allies Abusing The World.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 29, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/its-just-wall-to-wall-news-stories?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=177462655&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

It’s just news story after news story about the US and its allies terrorizing the world today.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been filming themselves committing horrific massacres in Sudan over the last couple of days, reportedly murdering some two thousand civilians. You can see the bloodstains on the ground in satellite images. As we discussed the other day, the RSF and its atrocities are backed by the UAE, a close partner of the United States.

Meanwhile Israel has committed another wave of massacres of its own throughout the Gaza Strip, reportedly killing 104 people in a single day, including 46 children. This is as many Palestinians as would typically be killed on any given day in Gaza prior to the so-called “ceasefire”.

CBS News’ 60 Minutes has released a cartoonishly blatant war propaganda piece on “Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator” about how poor and unhappy the people of Venezuela are under their current government. The piece featured an interview with Republican Senator Rick Scott, who said that “If I was Maduro I’d head to Russia or China right now; his days are numbered.”

The US can make threats, impose sanctions and amass war machinery, but you don’t truly know they’re serious about attacking a country until they start churning out Pentagon propaganda in the mainstream press.

In the same interview, Scott also said that if Maduro is successfully ousted, “it’ll be the end of Cuba.”

“America is gonna take care of the southern hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy,” he added.

The senator’s statements suggest that the US is preparing a push in Latin America similar to what it has been executing with Israel in the middle east, eliminating any powers which refuse to bend the knee. South of the US border the top two disobedient governments are the socialist states of Venezuela and Cuba. In the middle east the US and Israel have spent the last two years bombing Iran and Yemen, securing a regime change in Syria, and doing everything they can to eliminate Hamas and Hezbollah in order to rule the region uncontested.

And of course we’ve still got the horrifying US proxy war in Ukraine, where men continue to be dragged off against their will to fight in a nightmarish conflict that most Ukrainians now oppose, but which Zelensky is saying he intends to keep fighting for years against the will of the public. This whole miserable ordeal could have been avoided with a little diplomacy and a few low-cost concessions, but the western power alliance avoided off-ramp after off-ramp in order to ensure that Russia would get sucked into another costly military quagmire.

All over the world the US and its allies are murdering and abusing people in order to dominate the planet and ensure the survival of the capitalist system with which its power is intertwined. It is a giant murder machine feeding on human blood and the life force of our biosphere while providing nothing but obstacles to a healthy world.

The US-centralized empire is a disease that affects our entire species. We had better find a cure, and fast.

November 1, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

The 9,100 Palestinians left behind in Israeli prisons after the ‘peace’ deal

As world leaders celebrate the release of Israeli captives, over 9,000 Palestinian prisoners still face torture, hunger, and isolation behind bars. Half of them are held by Israel without charge or trial.

Mondoweiss, By Qassam Muaddi  October 15, 2025

As the leaders of 20 countries gathered in Egypt’s Sharm al-Sheikh to celebrate the ceasefire, mainstream media celebrated the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli captives in Gaza. After reuniting with their families, the captives described the harsh conditions in which they were held. Meanwhile, 1,968 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons, 88 of whom were released in the West Bank, 154 were deported to Egypt, and the rest were released in the Gaza Strip. Most of them were abducted by Israeli forces inside Gaza over the past two years. Of the total number of prisoners released, 250 had been serving life sentences for charges related to armed activity.

But over 9,100 Palestinians continue to be held in Israeli prisons. Some 3,544 of them are held under the Israeli system of “administrative detention,” which allows Israel to imprison Palestinians for up to six months without charge or trial. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, none of the released prisoners in Monday’s swap were administrative detainees.

Administrative detention orders are ratified by an Israeli military court, and the six-month period of imprisonment can be renewed indefinitely based on a “secret file” that neither the detainees nor their lawyers can access. Consecutive renewals have led many Palestinians to serve up to two years under this system, never having been given due process.

Administrative detainees represent the largest category of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, says Ayah Shreiteh, the spokesperson of the Prisoners’ Club. 

Shreiteh added that around 1,000 Palestinians have been arrested and held without trial, without even an administrative detention order. Many of them have spent months behind bars.

As for those who have been sentenced based on clear charges, the majority of sentences are for belonging to political organizations and unions, participating in protests, or throwing stones. Since October 2023, however, Shreiteh points out that the most common conviction has been over “incitement,” a charge that covers anything from a social media post to delivering public speeches, and even to raising the flags of Palestinian political factions in public.

“Before October 7, the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners had already been deteriorating,” Shreiteh noted. Then everything changed. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

After October 7, things got dramatically worse, Ansari says. Both verbal and physical violence increased against Palestinian detainees to the point that violence was used during all phases of detention, starting from the moment of arrest. “But the most noticeable change after October 7 has been the complete isolation of Palestinian prisoners, with the ban of family visitation,” she said. “This is still ongoing.” …………………………………………………………………………………………

Palestinian prisoners have been largely absent from mainstream media since before October 7, appearing only in the context of prisoner swaps last January and last week. However, the day before October 7, human rights groups reported that a total of 5,000 Palestinians were in Israeli jails — at the time, it was considered a record that had not been met in several years, including 1,300 administrative detainees. Over the past two years, that record-breaking prison population doubled.

Mass captivity as a phenomenon is foreign to Israelis, but for Palestinians, it has been normalized over decades. According to human rights reports, at least 1 million Palestinians have experienced Israeli detention since 1967. Yet after October 7, the Israeli captives became the only talking point for Western politicians and the mainstream media, while Palestinian prisoners remained invisible. 

On Monday, Donald Trump celebrated his vaunted “forever” peace after the signing of the ceasefire deal in Egypt. Now that the Israeli captives have been released, the 9,100 Palestinians languishing in Israel’s dungeons can continue to be forgotten. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/10/the-9100-palestinians-left-behind-in-israeli-prisons-after-the-peace-deal/

October 18, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure ‘citizens will be on their best behavior’

September 15, 2024, Business Insider, By Kenneth Niemeyer, https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-ai-surveillance-keep…

  • Larry Ellison says AI will enable a vast surveillance system that can monitor citizens.
  • Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle, shared his thoughts on AI during a recent meeting.
  • Oracle, a software company, is aggressively pursuing AI projects.

Walking down a suburban neighborhood street already feels like a Ring doorbell panopticon.

But this is only the start of our surveillance dystopia, according to Larry Ellison, the billionaire cofounder of Oracle. He said AI will usher in a new era of surveillance that he gleefully said will ensure “citizens will be on their best behavior.”

Ellison made the comments as he spoke to investors earlier this week during an Oracle financial analysts meeting, where he shared his thoughts on the future of AI-powered surveillance tools.

Ellison said AI would be used in the future to constantly watch and analyze vast surveillance systems, like security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras.

“We’re going to have supervision,” Ellison said. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”

Ellison also expects AI drones to replace police cars in high-speed chases. “You just have a drone follow the car,” Ellison said. “It’s very simple in the age of autonomous drones.”

Ellison’s company, Oracle, like almost every company these days, is aggressively pursuing opportunities in the AI industry. It already has several projects in the works, including one in partnership with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Ellison is the world’s sixth-richest man with a net worth of $157 billion.

October 11, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties | Leave a comment

Israel Raids Global Sumud Flotilla, Abducts Over 400 Volunteers, Group Says.

“This is an unlawful abduction, in direct violation of international law and basic human rights,” the flotilla said.

By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg , Truthout, October 2, 2025, https://truthout.org/articles/israel-raids-global-sumud-flotilla-abducts-over-400-volunteers-group-says/

Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers raided more than a dozen boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, blocked the ships’ communications, and abducted more than 400 volunteers from 47 countries.

During the raid, Israeli forces attacked volunteers with water cannons and doused them with “skunk water,” according to a press release issued by the flotilla. The volunteers were reportedly taken to the large naval vessel, the MSC Johannesburg, but the lawyers representing the volunteers have been given “minimal updates,” as per the press release.

“This is an unlawful abduction, in direct violation of international law and basic human rights,” the group said, adding that “intercepting humanitarian vessels in international waters is a war crime.”

“[D]enying legal counsel and concealing the fate of those seized compounds that crime,” the group continued.

The Global Sumud Flotilla set sail in August, carrying volunteers from more than 40 countries on dozens of civilian boats filled with humanitarian aid for Gaza, including baby formula, medicine, and prosthetic limbs. As a result of Israel’s genocide, Gaza has the largest population of child amputees per capita in the world.

The flotilla posted several prerecorded messages from volunteers stating their name, their country of origin, and that they had been abducted by Israeli forces.

Among the people aboard the flotilla were Nkosi Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, Nelson Mandela’s grandson; European Parliament Member Emma Fourreau; and climate justice activist Greta Thunberg. The raid on the Global Sumud Flotilla occurred on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Israel largely shuts down for the holiday, but that did not stop the raid or its attacks on Gaza.

Israel’s raid on the boats sparked demonstrations overnight throughout the world, and Italian unions have called for a general strike on Friday in solidarity with the flotilla. The unions held a general strike just weeks ago in support of the flotilla.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called Israel’s raid on the Global Sumud Flotilla “an act of piracy meant to sustain its genocide.”

“Every nation that pays lip service to international law should condemn this illegal attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla and take their own steps to forcibly break the siege of Gaza,” CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement.

Earlier this week, more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers called on the Trump administration to protect the volunteers onboard the flotilla’s ships.

“The law is clear: any attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla or its civilians is a clear and blatant violation of international law,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The United States has an obligation to protect its citizens from foreign attack.”

The lawmakers also demanded that the administration “address the issue at root of this voyage: the brutal Israeli blockade and genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

The flotilla said they will not be deterred by Israel’s illegal attacks on the flotilla.

“We have to make it clear: They take one boat, we sail with 40,” the group posted on Instagram. “They try to stop us, we escalate. Take the streets, take the ports, take the seas.”

October 5, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Under Trump, Criticism Is Now Criminal

Jim Naureckas, FAIR, October 3, 2025

After the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump (9/10/25) escalated his war on free speech, calling for criminalizing criticism of himself:

“It’s a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.

This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.“

To spell it out: “Demonizing”—which is to say, criticizing—people with whom you disagree is “directly responsible” for Kirk’s death. Note that this is about criticizing people that you disagree with—”you” presumably being one of “those on the radical left”—as Trump has built a wildly lucrative political career out of demonizing those he disagrees with, and he’s not about to stop now. It’s the “wonderful Americans” like Kirk whom you aren’t supposed to criticize.

Trump promises “this kind of rhetoric”—the “radical left” kind—will “stop,” because the government will “find each and every one who contributed to this atrocity.” This includes all those who used their speech to “go after our judges,” cops and “everyone else who brings order.”

This is, in short, a declaration that the idea of free speech is over—despite Trump going on to list “free speech” first among “the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died.” Where once you had the right to criticize those who “bring order,” now such reckless rhetoric is punishable as direct support for “terrorism”—a word that under the US legal system authorizes draconian police powers……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://fair.org/home/under-trump-criticism-is-now-criminal/

October 5, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Leah McGrath Goodman, Tony Blair and issues on torture (with added radiation)

Image

Published by arclight2011- date 15 Sep 2012 -nuclear-news.net

[…]

Accusations: Despite the mockery of the film Borat, leaked U.S. cables suggest the country was undemocratic and used torture in detention

Other dignitaries at the meeting included former Italian Prime Minister and ex-EU Commission President

Romano Prodi. Mr Mittal’s employees in Kazakhstan have accused him of ‘slave labour’ conditions after a series of coal mining accidents between 2004 and 2007 which led to 91 deaths.

[…]

Last week a senior adviser to the Kazakh president said that Mr Blair had opened an office in the capital.Presidential adviser Yermukhamet Yertysbayev said: ‘A large working group is here and, to my knowledge, it has already opened Tony Blair’s permanent office in Astana.’

It was reported last week that Mr Blair had secured an £8 million deal to clean up the image of Kazakhstan.

[…]

Mr Blair also visited Kazakhstan in 2008, and in 2003 Lord Levy went there to help UK firms win contracts.

[…]

Max Keiser talks to investigative journalist and author, Leah McGrath Goodman about her being banned from the UK for reporting on the Jersey sex and murder scandal. They discuss the $5 billion per square mile in laundered money that means Jersey rises, while Switzerland sinks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_aVZrR5NI&feature=player_detailpage#t=749s

And as well as protecting the guilty child sex/torturers/murderers of the island of Jersey I believe that they are also protecting the tax dodgers from any association.. its just good PR!

FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair was reportedly involved in helping to keep alive the world’s biggest takeover by Jersey-incorporated commodities trader Glencore of mining company Xstrata.

11/September/2012

[…]

Mr Blair was said to have attended a meeting at Claridge’s Hotel in London towards the end of last week which led to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund supporting a final revised bid from Glencore for its shareholding. Continue reading →

October 4, 2025 Posted by | 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES, Belarus, civil liberties, depleted uranium, environment, Fukushima 2012, health, Japan, Kazakhstan, marketing, politics international, Reference archives, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Ukraine, USA, wastes, weapons and war | 1 Comment

This Ridiculous, Dangerous Antifa Order Is McCarthyism All Over Again—Possibly Worse

The Trump administration is abusing federal power to silence dissenting voices in a manner that has not been seen in over 70 years. The country survived Sen. Joseph McCarthy, but will it survive what Trump has wrought?

C.J. Polychroniou, Sep 23, 2025Common Dreams, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-antifa-order

Free speech stole the show last week during the joint press conference between US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer after a British reporter asked point-blank the Yankee wannabe dictator whether free speech is more under attack in Britain or in America, following Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension over Charlie Kirk comments.

At this historical juncture, both Britain and America are at a new low when it comes to freedom of expression. In fact, free speech is under serious attack in most Western societies.

Britain has no equivalent to the First Amendment, but the current draconian speech laws are so outrageous that even traditional liberties are vanishing. British police are arresting people for offensive online speech at record numbers while the right to protest has been severely curtailed.

In Germany, the situation is just as bad, if not worse. Long before recent efforts to stifle pro-Palestinian voices, the country’s laws on freedom of expression stood on tenuous grounds. As the late German jurist Weinfried Brugger noted nearly a quarter of a century ago in a study comparing German and American law on hate speech, if a protester was to shout on the steps of the US Capitol “our President is a pig” and even held painted pictures of the president as a pig “engaged in sexual conduct with another pig in a judge’s robe;” or that “all our soldiers are murders;” or that “the Holocaust never happened,” none of these allegations would lead to criminal prosecution as the First Amendment would protect them. However, criminal law would apply to all of the above messages if the protester made the speech on the steps of the German Bundestag. As further elucidated by Brugger, freedom of speech in Germany is not a “preferred right” and does not deserve “absolute protection.”

For the duration of Trump 2.0, we must be prepared for a barrage of further anti-democratic actions taking aim at any individual, group, or organization whose ideas, beliefs, and actions threaten the ego of the “beloved leader” or simply irritate his idiotic whims

In this sense, conservatives in the US, like Vice President JD Vance, are not totally wrong when they criticize Europe over free speech, even though they are complete hypocrites. Indeed, the problem with Vance and the rest of the MAGA Republicans who are seemingly disturbed by the backsliding of free expression in Europe is that they are not interested in free speech as such; they are interested in controlling it. They only want to protect speech that is aligned with their own ideological beliefs and values. Thus, in his speech to the Munich Security Conference in February, where he scolded Europeans for their failings on free speech, Vance not only spread a lie when he claimed that the Scottish government had sent letters to citizens instructing them that “even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law” but kept silent about UK government anti-protest legislation, which, as British academic Eric Heinze astutely noted, targets exactly the kind or protests that Trump fears.

Trump returned to the White House with a promise to protect free speech from government censorship. Indeed, just a few hours after his second inauguration, Trump signed Executive Order 14149, titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” But Trump is a master of doublespeak. His administration has, in turn, carried out a wide-ranging crackdown on universities, student protesters, journalists, lawyers, and the press. The wannabe dictator has accused the press on multiple occasions of being “the enemy of the American people” and has filed personal lawsuits against several news organizations. Under his administration, we are also witnessing the intrusion of the military into civilian life. This type of government action is tantamount to dictatorship, as it constitutes an all-out assault on democracy and the rule of law.

The Trump administration is abusing federal power to silence dissenting voices in a manner that has not been seen since the McCarthy era. Democrats and Republicans alike played the Red Card back in the 1940s and throughout the 1950s in order to silence critics and quash dissent. Trump is doing the same thing by trying to create a climate of fear and suspicion across the country with the boogeyman of the so-called “far left,” especially in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing.

To be sure, there should be no illusions about the evolution of free speech in the United States. The current situation is by no means unique, and the First Amendment has never been as sacred as people seem to think. Despite its exalted status, the First Amendment has been “a dead letter for much of American history” and did not come to life until the early 20th century. And when it did, freedom of expression suffered some major blows, thanks to World War I, which created a wave of jingoism, and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which gave rise in turn to an anti-communist alarm known as the Red Scare. In Debs v United States, the Supreme Court upheld Deb’s conviction under the Espionage Act of 1917. Eugene Debs, a leading member of the Socialist Party of America, was convicted for his outspoken opposition to US involvement in World War I and sentenced to ten years in federal prison.

Throughout the 1940s and the 1950s, the First Amendment was censored in the shadows as the suppression of political and social views became a widespread occurrence, spearheaded by a second Red Scare and the rise of McCarthyism. The Smith Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Roosevelt on June 28, 1940, was used to monitor immigrants and prosecute members of the Communist Party. In 1951, in a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court delivered a massive blow to the First Amendment by upholding the constitutionality of the Smith Act in Dennis v United States. In 1947, the Truman administration initiated a loyalty program aimed at rooting out “subversives” and getting rid of homosexuals. Such programs were also established for employment in the private sector as well.

It was only in the 1960s, thanks to growing opposition to the Vietnam War and government attempts to curb protests, that the First Amendment entered mass public consciousness in the United States. When a group of students in Des Moines, Iowa, was suspended for wearing black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War and in support of a Christmas truce, the students’ parents challenged the suspensions as a violation of free speech. In a landmark victory for student rights and the First Amendment, in a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v Des Moines (1969) that schools are not “enclaves of totalitarianism” and that “neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate.” The Pentagon Papers case defended further the right of free speech, although subsequent US administrations, from Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama to Donald Trump, indicted scores of people “for leaking secrets to the press,” as Lincoln Caplan has underscored in an essay for the Harvard Law Bulletin.

The democratic left has stood up for free speech rights throughout its history. It should remain steadfast in its commitment to freedom of expression and fully and unconditionally reject “cancel culture.”

We are not exactly sure who made the remark that “while history doesn’t repeat itself, it often rhymes,” but it surely applies to the free speech case in the United States. We are now in the midst of a new McCarthy era, and possibly worse. In forcing a comedian and television host like Jimmy Kimmel off the airwaves (Disney reinstated his show after five days of suspension), Trump and his goon FCC Chairman Brendan Carr are following in the footsteps of Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels who, in 1939, as the New York Times reported, banned five German entertainers because they “made witticisms about the Nazi regime.”

Thus, for the duration of Trump 2.0, we must be prepared for a barrage of further anti-democratic actions taking aim at any individual, group, or organization whose ideas, beliefs, and actions threaten the ego of the “beloved leader” or simply irritate his idiotic whims. The so-called “radical left” will surely be the main target. In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, Trump described the left-wing activist group Antifa a “sick, dangerous, radical left disaster” and signed an executive order designating it a “domestic terrorist organization.”

Antifa (shorthand for “antifascist”) exists around the world but is not a unified organization and has no leader. As such, it is not clear how the US government plans to prosecute Antifa activists. Either way, this is yet another orchestrated attack on political dissent and freedom of speech by the emerging dictatorial regime in Washington, D.C., under the reign of Donald J. Trump.

The democratic left has stood up for free speech rights throughout its history. It should remain steadfast in its commitment to freedom of expression and fully and unconditionally reject “cancel culture.” Censorship of speech is the first step toward political repression, which is precisely why Trump and his goons are now threatening to punish anyone who speaks ill of their newfound martyr, Charlie Kirk.

September 25, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Pentagon to Create ‘Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force’

“You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington“

“They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.”

by Kyle Anzalone | Aug 12, 2025, https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/pentagon-to-create-domestic-civil-disturbance-quick-reaction-force/

The Department of Defense is planning to create a rapid response force of National Guard troops to quickly deploy to American cities where protests or unrest are occurring.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that it obtained documents showing the Pentagon is creating a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force.”

“The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour,” the outlet explained. “They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.”

One hundred troops at each base would be on standby to deploy within an hour, while the entire quick force would begin operations within 12 hours. The National Guard will be equipped with weapons and riot gear, and the deployments will be limited to 90 days to prevent burnout among the troops.

On Monday, Trump announced a major crackdown on crime in Washington, DC, by federalizing the Metropolitan DC police and deploying 800 National Guard troops to the capital city. “This is Liberation Day in DC, and we’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House. “I’m officially invoking the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. And placing the DC Metropolitan Police under direct federal control.”

“In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help restore law, order and public safety,” he added.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said residents of DC will soon see the National Guard in the capital. “You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week,” he explained. “At your direction as well, sir, there are other units we are prepared to bring in — other National Guard units, other specialized units. They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.”

The new quick reaction force may be deployed to other American cities if Trump perceives that there is too much crime. Trump threatened to take similar steps in other major cities, noting he hopes some of them “self-clean up.” “If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” the president said.

The planned force could face legal barriers as it attempts to deploy to American cities. Many Democratic led-cities may object to a Republican President deploying troops. Additionally, federal law limits the National Guard’s ability to conduct law enforcement within the U.S.

August 16, 2025 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

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