Twenty-five years after 9/11, has the nightmare ever really ended? What began as a war on terror has become a permanent state of war, surveillance and emergency, while presidents of both parties have inherited ever greater powers to bypass constitutional restraints. 

On August 31, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project to continue—not because the Court determined that Trump had acted legally, but because the preservationists challenging it likely lacked standing to sue. That raises a much larger question: At what point will “We the People” be told that we, too, lack standing to object to the destruction of our republic? That is tyranny by technicality: government acts first, the courts catch up later, and by then the damage may already be done.

Decades of emergency powers, surveillance, militarized enforcement and unchecked executive authority have created a system increasingly designed to preserve government power itself. The danger is not President Trump’s new White House bunker but the mindset behind it: a permanent emergency state in which continuity of command and government survival increasingly take precedence over constitutional restraints. A bunker can preserve a president. It cannot preserve a republic.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, has the nightmare ever really ended? What began as a war on terror has become a permanent state of war, surveillance and emergency, while presidents of both parties have inherited ever greater powers to bypass constitutional restraints.

On August 31, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project to continue—not because the Court determined that Trump had acted legally, but because the preservationists challenging it likely lacked standing to sue. That raises a much larger question: At what point will “We the People” be told that we, too, lack standing to object to the destruction of our republic? That is tyranny by technicality: government acts first, the courts catch up later, and by then the damage may already be done.

Decades of emergency powers, surveillance, militarized enforcement and unchecked executive authority have created a system increasingly designed to preserve government power itself. The danger is not President Trump’s new White House bunker but the mindset behind it: a permanent emergency state in which continuity of command and government survival increasingly take precedence over constitutional restraints. A bunker can preserve a president. It cannot preserve a republic.

ICE is preparing to spend millions of dollars equipping agents with electric shock gloves designed to inflict pain and compel “compliance.” In the hands of an agency already accused of excessive force, unlawful arrests, secrecy, mass surveillance and constitutional violations, these so-called less-lethal weapons pose a much larger danger. The problem is not merely the weapon. It is what happens when a government gives an increasingly lawless agency unlimited money, minimal accountability and ever more powerful tools of coercion. The gloves are off—and ICE is increasingly becoming the prototype for an American secret police force.

ICE is preparing to spend millions of dollars equipping agents with electric shock gloves designed to inflict pain and compel “compliance.” In the hands of an agency already accused of excessive force, unlawful arrests, secrecy, mass surveillance and constitutional violations, these so-called less-lethal weapons pose a much larger danger. The problem is not merely the weapon. It is what happens when a government gives an increasingly lawless agency unlimited money, minimal accountability and ever more powerful tools of coercion. The gloves are off—and ICE is increasingly becoming the prototype for an American secret police force.

One year after President Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., the so-called "emergency" is over—but the troops never left. Now the Pentagon is preparing to keep a standing military presence in the nation’s capital through the end of Trump’s term. What began as an extraordinary response to a supposed crime crisis is becoming something far more dangerous: a precedent for using military force as an ordinary instrument of domestic government.

One year after President Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., the so-called "emergency" is over—but the troops never left. Now the Pentagon is preparing to keep a standing military presence in the nation’s capital through the end of Trump’s term. What began as an extraordinary response to a supposed crime crisis is becoming something far more dangerous: a precedent for using military force as an ordinary instrument of domestic government.

No government can bomb, threaten and police the world indefinitely without eventually bringing the consequences home. They come home through hacked water systems, heightened surveillance, militarized police and demands that Americans surrender still more freedom in exchange for protection from dangers the government helped create. This is blowback—and once again, “we the people” will be left to suffer the consequences.

No government can bomb, threaten and police the world indefinitely without eventually bringing the consequences home. They come home through hacked water systems, heightened surveillance, militarized police and demands that Americans surrender still more freedom in exchange for protection from dangers the government helped create. This is blowback—and once again, “we the people” will be left to suffer the consequences.

While Americans are overwhelmed by political theater, the government is waging war without Congress, expanding surveillance, punishing dissent and testing how many constitutional limits it can cross without consequence. The greatest danger is not merely that the president keeps testing the Constitution. It is that the institutions entrusted with enforcing it keep failing the test.

While Americans are overwhelmed by political theater, the government is waging war without Congress, expanding surveillance, punishing dissent and testing how many constitutional limits it can cross without consequence. The greatest danger is not merely that the president keeps testing the Constitution. It is that the institutions entrusted with enforcing it keep failing the test.

Accountability is supposed to be one of the defining principles of constitutional government. Yet from the Iran war and militarized immigration enforcement to police violence, public-health failures and unchecked executive power, no one at the top is ever made to answer for the damage done. This is how the American Police State gets away with murder. 

Accountability is supposed to be one of the defining principles of constitutional government. Yet from the Iran war and militarized immigration enforcement to police violence, public-health failures and unchecked executive power, no one at the top is ever made to answer for the damage done. This is how the American Police State gets away with murder. 

While Americans remain consumed by partisan politics, Flock’s AI-powered license plate cameras are quietly expanding a nationwide surveillance network capable of recording, analyzing and reconstructing the movements of ordinary people—and in the process, building the infrastructure of a digital police state.

While Americans remain consumed by partisan politics, Flock’s AI-powered license plate cameras are quietly expanding a nationwide surveillance network capable of recording, analyzing and reconstructing the movements of ordinary people—and in the process, building the infrastructure of a digital police state.

Criticize the government, question the police state, object to ICE raids, oppose war, challenge corruption, reject propaganda, refuse to salute the party line, or insist that public officials obey the Constitution, and you may find yourself accused of being anti-American, extremist, subversive, ungrateful, communist, terrorist-adjacent or worse. But criticizing the government is not a crime. It is the right—and duty—of a free people.

Criticize the government, question the police state, object to ICE raids, oppose war, challenge corruption, reject propaganda, refuse to salute the party line, or insist that public officials obey the Constitution, and you may find yourself accused of being anti-American, extremist, subversive, ungrateful, communist, terrorist-adjacent or worse.