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The astonishing roster of outrages perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security in recent years — from ties to far-right groups to the wanton abuse of migrants’ human rights — leaves only one conclusion: it cannot continue to exist in its current form.

by Branko Marcetic, Jacobin

For those keeping an eye on it, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has had an exceptionally scandal-plagued few years.

There were the 2020 George Floyd protests, which saw DHS agents in unmarked vans snatch protesters off the streets, among other outrages. There were the various instances of the department spying on law-abiding dissidents. Then, this year, we got several reports outlining the way DHS has quietly amassed vast domestic surveillance capability by teaming up with the private sector, letting it bypass the usual need for a warrant, among other things.

Federal police from the Department of Homeland Security.

To top it all off, its agents appear to have been actively complicit in an appalling stunt this year that saw Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s office trick asylum seekers into being flown to Martha’s Vineyard, in order to have them run afoul of legal requirements and be more easily deported. Oh, and we can add the department’s growing collaboration with tech firms for policing public discourse to that list.

If only it stopped there. Unfortunately, a spate of new reporting should deepen our concerns about the DHS and what it’s doing behind the scenes.

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Surveillance and Civil Liberties