So now we see why Mitch McConnell did the country such a service by keeping Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court. Garland’s absurd authoritarian posturing not only is ballot box poison, it is clearly unconstitutional. Law Professor Jonathan Turley gives us the details.
Merrick Garland mobilized the FBI to intimidate parents without legal basis and, we now know, premised on misinformation he didn’t bother to verify. It was a dangerous abuse of authority that has badly compromised the Justice Dept’s integrity and Garland’s. He should resign. https://t.co/MXKN5j0L5g
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 23, 2021
Turley: In the 1946 movie, “Terror by Night,” Sherlock Holmes assures Lady Margaret that, while he and Dr. Watson would be hanging around, “we’ll be as unobtrusive as possible.” Lady Margaret correctly responds “That would be a novelty from a policeman.”
That scene came to mind when Attorney General Merrick Garland testified in Congresfbs to assure members that he does not believe that parents protesting at school board meetings are domestic terrorists. The Attorney General insists there was nothing to be worried about because the FBI would simply be monitoring what these parents say or do at school meetings. Promises of such “unobtrusive” investigations or operations ignore the obvious: any national enforcement or monitoring effort is, by definition, obtrusive—particularly when it comes to free speech.
Garland’s testimony came after the Justice Department announced that it would initiate a national effort to “address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,” including “open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”
It came shortly after the National School Boards Association asked for such action, including the possible use of the Patriot Act against individuals deemed threatening to board members. While the Justice Department memo itself does not mention domestic terrorists nor the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s press release pledged to include the National Security Division in the effort.
Garland repeatedly assured the members that he knows of no basis for alleging domestic terrorism in these school board meetings. He further pledged that he will not use such laws against parents objecting to critical race theory or other issues at these meetings.
However, those answers only begged the question: why has the Justice Department pledged this broad effort to monitor and respond to threats at these meetings? If these are not matters of domestic terrorism, why is the Justice Department implementing this effort? The school board association letter does not cite any pattern of criminal threats nor interstate, federal profile…
First Amendment cases are often more concerned with the “chilling effects” on free speech as opposed to direct government action. Recently, the Supreme Court struck down a California law requiring the reporting of charity donors. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the Court: “When it comes to the freedom of association, the protections of the First Amendment are triggered not only by actual restrictions on an individual’s ability to join with others to further shared goals. The risk of a chilling effect on association is enough.”
For more from David Kamioner read him at davidkamioner.substack.com
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.
Or will he cut loose DOJ nationwide for anyone?>
The problem is the people still suffering terminal TBS and the D RAT faithful are willing to overthrow every Constitutional protection we have and turn the power of the state to surveil citizens for the benefit of their “political” ideology of the moment just as the Russians, the Germans, the Italians and the Chinese did and state the slide towards a real fascist state. And then they’ll call everybody else out for it as they march them off.