1. The administration is trying to expand its policing powers. If we do not stop it, it will be deployed during elections and it will be a disaster.
2. As the above @joshtpm thread outlines, the mechanism appears to be the Federal Protective Service. They protect federal buildings and their occupants. But it’s a tiny agency. 1,400 employees. Not big enough to be a real problem nationally, right? Well...
3. The problem is that law enforcement agencies can accept help from other law enforcement agencies. What the administration is doing is detailing ICE and Customs & Border Protection officers to FPS. These detailed officers then operate under FPS authority.
4. That adds (up to) 20,000 and 62,000 personnel to FPS (respectively). Not all of those are officers. But it’s a sizable group.
5. Still, FPS has a tremendously narrow scope, right? Even though they are somehow being used to protect statues...if protests aren’t near federal buildings or statues, they can’t do anything, right? Sadly...
6. If Homeland Security (that houses all of these agencies) decides there are groups “conspiring” against federal interests, it appears this administration has given FPS authority to seek those groups out proactively.
7. The scariest part is that, as @BuddJenn (a badass former border agent) has been saying for some time, many in ICE and CBP see themselves as in a direct chain of command to POTUS. And their mission scope covers everything everywhere, at least in their mind.
8. A large, federal agency, tasked with rooting out vague threats to federal interests, without any requirement of public transparency is anti-democratic.
9. That they have now refused the request by Oregon to withdraw sets up a terribly consequential fight between federal and state powers.
10. All of this is very very bad. It’s another step down the path to autocracy. But it’s also a turning point. If we allow it to continue, we risk being unable to pull back this kind of authority from the presidency.
11. Simply, this is a kind of power that no administration should have. It must be rebuked and prohibited for future use. It’s the kind of state power that breaks democracies.
