The Constitutional Crisis Wrought by Trump's Federal Troops

Build it (an authoritarian tracking infrastructure) and they (expanded uses) will come

WASHINGTON — With additional state National Guard troops deploying to D.C. as untrained federal law enforcement agents perform local police duties in city streets, the American Civil Liberties Union is issuing a stark reminder to all federal and military officials that — no matter what uniform they wear or what authority they claim — they are bound by the U.S. Constitution and all federal and local laws. Over the weekend, the Trump administration declared that state National Guard troops would be called in to Washington, and the governors of West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina announced they are deploying hundreds of their National Guard troops to the nation's capital on top of the 800 D.C. National Guard troops who were already activated by President Trump. The Wall Street Journal reported that in a major shift, these troops may receive orders “to start carrying weapons in the coming days.” National Guard troops are generally not trained in local policing or de-escalation and should never be used for federal immigration purposes. President Trump has also ordered FBI personnel and other federal officers, who similarly are not trained for local policing, to patrol the city. He earlier promised to let police “do whatever the hell they want” — raising grave concerns about civil rights abuses, particularly for Black, Brown, and unhoused residents. “Through his manufactured emergency, President Trump is engaging in dangerous political theater to expand his power and sow fear in our communities. Sending heavily armed federal agents and National Guard troops from hundreds of miles away into our nation’s capital is unnecessary, inflammatory, and puts people’s rights at high risk of being violated,” said Hina Shamsi, director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “Governors need to understand that with each order, the Trump administration increases legal and ethical jeopardy for state troops being deployed. No matter what uniform they wear, federal agents and military troops are bound by the Constitution, including our rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, due process, and safeguards against unlawful searches and seizures. If troops or federal agents violate our rights, they must be held accountable.” On Friday, D.C. sued the administration to block its order asserting federal authority over the city’s police department, saying it violated the Home Rule Act. After a federal court hearing on Friday afternoon, Attorney General Bondi rescinded her most brazen order undermining D.C.’s home rule, thereby allowing the D.C. police commissioner to remain at her post over the D.C. police department. “The deployment of out-of-state National Guard troops and more federal agents onto D.C. streets is a brazen abuse of power meant to intimidate and create fear in the nation’s capital. This is an unnecessary overstep to micromanage D.C. under a phony emergency, causing real harm to residents and visitors — all to advance the Trump administration’s political agenda.” said Monica Hopkins, executive director of ACLU of D.C. “The ACLU-D.C. will continue to monitor the use of D.C. police and federal law enforcement to ensure that the constitutional rights of our community are protected. We need the nation to join us in the fight for statehood so that D.C. residents are treated like those in every other state and have the same guardrails against federal overreach.”

Company crosses a dangerous line by beginning to offer AI suspicion-generation functions

BANGOR, Maine — The U.S. District Court for the District of Maine granted a preliminary injunction in Smith v. Trump, a lawsuit brought by two U.S. human rights advocates who are challenging the Trump administration’s executive order imposing sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The court issued the order after concluding that the advocates were likely to succeed on their claim that the speech restrictions imposed on them by the executive order violate the First Amendment. As the lawsuit explains, these sanctions violate the First Amendment by prohibiting the advocates, and other Americans like them, from communicating with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor, including by providing legal advice, expert analysis, and evidence. Matthew Smith and Akila Radhakrishnan are suing because the sanctions forced them to stop working with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor and indefinitely paused their efforts to hold leading rights violators accountable for horrific crimes. “Preventing our clients and others like them from doing critical human rights work with the ICC is unconstitutional, and we’re heartened that the court saw that as well,” said Charlie Hogle, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The First Amendment does not allow the government to impose sweeping limits on what Americans can say and who they can say it to.” Under the executive order, people in the U.S. who’ve devoted their lives to seeking justice for the victims of atrocities — like the genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya people, or gender-based violence committed against Afghan women under the Taliban — could face stiff penalties simply for exercising their constitutional right to engage and advocate with ICC investigators and prosecutors. The international community, including the United States, established the ICC in 1998 to help maintain international peace and security. The ICC investigates and prosecutes crimes of the severest magnitude — including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes — when domestic courts are unwilling or unable to do so. Today, 125 countries have joined the ICC’s founding treaty, known as the Rome Statute. As the lawsuit explains, although the United States has not ratified the Rome Statute, it has supported the ICC’s critical work on a wide range of matters. This lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Maine by the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Maine on behalf of Matthew Smith and Akila Radhakrishnan. In 2020, when President Trump imposed similar sanctions, the ACLU sued on behalf of human rights experts who were forced to stop working with the ICC. Our clients withdrew their lawsuit when President Joe Biden rescinded the sanctions, but a federal court in a separate suit agreed the sanctions likely violated the First Amendment.