By Rita Cook
WASHINGTON DC – Pres. Donald Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memoranda last week that could be ignoring First Amendment rights.
The memoranda’s headline “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” is called in short NSPM7.
According to Tik Tok creator Christopher Russell who has a law degree and once held a top secret security clearance working for the Department of Defense and the State Department, he said these types of orders normally are classified and released behind closed doors.
In fact, a NSPM is how the United States ended up with the National Security Administration’s Spy Program that Edward Snowden revealed to the public.
Russell said this order, however, has been made public “because they want it to instill fear.”
He cited the law firm Arnold and Porter recently issuing a memo to clients “The stakes are high. The presidential memorandum makes clear the Department of Justice intends to target tax exempt organizations and their funders for investigation and potential criminal prosecution based on activities that have historically been viewed as protected by the First Amendment.”
As a reminder, the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of religion (both the establishment of and free exercise of), speech, press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
According to Russell NSPM7 clearly targets protected speech.
“Your first amendment rights mean nothing in a system with no laws,” he adds.
The directive establishes a federal strategy to combat domestic terrorism and broadens the scope of investigations, targeting organizations and individuals suspected of promoting political violence.
Since the signing, more than 3,000 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. have signed an open letter criticizing the directive.
Critics are raising concerns the memoranda takes away the guaranteed right to free speech under the guise of the left provoking violence.
NSPM7 allows for the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) to “coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.”
The JTTF will be directed to “investigate potential Federal crimes” in relation to “recruiting or radicalizing persons” for political violence, terrorism, conspiracy against rights or the violent deprivation of a citizens’ rights.
Other language in the memoranda allows the investigation of institutional and individual funders, and the offices and employees of these organizations determined responsible for, sponsoring or aiding “principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct.”
Nongovernmental organizations and Americans abroad are also targeted if they have “close ties to foreign governments, agents, citizens, foundations, or influence networks engaged in violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”
The directive went on to name “common threads animating this violence” could include anti-American, anti-capitalist and anti-Christian views as well as “support for the overthrow of the United States government,” “extremism” on gender, race and migration, and hostility toward individuals who hold “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
The memoranda gives the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of the Treasury, and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the power to aggressively take action against organizations and their financial networks under this directive.
My question, what would our founding fathers have us do?
They designed the U.S. Constitution with principles to prevent government overreach and protect against tyranny. To that end, they created a system of checks and balances to prevent any one branch or person from becoming too powerful, thus the three distinct and independent branches: the legislative (Congress), the executive (the President), and the judicial (Supreme Court and federal courts).
And while, it is not in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence stresses the right of the people to “alter or to abolish” a government that becomes destructive to the people’s rights. The framers believed that ultimate sovereignty resides with “We the People.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reminded the President “cannot rewrite the Constitution by memo” and characterized the directive as a potentially dangerous targeting activists with the label of “domestic terrorism.”
As well, NSPM7 is being compared to the Patriot Act with even greater infringement on civil liberties.
“The government doesn’t need NSPM-7 to investigate any of these groups if there’s reason to believe they’ve committed crimes that already exist,” Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor, wrote in an online post therefore, he suggested the directive attempts to coerce individuals and groups to “obey in advance.”
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