Nixon and ‘domestic security threats’

 In 2005, Bob Woodward reflected back on the Watergate scandal, writing in the Washington Post:

“…in 1970 a young White House aide named Tom Charles Huston had come up with a plan to authorize the CIA, the FBI and military intelligence units to intensify electronic surveillance of ‘domestic security threats’…  “Huston warned in a top-secret memo that the plan was ‘clearly illegal.’ Nixon initially approved the plan anyway.”

The plan to treat American citizens as a multitude of ‘domestic security threats” was so troubling that Nixon had second thoughts. He rescinded the plan four days later.

The episode illustrates how much times have changed. Liberals used to condemn such surveillance activities. The modern Fascists on the Left have not only reversed themselves, but have greatly expanded their ambitions.

They do so brazenly, no longer feeling the need to be “top-secret” about it. They have expanded the list of targets, in the interests, one must suppose, of greater inclusiveness. Concerned parents, “man-made” climate skeptics, mandate opponents, practicing Catholics, open border critics, citizens worried about election fraud, and in fact anyone dissenting from approved narratives have been focused on. The weaponization has also been expanded beyond surveillance to censorship, intimidation, and even criminal prosecution.

All this enhanced government weaponry begs the question: are Messrs. Biden, Garland, and Wray, and their cheerleaders on the Left, having any second thoughts?

George W. Shuster was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale, a National Science Foundation Fellow at MIT, and graduated in the same class at Yale Law School as Bill and Hillary Clinton

Image: Nancy Wong