Joel Mathis

Juliette Kayyem argues that, in Portland, Homeland Security isn't the problem -- it's Trump: Seemingly desperate to goad Democrats into a fight over law and order, the White House has deployed federal law-enforcement agents from the Department of Homeland Security to Portland, Oregon, ostensibly to protect statues on federal property from vandals. Agents from Customs and Border Protection and other branches of DHS are wearing military fatigues, snatching demonstrators from the streets, and even attacking protesters who by all accounts are peaceful. The Constitution did not contemplate the mobilization of federal assets to fight a war on graffiti. Never having requested the president’s help, local and state politicians in Portland are outraged. Yesterday afternoon, Trump announced an expansion of the program to a number of other cities to “help drive down violent crime.” These events offer a reminder of how much discretionary power every American president exercises—and why vo

Big Brother A couple of days ago I wrote that "the surveillance state always claims to be acting in the interest of our safety and security. Sometimes, it's even true." I was writing then about a 40-year-old incident involving the civil rights movement; luckily, the State of Pennsylvania has decided to offer us a fresh example : HARRISBURG – Gov. Rendell said Tuesday that he was "appalled" and "embarrassed" that his administration's Office of Homeland Security has been tracking and circulating information about legitimate protests by activist groups that do not pose a threat to public safety. Rendell said he did not know that the state Office of Homeland Security had been paying an outside company to track a long list of activists, including groups that oppose drilling in the Marcellus Shale, animal-rights advocates, and peace activists. The office then passed that information on to large groups of people, including law enforcement and me