on May 3, Politico published an initial majority draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito suggesting that the Court will overturn Roe v. Wade. the draft is dated in February so the Court could release an altered — or completely different —opinion. but for now, the implications are haunting, especially for subsequent Court opinions hinging on the same privacy-oriented logic as Roe.
i could write an entire essay about Roe hinging on the “right to privacy” because lmao. (if anyone wants me to y’all know how to find my email.) that’s not the focus today. instead, i’m honing in on some shit i saw after protests in Los Angeles where the Department of Homeland Security was spotted attacking protesters.
DHS’ presence confused many. on twitter, quite a fewpeople asked why the agency would be at an abortion rights protest in the first place. there were the usual snappy remarks in the quote tweets. white supremacy / earning their paychecks / are you surprised the U.S. is a police state? / blah blah. these answers are correct in a sense. but most of the people i saw asking about DHS’ presence are well aware of white supremacy, police states, all that.
those comments miss the real question: what mechanisms are being used in this moment? how is the state (or a specific agency) justifying its actions? these may seem like unimportant questions. the state’s justifications shouldn’t be given any weight. a police state is gonna police state. but you should know what laws and frameworks are the driving forces in any given moment because it shapes how violence manifests. when people ask how the Court could overturn Roe, we could say “white supremacy” and leave it there. that’s not a full answer, though. it’s a similar case here.
so: why was DHS in LA? and why will i be unsurprised to hear when DHS or other federal agencies show up at additional abortion rights protests? hell, why is DHS doing anything at all?
under the guise of counter-extremism / combatting domestic violent extremism, DHS has provided itself with justification to intervene in just about any aspect of (political) life. take a look at this joint report by DHS and the FBI from May 2021. its introduction states: “The FBI and DHS are both charged with preventing terrorist attacks in the United States, including those conducted by Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs).”
when DHS is at protests, people think it invalidates the agency by showing either a contradiction or an overstep. since it was founded in the wake of 9/11, DHS is about foreign threats, right? except DHS’ presence at events within the U.S. is not an oversight. DHS says its mission is to “secure the nation from the many threats that we face” with the goal of “keeping America safe”.
that includes threats coming from inside the house.
okay, how does an abortion rights rally threaten america?
within that document, Abortion-Related Violent Extremists (defined as “individuals who advocate for violence in support of either pro-life or pro-choice beliefs”) are named as a type of Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists (AGAAVE). i know that doesn’t answer the “how” is this a threat but you don’t need to agree with a state’s logic of what constitutes violence or a threat to at least understand this is what you’ll be treated as.
the same document also outlines that the FBI’s mission is to “detect, penetrate, disrupt, and dismantle criminal (domestic terrorism) plots”. there’s a few bullet points about what makes something a domestic terrorism plot that are of interest. let me focus on one:
“Appearing to be intended to:
Influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion…”
i 100% think Roe’s potential overturn further proves that we need a massive overhaul of society’s structure. the Supreme Court cannot continue to stand. i say this so you’ll understand my next sentence isn’t a condemnation of protesting (in fact, i think we’re being too tame in the U.S.).
attempts to influence the Supreme Court are likely to be considered domestic terrorism. it doesn’t matter if you label a protest “non-violent” or if you look at events and say, “well, nothing even happened!” the state’s definition of what constitutes violence, coercion, and a threat to social order is what matters. and i’m not reaching to make any of these conclusions. i’m grabbing shit directly from federal documents.
there is so much more that can be said about DHS’ presence at protests. people pointed out that the LA protest took place near a federal courthouse and thus prompted a federal response. others mused about DHS’ partnerships with local law enforcement like through fusion centers. that’s all worth exploring by itself but i wanted to point to an overarching theme that, at least, is more specific than “white supremacy” alone.
as i said, DHS has expanded itself into every aspect of life through “combatting domestic extremism”. because people often don’t know much about counter-extremism, they’re unable to connect DHS’ increased presence back to a longer lineage of counter-insurgency tactics applied domestically through counter-extremism and the surveillance state.
you could say that counter-extremism is still a broad answer. maybe. but this is a framework dominating more of the U.S. (and how law enforcement organizes itself / responds to protests) than people seem to realize. that’s what i hope to address with this essay and continued coverage — whether it’s through my day job, NAZAR, or alternate platforms.
