Category Archives: National Security

02.26.17
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Border Patrol Loosening Standard for Hiring While Granting More Power

 

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Papers!

The other day we talked about a newly-empowered Customs and Order Protection, taking full advantage of the outskirts of their legal rights, and how they were seemingly taking on the role of vanguard of the Trump administration’s more insidious plans. Today the Times expands on that, talking about how the CBP, and ICE, have more “freedom” to do what they want.

Our speculation is that, as these agencies looked to expand to carry out the brutal immigration policies of the Trump/Bannon/Sessions axis, they would naturally lend themselves to people even more ready to gang up on Mexers and camel jockeys. Both CPB and ICE already have a reputation for attracting more lawless, vigilante types (though that is certainly far from a complete picture of the agents; many of whom are as serious as their serious jobs demand). The fear is that with the license to really bust some heads, these agencies will attract recruits who are frustrated by the lack of head-bashing opportunities their daily lives or other law enforcement jobs provide.

Those fears are not misplaced. A Foreign Policy exclusive today looks at how it seems like the DHS will be lowering standards and easing restrictions when it comes to hiring for the CPB.

Molly O’Toole’s article talks about how the DHS wants to reduce the use of certain background checks, including polygraphs, arguing that they are too burdensome, and recruits coming from other law enforcement agencies shouldn’t have to do redundant tests. (You could also say that polygraphs are stupids.) But there is a reason that CPB has such strict background tests: they are super easy to corrupt.

Or, if not easy, really great targets for smugglers, gangs, and human traffickers to bribe or blackmail. They are targeted with sex and money, so that they look the other way. The nature of their jobs requires more probity, the theory goes.

Yet those tough standards, including a mandatory polygraph, were put into place by Congress in 2010, after Customs and Border Protection suffered acute growing pains during the Bush administration, when CBP doubled in size. Some Border Patrol agents didn’t complete background checks before they deployed to the frontlines, officials reported, and the agency saw an increase in cases of internal corruption, and questions over its use-of-force training following a spate of deadly incidents.

I have no idea if the background checks are really too burdensome. It seems like a good idea, given how quickly the department expanded under President Bush, and how much of a problem that caused (as the FP article details). But maybe, in normal circumstances, it would be ok to make it a little easier to get in.

These aren’t normal circumstances. And while the article doesn’t go into the possibility that underqualified Gestapo-wannabes will flood the ranks of CBP and ICE, I think that’s a major fear. A rapid expansion of the ranks for people looking for exercise racialized and expanded powers with lower background standards seems like it will be, at best, a disaster. At worst, it is exactly what Trump and Bannon and Sessions want. Their own extremely loyal white nationalist force.

 

02.24.17
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Sad DHS Memos Don’t Reflect Full Faith in the Alternate Facts

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Pictured: unfavorable facts

In the last post, we linked to an article about the how the Trump administration approved DAPL and Keystone: essentially, throwing out every agreement they didn’t like. There’s a quote in the article that I think is a perfect summation.

Two days before the Trump administration approved an easement for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross a reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation, the U.S. Department of the Interior withdrew a legal opinion that concluded there was “ample legal justification” to deny it.

The withdrawal of the opinion was revealed in court documents filed this week by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the same agency that requested the review late last year.

“A pattern is emerging with [the Trump] administration,” said Jan Hasselman, an attorney representing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. “They take good, thoughtful work and then just throw it in the trash and do whatever they want to do.”

Which is pretty much perfect. But it doesn’t just pertain to pipelines, of course. From Lawfare. 

CNN also reports that the White House is pushing officials in the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to provide information in support of the supposed security rationale behind the executive order banning entry into the U.S. for citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries. The administration rejected an earlier DHS report contradicting the White House’s assertions on the security benefits of the travel ban and now is asking for a revised report, leading to concern within DHS and DOJ over the potential politicization of intelligence.

This is what happens when you have a faith-based organization. Everything has to fit that belief, and that which doesn’t is fake. It’s faith in the bigoted mantras of the Bannon-Gorka-Sessions axis, and faith in whatever idiot things Trump improvised on the campaign. It’s an odd miracle of this peculiar catechism that these are happily aligned.

02.23.17
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100 Air Miles In: The Border Patrol Is Trump’s Front Line of Control

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After the “Muslim Ban” went into effect, we were flooded with reports of overzealous Customs and Border Patrol agents interpreting the law the way they wanted, resisting court orders, and detaining people while past the point of legitimacy. In other words, they were acting like either rogue agents or a rogue agency–or rather, an agency with a very specific loyalty, and one that didn’t consider itself beholden to the court.

That loyalty, of course, is to Donald Trump. The CBP didn’t endorse Trump, though the Union for Border Patrol Agents did, very controversially. Though the CBP is officially non-political, it is clear that they lean very far right, and have been “rogue”, leading people to call them the most “out of control” law-enforcement agency.

But, as we said, one day you’re rogue, the next vogue. The undemocratic victory of Donald Trump has given them the green light they need, and his executive orders are opening the door. This morning, we’re hearing reports of border patrol agents checking “documents”, proof of citizenship, on domestic flights in domestic airports.

This is a “papers, please” sort of thing. To be clear, the CBP is acting within their jurisdiction.

The authority for this is based on the Immigration and Nationality Act 287(a)(3) and copied in 8 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 287 (a)(3), which states that Immigration Officers, without a warrant, may “within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States…board and search for aliens in any vessel within the territorial waters of the United States and any railcar, aircraft, conveyance, or vehicle. 8 CFR 287 (a)(1) defines reasonable distance as 100 air miles from the border.

But there is a difference between having the authority, and having actual cause to do so. Have you ever had your “documents” checked on a domestic flight before? In a domestic airport? I know I haven’t. I don’t even know what to present: my driver’s license?

This isn’t just intimidation, though it is also that. It’s the muscle-flexing of the new world order. Hyperempowered white nationalists will extend their reach to the full range of the law, and possibly beyond. Or maybe the laws will change and that 100 miles becomes 500. This will only get worse if Trump is able to hire his 10,000 new CBP and 5000 new ICE agents (which is

This will only get worse if Trump is able to hire his 10,000 new CBP and 5000 new ICE agents (which is far from a done deal). Who do you think is going to be applying for Trump’s ICE? Majority civil libertarians, or failed cops with a chip on their shoulders, latent white nationalists with statutes behind them.

To say this is a ‘make or break’ moment is an exaggeration, sure. But it is dangerous. Once we start accepting having our papers checked at any airport, what else do we accept? What happens when a law enforcement agency is loyal to the President, and not to the country? What happens when everyone is the enemy?

Democracies don’t die at the ballot booth. They die when your citizenship hinges on the mood of the armed and empowered.

02.14.17
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Incompetence or Malevolence Are Your Only Options

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Flynn tenders his resignation.

I tend to be super-wary of pundits who say things like “the American people will do X” or “at some point, the American people will realize”, partly because phrases like that are cheap dodges, a way to hide your opinion behind an imaginary consensus, but mostly because it is impossible to guess what 330 million people are thinking. I don’t think there is an American opinion, and if I did, it was largely shattered in November.

That said, when a candidate who runs on his business acumen and ability to manage things and hire the best people loses top advisor after top advisor for being too close to Russia and lying about how close they are, it is possible the American people might realize he is an incredible clod and blow-dried fake.

There are really only two options when considering the resignation of Michael Flynn, who only spent a hair over three weeks as Trump’s Jack D. Ripper and was brought low by (possibly) lying about his communications with the Russian ambassador. One is to accept the narrative, which is that Flynn, a top advisor throughout the general election and one of Trump’s first hires, was working behind everyone’s back, and was criminally unreliable and rogue from the get-go. If that is the case, it speaks to an astonishing lack of vetting by Team Trump, a laziness that is part of his character, and a constitutional inability to judge people by any measure other than obsequious loyalty.

(And, if this is the case, if Flynn really went behind Trump’s back, it wasn’t even real loyalty: just flattery, which means Trump can’t spot a jackal if it coos sweet nothings to him.)

The other option is that Trump assembled a team that was deliberately close to Russia, for reasons of white supranationalism, or cruel geopolitics, or money, or whatever reason you prefer. They cozied up to Putin, and to global Putinism, because that is their kleptocratic vision of the world. The only problem came when it became too obvious, and the people who weren’t involved (Pence, maybe Priebus) tried to distance themselves when things started leaking.

This theory is backed by evidence, namely that Trump has been praising Putin since Day 1, even going so far as to compliment him for defying the US (at the exact same time Flynn was making the phone calls that would bring him down).

Great move on delay (by V. Putin) – I always knew he was very smart!
I tend to think that the reality is more the latter, though the team is staggeringly incompetent as well. After all, Flynn wasn’t the first guy close to Trump who had to leave becaue of Russian connections. It is also the case that for weeks, the intelligence agencies have been withholding key information from the administration, considering it a Russian pipeline.
What’s going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,” meaning the White House Situation Room, the 5,500 square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. “There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point,” the official added in wry frustration.
Now, of course, that could be part of the open war between the civilians and the intelligence services, but this is still essentially unprecedented. Remember that the war started because the IC was looking into Trump’s Russian connections. This is the heart of his administration.
And that’s why I don’t really buy the idea that they are going to bring in a grown-up and he’ll become a normal President. Administrations flow from the head down, and Trump can’t pick anyone more popular than he is. He couldn’t abide Petraeus, and even if he hires him, will undermine him from the get-go.
Even more, I don’t think this will stop the bleeding. Trump may want to “move forward”, as I heard on NPR this morning, but there will be investigations, and in an administration ruled by chaos that is already leaking like a reef-torn wooden junk, more news will come out as everyone scrambles to save their ass. I don’t want to predict any outcomes, but I think chaos and disaster are still going to rule Team Trump. It’s up to you to decide if that is because they are bad actors or just really bad at their jobs.
02.13.17
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Kushner, Israel, and the Insulting Madness of Trump

Look at the man to your right, Jared, and the one next to your wife. You helped this happen. You are not a good person. 

The main front-pager in yesterday’s Times was about how Jared Kushner, top trump advisor and son-in-law, is going to be handling peace in the Middle East, especially in Israel, because he cares about it a lot. Well, he cares about Israel. It’s important to him. The Times is fairly delicate about his shortcomings.

Mr. Kushner, on something of a crash course in diplomacy, has been speaking with Arab leaders in recent weeks. But he is a mystery to most Middle Eastern officials. He has no experience in government or international affairs. His up-close exposure to the Arab world amounts to little more than trips to a handful of Persian Gulf countries and a star-studded jaunt to Jordan.

Though Mr. Kushner has visited Israel since childhood, and more recently to do business, he is little known there. He holds strong views about the state of Israel, but he has not been outspoken about them, save for editorials in The New York Observer, the newspaper he owned. His thinking on matters like settlements is not well understood.

The thrust of the piece, and of Trump’s and Kushner’s ideas, is that a coalition of anti-Iran players such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states can form an alliance of sorts with Israel, given a mutual enmity toward Iran, and that can be used to forge peace.

Now, there certainly is an idea there. Mutual enemies are always important. What is left out, of course, is Palestinian national ambition, or how that will actually fit in, and how the governments of these Arab nations will be able to maintain internal peace if they work with Israel without fulfilling Palestinian hopes, which of course will be very hard to do given the tightness team Trump has with Netanyahu, and of course that Kushner seems never to have considered Palestine at all in his equations.

But, for the sake of arguments, let’s stipulate a few things. Let’s stipulate that Kushner is a bright kid. He seems smart, and he did help Trump get elected, which was still a sort of dark genius. Let’s even stipulate that he’s a good person, which I don’t really consider anyone who helped elect a white nationalist know-nothing vacuous reality-show strongman dope to be, but still. Family is family, I guess. This is just for the sake of argument.

Let’s even stipulate that his is taking his crash course very seriously, and that during it, he has found an enormous wellspring of empathy for the plight of the Palestinians, and wants to be an honest broker. Let’s also stipulate that fresh ideas might be best in this stale conflict.

Even stipulating all that, some of which rely on facts not in evidence, it still is the case that Donald Trump, while assuming the most awesome power on the planet, had a chance to consider every single person in the United States to handle one of the most difficult diplomatic challenges on the globe, and came up with the guy who married his daughter.

Think of how lazy that is. Think of how insulting that is. Think of how insular and ridiculous that is. Now, maybe Kushner will turn out to be the exact right guy for this but it would really be a remarkable coincidence that of everyone in the world, including people who have spent their whole lives learning about the region and its players, the one guy who can solve it happens to be in Trump’s Christmas card.

It stands more to reason, one thinks cynically, that Kushner has shown some interest, and that Trump likes him so: sure. Give it to Kushner. If my daughter thinks he’s good enough, so should the Palestinians and the Israelis.

You might love Trump’s politics. But it is hard to argue that this isn’t the single laziest and most insulting Administration we’ve seen.