An Unnecssary Abomination: The Opportunity Cost of the Cult of Anarchism and Why We All Suffer For It

 

Anarchism's Isolation Problem: A White Paper on Gatekeeping, Sectarianism, and Lost Potential

Audience Declaration

This paper is written for:

• Anarchist-adjacent people: those drawn to anti-hierarchical critique but skeptical of the movement's insularity
• Former anarchists: people who left anarchist communities and spaces, particularly those silenced or excluded
• Coalition partners on the left: socialists, pragmatists, and reformers seeking common ground on power structures and decentralization
• Institutional reformers: people working within existing systems who value anarchism's insights about invisible hierarchy and want to apply them effectively

This is not written as an external condemnation of anarchism. It is written as bridge-building—a proposal that anarchism's most valuable insights can reach far more people, and accomplish far more, if the movement reforms how it gatekeeps knowledge and treats dissent.

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Executive Summary

Contemporary anarchism has developed structural characteristics that function as gatekeeping mechanisms, preventing broad engagement with anti-hierarchical principles and isolating the movement from coalition-building with other ideological perspectives. This isolation costs not only the left, but global efforts to address inequality, environmental destruction, and concentrated power.

This paper argues that anarchism's most valuable contributions—its critique of invisible hierarchies, its emphasis on decentralized decision-making, and its insistence on examining power structures—are being strangled by the movement's own insularity. The problem is not anarchist theory. The problem is how contemporary anarchism polices thought, excludes questioners, and refuses engagement with ideological neighbors who might strengthen rather than weaken its core insights.

A reformed anarchism—one that remains anti-hierarchical while engaging seriously with liberalism, socialism, pragmatism, and other perspectives—would be more intellectually rigorous, more politically effective, and more capable of actually changing the systems it critiques.

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Part I: The Gatekeeping Architecture

1.1 The Theory Requirement as Barrier to Entry

Anarchism has constructed an initiation process that is functionally identical to institutional gatekeeping, despite explicitly opposing such structures.

The requirement to read canonical texts—typically cited as a 4,000+ page corpus including works by Kropotkin, Goldman, Bakunin, Stirner, and contemporary theorists—before participating in anarchist spaces creates a class-based barrier. This is not incidental. It is structural.

Who this excludes:

• Working-class people with limited time for reading
• People with learning disabilities or different cognitive processing styles
• People without access to educational institutions where theory is taught
• People in poverty who must prioritize immediate survival over theoretical study
• People from non-English-speaking backgrounds where translations are limited or expensive

This is particularly damaging because anarchism explicitly claims to represent working-class interests and liberation. Yet it has made participation contingent on cultural capital—access to books, time for study, educational background—that correlates directly with class privilege.

The mechanism: Participants in anarchist spaces report being redirected to "read theory" when asking practical questions. Online anarchist communities (r/Anarchy101, Mastodon instances, Reddit threads) explicitly or implicitly communicate that questions challenging the framework will be met with suggestions to educate oneself rather than genuine engagement.

This is not education. This is exclusion dressed as pedagogy.

1.2 Thought-Stopping Clichés and Immunity to Critique

Anarchist spaces employ linguistic formulas that terminate discussion rather than advance it:

• "That's not real anarchism"
• "Read theory"
• "Educate yourself"
• "This is a space for anarchists only"
• "That's a liberal/authoritarian question"

These phrases function identically to thought-stopping clichés in closed ideological systems. They allow disagreement to be dismissed without engagement. They position the questioner as ignorant rather than the answer as inadequate.

The effect: A movement that claims to value questioning and horizontal decision-making has made it socially costly to ask hard questions. People learn to self-censor. They learn that genuine inquiry is interpreted as bad faith. They stop trying.

This produces the appearance of consensus where there is actually enforced conformity.

1.3 The Purity Test as Social Control

Anarchist communities operate through implicit (and sometimes explicit) purity tests:

• Have you read the right theorists?
• Do you use the correct terminology?
• Do you demonstrate sufficient anti-state, anti-capitalist, anti-hierarchical commitment?
• Are you willing to condemn insufficient anarchists as collaborators?

Failure on these tests results in social ostracism, account suspension, or public shaming. The person is not rebutted—they are marked as ideologically suspect.

Historical parallel: This is the mechanism of Stalinism, where ideological purity was enforced through denunciation and exile. It is the mechanism of religious orthodoxy, where heresy is punished by excommunication. It is not the mechanism of liberation.

Yet anarchism, which explicitly opposes these structures elsewhere, has internalized them completely.

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Part II: The Cult-Like Structural Characteristics

Important Clarification: Structural vs. Formal Analysis

When this paper describes anarchism as having "cult-like characteristics," it is making a structural analysis, not a clinical diagnosis. Anarchism is not a cult in the formal, clinical sense. It lacks the absolute authoritarian leadership, the systematic financial exploitation, and the coercive isolation mechanisms that define cults.

However, it has developed cult-like structural characteristics—the gatekeeping, the purity tests, the thought-stopping mechanisms, the hostility to questioners—that produce similar social effects: exclusion of outsiders, conformity enforcement, and the inability to learn from criticism.

This distinction matters because it explains why the problem is durable: it is not one bad leader or organization to remove. It is systemic to how contemporary anarchism organizes itself. It emerges from incentive structures built into the movement's current culture and how participants accrue status and safety within it.

2.1 Structural Similarities

Contemporary anarchism exhibits the following characteristics commonly associated with high-control groups:

Characteristic	Manifestation in Anarchism
Exclusive knowledge	Theory canon inaccessible to outsiders; specialized jargon
Initiation ritual	Must read theory, attend meetings, prove commitment
Internal hierarchy disguised as equality	Those who've "read enough" have de facto influence; invisible power structures
Us vs. Them thinking	Anarchists vs. liberals, statists, authoritarians; refusal to acknowledge legitimate concerns from outside
Isolation from outside influence	Rejection of other ideologies as inherently compromised or evil
Hostility to apostates	Harsh treatment of people who leave or criticize (account deletion, public shaming, marking as "rude")
Thought control	Certain questions are "not allowed" or marked as bad faith
Inability to tolerate dissent	Internal disagreement is reframed as betrayal or insufficient commitment

2.2 Why These Patterns Persist: An Incentive Analysis

Understanding cult-like structures requires understanding why they persist despite their obvious costs. Three incentive mechanisms keep anarchism's gatekeeping in place:

Status Accrual Through Theory Fluency. In anarchist spaces, social capital is earned through demonstrated knowledge of theory. The person who has read Bakunin, Kropotkin, and contemporary theorists gains influence in discussions. The person who can deploy jargon correctly is taken seriously. This creates a hierarchy of knowledge that rewards gatekeeping: those who have "paid their dues" through reading maintain status by ensuring others must do the same. Removing the barrier would equalize status, threatening the position of long-time theorists.

Social Safety Via Purity Signaling. Anarchist spaces are often hostile to the outside world and to skeptics within. Members create psychological safety by demonstrating ideological commitment through purity signals: using correct terminology, citing approved theorists, expressing appropriate hostility to hierarchies and compromise. For people with limited income, unstable housing, or other vulnerabilities, anarchist communities sometimes offer genuine social support. The purity test becomes the price of belonging. Loosening requirements feels like losing protection.

Conflict Avoidance Through Thought-Stopping. Honest engagement with hard questions creates conflict. "Read theory" or "that's not real anarchism" terminates conflict instantly. This is more emotionally comfortable than actually wrestling with the problem of how to enforce norms without hierarchy, or how to coordinate large groups without delegation. The thought-stopping clichés serve a psychological function: they allow the community to avoid the cognitive dissonance of being hierarchical while claiming to be anti-hierarchical.

These are not flaws that could be fixed by being "nicer." They are embedded in the incentive structure of how contemporary anarchism functions. Meaningful reform would require changing what makes participation attractive and what provides status within anarchist spaces. This is possible, but it requires understanding that the problem is systemic and durable, not accidental.

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Part III: The Cost of Isolation

3.1 Political Ineffectiveness

Movements that cannot cooperate with other movements do not win.

The anarchist critique of hierarchy is valuable. The insistence on examining invisible power structures is necessary. The emphasis on decentralized decision-making has merit. But these insights are politically useless if the movement that holds them cannot build coalitions, cannot negotiate with allies, and cannot accomplish anything concrete.

Anarchism has been politically isolated for over a century. It has not produced durable, large-scale prevention of war, stopped systematic capitalist exploitation, or created lasting redistribution of power in any region. This is not because the ideas are wrong. It is because the movement refuses to cooperate with anyone who is not already anarchist.

3.1a Exception Handling: Spain, Rojava, and Mutual Aid

Critics will respond with historical exceptions: the Spanish Civil War anarchist movements, the AANES/Rojava experiment, mutual aid networks, autonomous zones, and squatter communities that have created real alternatives.

These are real. They matter. They also prove a narrower point than anarchists often claim.

Context-specificity: Spanish anarchism flourished in a moment of total state collapse (Civil War). Rojava emerged in a geopolitical vacuum created by Syrian state collapse and Kurdish autonomy. Mutual aid networks work in neighborhoods with strong social bonds and shared identity. Squatter communities function at small scale with voluntary membership and exit available.

None of these scale to the level of managing healthcare for 330 million people, coordinating supply chains across continents, or maintaining infrastructure during crisis without some form of hierarchy or authority.

Fragility: The Spanish anarchist collectives were crushed when the Spanish state re-consolidated power. Rojava survives through militia force and geopolitical balance that could shift. Mutual aid networks provide supplement, not replacement, to state systems. When people need emergency surgery, they use hospitals. When infrastructure fails, they appeal to state rescue. When conflict exceeds community capacity, external authority is called in.

The distinction: These are examples of anarchist success in specific contexts. They are not proof of anarchism's viability as a general system for complex, large-scale societies with diverse populations, resource scarcity, and interpersonal conflict.

The question is not whether anarchism can work anywhere. The question is whether it can work everywhere, for everyone, under the range of conditions most humans face.

The honest answer is: probably not. And that does not make anarchism wrong—it makes it one tool among many, rather than the answer to all problems.

This is a much weaker claim than anarchism currently makes. It is also much more useful.

• Labor unions (flawed as they are) have won wages, benefits, and working conditions through negotiation with statist institutions
• Environmental movements have passed legislation limiting pollution and protecting land
• Civil rights movements have changed law through democratic processes
• Feminist movements have gained legal protections through state intervention

None of these are "pure." All require compromise with institutions anarchists reject. All require working with people who are not anarchists. And all have demonstrably improved material conditions for millions of people.

Anarchism has produced: theory, internal purges, and the occasional riot.

The question: Is ideological purity more important than reducing human suffering?

3.2 Intellectual Stagnation

Ideas become sharper when challenged by intelligent critics operating from different frameworks.

Anarchism has not developed serious intellectual engagement with:

• How to scale decision-making beyond small communities
• How to handle disagreement when consensus breaks down
• How to prevent the emergence of informal hierarchies
• How to manage resources when scarcity exists
• How to coordinate large-scale projects without some form of delegation or authority

These are not trivial problems. They are critical questions for any society. But anarchism has not produced compelling answers because it has not allowed itself to be seriously questioned by people operating outside anarchist frameworks.

Instead, it has responded to these questions with:

• "Read theory" (deflection)
• "That's not real anarchism" (dismissal)
• "You're a liberal" (ad hominem)
• Silence (avoidance)

This is not intellectual engagement. This is intellectual self-isolation.

A movement that engaged seriously with critiques from pragmatists, socialists, and even thoughtful liberals would have sharper theories. It would have answers to hard questions. It would be stronger.

Instead, it has chosen comfort over growth.

3.3 The Deprivation of Humanity

Perhaps most importantly: Anarchism's isolation deprives humanity of valuable insights that could improve material conditions for billions of people.

The critique of hierarchy is not anarchism's property. The emphasis on decentralization is not anarchism's monopoly. The insistence on examining power structures is not anarchism's unique contribution. But these insights have been wrapped in a movement so insular, so hostile to outsiders, so demanding of ideological conformity, that most people never encounter them except as caricature.

People who could benefit from anti-hierarchical thinking—workers, communities, families, organizations—are kept out by gatekeeping and hostility. They encounter anarchism as: "read 4000 pages, adopt our jargon, renounce your other beliefs, or get out."

So they get out.

And they never learn what anarchism actually has to teach about power, cooperation, and human dignity.

This is a tragedy. Not for anarchism. For humanity.

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Part IV: The Path to Reform

4.0 Identity-Anarchism vs. Tool-Anarchism: A Crucial Distinction

Before discussing reform, it is necessary to clarify what is being reformed.

Anarchism currently functions in two ways:

Identity-Anarchism is anarchism as moral boundary and community identity. It asks: "Are you anarchist? Have you accepted our theory? Do you share our values?" It creates in-group/out-group status. It provides belonging and clarity. It also creates gatekeeping, purity tests, and the cult-like characteristics described above. Identity-anarchism has incentive structures that resist reform, because loosening boundaries threatens membership value.

Tool-Anarchism is anarchism as a critical analytic framework that can be applied across systems. It asks: "Where are invisible hierarchies? What would more decentralization achieve here? How can this decision-making process be more transparent?" It is portable, applicable to corporate structures, governments, families, and institutions. Tool-anarchism does not require belief in anarchist identity—it just requires using anarchist analysis.

The reform argument is not about abolishing Identity-Anarchism. Communities organized around shared values will continue to exist. The argument is about repositioning anarchism as a critical layer on top of real systems, rather than as a closed identity claiming to be the only legitimate response to hierarchy.

This shifts the question from "Are you an anarchist?" to "What can anarchist analysis teach us about how this system actually works?"

It is a more humble claim. It is also far more powerful, because it does not require agreement on everything—just agreement that examining hidden hierarchies and decentralization have value.

4.1 Anti-Hierarchy Without Anti-Everything-Else

Anarchism's core insight is valuable: hierarchies are often invisible, unjust, and self-perpetuating. Power structures tend to hide themselves. Institutions that claim to be neutral often serve concentrated interests.

This critique applies to:

• Corporate structures
• Government bureaucracies
• Religious institutions
• Educational systems
• Anarchist communities themselves

The question is not whether this critique is true. It is. The question is: what do we do about it?

Anarchism's answer has been: reject all hierarchical institutions. Refuse to cooperate with states, markets, or authority structures. Build alternative communities based on consensus and mutual aid.

This is one answer. It is not the only answer. And it is not obviously the best answer for most people in most situations.

A reformed anarchism would:

1. Maintain the critique while accepting partial solutions. Hierarchies are bad. States sometimes reduce worse harms. Markets sometimes allocate resources efficiently. This is not a contradiction. It is reality.

2. Cooperate with non-anarchists on shared problems. Liberals, socialists, pragmatists, and even some conservatives share anarchism's concern with unchecked power. A reformed anarchism would work with these people on:

   • Worker protections
   • Environmental regulation
   • Decentralization of decision-making
   • Transparency in institutions
   • Limiting concentrated wealth

3. Admit that other ideologies are not inherently evil. Liberalism has produced human rights law. Socialism has produced worker protections. Pragmatism has produced incremental improvements in material conditions. These are not pure or perfect, but they are real improvements for real people.

   A movement that treats all non-anarchist perspectives as collaborator ideologies cannot work with these people. A movement that acknowledges legitimate value in other perspectives can.

4. Accept that most people will not become anarchists. This is not failure. This is reality. The question is: given that most people will continue to operate within state and market structures, how can anarchist insights improve those structures?

   This is not selling out. This is effective advocacy.

4.2 Accessibility Over Gatekeeping

A reformed anarchism would:

1. Make participation possible without a 4000-page reading list. People can understand anti-hierarchical principles from lived experience. They do not need to read Stirner to recognize that their boss exercises unjust power.

2. Welcome questions instead of redirecting them. When someone asks "but how do you handle disagreement?" answer the question. Do not tell them to read theory. Engage.

3. Use clear language instead of jargon. Anarchist theory is often written in deliberately obscure prose. This is not because the ideas are complex. It is because obscurity serves as gatekeeping. Clarity would make the movement more accessible and stronger.

4. Create pathways for people to learn without feeling stupid. This means:

   • Introductory materials that assume no prior knowledge
   • Patient engagement with basic questions
   • Genuine dialogue instead of thought-stopping clichés
   • Recognition that learning is not one-directional

4.3 Internal Reform: Examining Your Own Hierarchies

Contemporary anarchism claims to have solved the problem of invisible hierarchy. It has not.

A reformed anarchism would:

1. Acknowledge the hierarchy that exists. Who actually makes decisions in anarchist communities? Whose voices are heard? Who gets silenced? Answer honestly.

2. Create accountability mechanisms that don't just recreate hierarchy in different form. Consensus decision-making can become mob rule. Horizontal organization can hide power in relationships. Community accountability can become collective punishment.

   These are real problems. Acknowledging them is the first step to solving them.

3. Allow dissent without punishment. If you are truly anti-hierarchical, you must allow people to disagree with the community and remain members, or leave without being marked as rude/betrayer/collaborator.

4. Submit to external critique. The most dangerous organization is one that believes it has nothing to learn from outside. A reformed anarchism would:

   • Invite criticism from non-anarchists
   • Take it seriously instead of dismissing it as liberal
   • Change practices that are not working
   • Admit when other movements have solved problems better

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Part V: Why This Matters

5.1 For the Left

The left is weak because it is fractured. It is fractured because movements cannot cooperate across ideological lines. They cannot cooperate because each movement believes the others are fundamentally compromised.

Anarchism's insistence that all state structures are inherently oppressive, that all compromise is betrayal, and that only true believers deserve a voice—this has cost the left dearly.

A left that could unite around concrete goals (higher wages, environmental protection, reduced inequality, decentralized decision-making) while allowing different movements to pursue them through different mechanisms would be far more powerful.

Anarchism could provide this. Instead, it provides purity tests and exclusion.

5.2 For Humanity

Most people on Earth will continue to live within state and market structures for the foreseeable future. The question is not whether to abolish the state. The question is how to make the state less oppressive, less hierarchical, more responsive to people's actual needs.

Anarchism has valuable insights on this question. The problem is that most people never hear those insights, because they are wrapped in a movement so hostile to outsiders that engagement feels impossible.

A reformed anarchism—one that remained anti-hierarchical while engaging seriously with other perspectives—could influence the systems that actually affect billions of people. It could make those systems less oppressive.

Instead, it sits outside those systems, condemning them, accomplishing nothing.

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Conclusion: Two Possible Futures

Anarchism is not wrong. Its critique of hierarchy is necessary. Its insistence on examining power is vital. Its commitment to human dignity and freedom has moral weight.

But contemporary anarchism faces a fork in the road.

Path One: Closed Identity. The movement continues as a self-contained moral enclave. It maintains purity standards, gatekeeps theory, marks questioners as rude or ideologically suspect, and refuses serious engagement with other perspectives. It remains politically isolated and ineffective on systems-level change. Anarchist communities may persist and even flourish locally. Anarchism's insights never reach the billions of people who could benefit from them. The movement chooses comfort and clarity over scale and impact.

Path Two: Permeable Influence. The movement reforms how it operates and repositions anarchism as a critical analytic tool applicable across systems and ideologies. It maintains anti-hierarchical principles while engaging seriously with liberalism, socialism, pragmatism, and other perspectives seeking to address inequality and concentrated power. It cooperates on shared goals while allowing different movements to pursue them through different mechanisms. It makes participation accessible without gatekeeping. It allows internal dissent without punishment. It submits to external critique and learns.

On this path, anarchism becomes more intellectually honest, more politically effective, and more capable of reducing human suffering. Its insights influence how states, markets, institutions, and communities organize themselves. It loses the clarity of a closed identity but gains the power to actually change systems.

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These are not abstract choices. Every interaction between an anarchist and a non-anarchist, every decision to gatekeep or to teach, every choice to mark someone rude or to engage with their question—these are votes for one path or the other.

The stakes are higher than anarchism's survival. They are the survival of insights that could genuinely improve the world, if only the movement holding them would allow others to access and build on them.

That choice remains, every day, to be made.

Golden Quisling of the Week - Elizabeth Warren

Never in a million years when I started this as a response to treasonous backstabbing Anarchists, would I have expected Elizabeth Warren to get this award.   And yet here we are.  I did a podcast episode on this but the long story short is that KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) is an attempt to require age verification for the entire internet; despite the fact that Nanny State Laws have materially harmed of sex workers.  Warren KNOWS how bad this bill is because it is also very harmful by letting harmful parents jam conversion therapy down their kid's throats; it will cut off trans kids from their communities and the only safe space they have.

To my understanding, there is not one Trans rights group in America that backs this bill; and the truly telling thing is that Warren is pulling a Ted Cruz and ducking like a midling coward any attempt to meet her by trans activiests.  This bill was bad enough under Biden; but meanwhile Drunk Senator Warren is empowering the fascist Trump regime to be even MORE fascist? There is no more quisling behavior than enabling a dictator who literally wants to put all democrats (including Drunk Warren) in a concentration camp.

Congrats Senator Warren!

 

A Necessary Abomination: ICE - Hoisted by Their Own Petard

 

Comprehensive Biometric Surveillance Infrastructure: The ICE Model and Its Institutional Vulnerabilities

Executive Summary

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has assembled an unprecedented biometric and digital surveillance apparatus in collaboration with private contractors including Palantir Technologies. This infrastructure integrates facial recognition, iris scanning, fingerprint analysis, phone extraction technology, location tracking, and social media monitoring into unified investigative databases. This white paper presents a central thesis: the same technological systems deployed against the public could theoretically be used to identify government agents operating them—creating a critical institutional vulnerability that neither ICE nor Congress has adequately addressed.

The infrastructure is designed for identifying and tracking targets. However, its architecture is symmetrical. The biometric identifiers and digital traces left by ICE agents during enforcement operations are equally capturable, stored, and potentially accessible within these same databases. When ICE agents conduct masked enforcement operations, they operate under the assumption of anonymity. That assumption is illusory. Facial geometry, iris patterns, gait recognition, phone location data, and voice patterns create a permanent and searchable record. The power to identify has no institutional constraint preventing its inward application.

This represents not merely a privacy concern, but a fundamental institutional vulnerability: law enforcement has built surveillance systems that could be used against the law enforcement agents themselves. Democratic institutions have failed to establish legal or institutional constraints on this inward application.

1. The Central Vulnerability: Inward Application of Outward Surveillance

1.1 The Core Paradox

ICE operates enforcement operations in which agents conduct field activities with covered faces—masks, hoods, or other facial concealment. The stated justification is officer safety and operational security. The operational assumption is anonymity.

However, the biometric and digital surveillance infrastructure that ICE deploys operates symmetrically. The same technological systems used to identify targets create identifying markers for the agents operating those systems.

Consider the biometric modalities in ICE's infrastructure:

Facial geometry: High-resolution cameras can capture eye spacing, skin tone, eyebrow patterns, and orbital geometry even with partial face covering. These identifiers remain in photographs and video records.

Iris patterns: Modern iris recognition technology can capture iris patterns from nearly 40 feet away, including through reflections in windows and eyeglass lenses. Facial covering does not obscure the iris if the eyes are visible enough for vision.

Gait and movement patterns: Every person walks with unique patterns—stride length, posture, rhythm, and movement characteristics. These are capturable on video and analyzable through gait recognition systems.

Phone location data: If an ICE agent's phone is present during an operation, cellular location data places that phone (and therefore the agent) at specific coordinates and times. This data is stored in carrier networks and accessible to law enforcement.

Voice patterns: Communications during enforcement operations create voice recordings that are analyzable through voice recognition systems integrated into ICE's biometric infrastructure.

Digital footprints: The sequence of locations visited, the timing of movements, and the network of individuals contacted create behavioral patterns that are unique and searchable across multiple datasets.

All of this data is collected, stored, and indexed in the same systems ICE uses against the public. The institutional constraint preventing inward application of these systems is weak, inadequately defined, and largely unenforced.

1.2 Why This Matters

This vulnerability creates three distinct problems:

First, operational security is compromised. Masked enforcement operations assume anonymity, but that anonymity depends entirely on institutional controls preventing searchable access to biometric and digital data. Those controls are inadequate.

Second, individual agents become identified in a permanent, searchable database. Every enforcement operation creates a record of agent identity embedded in biometric and digital data. That record exists in systems they do not fully control.

Third, democratic accountability is undermined. Citizens subject to enforcement cannot verify the identity of agents acting against them. The same anonymity is not available to the public. The power to identify extends to government agents themselves, yet institutional protections are minimal.

2. The Biometric Infrastructure: Scope and Scale

2.1 Facial Recognition Systems

ICE and DHS utilize facial recognition systems that identify individuals from multiple sources:

• Driver's license photographs (database of 260+ million Americans)
• Passport images
• Travel documents
• Real-time surveillance footage
• Mugshots and arrest records

These systems are integrated into DHS's HART (Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology) database, which performs automated facial matching across disparate sources. A single photograph can be cross-referenced against millions of faces simultaneously.

2.2 Iris Scanning and Advanced Biometric Modalities

Iris recognition technology represents the frontier of biometric identification. Current systems can capture iris patterns from nearly 40 feet away, including through reflections in car windows, eyeglass lenses, and other optical surfaces. This means facial covering does not prevent iris identification if the eyes are visible.

DHS's HART system incorporates iris scanning alongside facial recognition, fingerprints, palm prints, and increasingly, voice and gait recognition. These modalities are not mutually exclusive—an individual can be identified through any combination of them.

2.3 Fingerprint and Biometric Database Integration

ICE maintains access to fingerprint and palm print databases including:

• FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS)
• DHS's IDENT system
• Border crossing and visa applicant records

These databases contain biometric records from hundreds of millions of encounters. Recent proposals expand collection to include voluntary palm print submission, which provides unique identifiers comparable to fingerprints.

2.4 Gait, Voice, and Behavioral Biometrics

Emerging modalities in ICE's infrastructure include:

• Gait recognition (walking patterns captured from video)
• Voice pattern analysis (identifying individuals from recorded communications)
• Behavioral biometrics (unique patterns of movement and activity)

These systems create identifying markers that do not require facial visibility or conventional biometric collection.

3. Digital Surveillance: Phone Extraction and Data Access

3.1 Phone Hacking Technology

ICE maintains active contracts for phone extraction technology:

Cellebrite: An $11 million contract provides ICE with devices capable of breaking into locked phones and extracting all stored data—encrypted communications, photos, location history, deleted files, and application data.

Paragon/Graphite: A $2 million contract provides remote phone hacking capabilities. Paragon's Graphite software uses "zero-click exploits," meaning a target's phone can be compromised through a single message without user action. This software can access encrypted applications, extract messages, photos, location data, and contact lists.

3.2 Scale of Device Seizure and Extraction

Recent data indicates the scope of phone extraction:

• CBP conducted 14,899 device searches between April and June 2025
• This represents a dramatic increase from previous years
• Extracted data flows into investigative platforms and biometric databases

3.3 Integration with Unified Investigative Platforms

Phone-extracted data is integrated into Palantir's ImmigrationOS alongside biometric identifiers, creating unified profiles that combine:

• Device contents (messages, photos, location history, applications)
• Biometric data (facial recognition matches, iris scans, fingerprints)
• Government records (driver's licenses, tax records, Social Security information)
• Location tracking data
• Social media activity

A single individual becomes a complete digital and biometric profile, cross-indexed and searchable through multiple modalities.

4. Location Surveillance Without Warrant Requirement

4.1 Warrantless Cell Phone Location Tracking

ICE contracts for location tracking tools that collect real-time location data from millions of phones without warrant requirements:

• Webloc and similar tools aggregate location signals from wireless carriers nationwide
• Coverage spans millions of phones with no judicial authorization requirement
• Integration with other investigative data allows tracking of movement patterns over weeks and months
• Data is available to ICE agents with minimal approval processes

4.2 Automated License Plate Recognition

Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) cameras operate throughout the United States:

• Every vehicle passing a camera is logged with timestamp and location
• Data is searchable and correlatable with other investigative databases
• ICE maintains access to ALPR records operated by CBP and local law enforcement
• Movement patterns over days, weeks, and months can be reconstructed for any vehicle

5. Social Media Monitoring and Digital Footprint Analysis

ICE has announced plans to hire approximately 30 contractors for continuous monitoring of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Social media monitoring creates investigative leads through photo geolocation, network mapping, location history inference, and pattern analysis. This data is integrated into unified investigative profiles alongside biometric and location data.

6. The Integrated Surveillance Apparatus: Palantir ImmigrationOS

Palantir's $30 million ImmigrationOS contract integrates:

• Biometric data (facial recognition, iris scans, fingerprints, voice, gait)
• Phone-extracted data (messages, photos, location history)
• Government database records (passports, Social Security, IRS, driver's licenses)
• Location tracking (cell phone locations, ALPR records)
• Social media profiles and activity
• Travel records and border crossing history

This system enables real-time identification from multiple biometric and digital sources, predictive location tracking, network mapping, and automated lead generation. A single individual is tracked simultaneously through multiple modalities within a unified investigative file.

7. The Vulnerability Made Concrete: Identification of Masked Agents

7.1 Scenario Analysis

Consider an ICE enforcement operation where agents conduct field activities with covered faces. The operation is recorded on video from multiple angles—surveillance cameras, drone footage, or cameras from nearby buildings.

Facial identification: High-resolution video captures eye spacing, skin tone around the eyes, eyebrow patterns, orbital geometry, and partial facial features. These identifiers are matched against known photographs of ICE personnel in biometric databases.

Iris identification: If eyes are visible through the facial covering (a requirement for agent function), iris patterns are capturable from video at significant distances. These iris patterns are unique identifiers cross-referenced against ICE employee biometric databases.

Gait analysis: Movement patterns are captured on video and analyzed through gait recognition systems. Every ICE agent has a distinctive walking pattern. This pattern is searchable against known gait signatures of ICE personnel.

Phone location data: During the operation, ICE agents' personal or agency phones emit location signals. Cellular location data places specific phones at the operation location at specific times. Phone identifiers are correlatable with employee records.

Voice identification: Communications during the operation are recorded. Voice patterns are analyzed and matched against voice recordings of ICE personnel in agency records.

Behavioral pattern matching: The sequence of movements, the timing of actions, and the network of personnel involved create a distinctive pattern. This pattern, combined with location and biometric data, narrows identification to specific individuals.

The result: An individual ICE agent who conducted a masked enforcement operation is identified through the same biometric and digital infrastructure used against the public.

7.2 Who Has Access?

The critical question is: who can access these systems?

• ICE employees with appropriate credentials
• DHS employees with appropriate credentials
• Palantir employees with system access
• Contractors with database access
• Foreign intelligence services with system penetration capability
• Whistleblowers or civil rights investigators with authorized access

If any of these actors gain access to integrated biometric and digital databases, they can potentially identify masked ICE agents through the same systems ICE uses against the public.

7.3 Current Institutional Protections

Current protections preventing inward application of surveillance systems include:

• Database access controls and role-based permissions
• Legal prohibitions on targeting government employees
• Internal accountability procedures
• Congressional oversight

These protections have significant limitations:

• Access controls can be bypassed by insiders with system knowledge or administrative access
• Legal prohibitions are only effective if violations are detected and prosecuted
• Internal accountability is often inadequate or non-existent for classified operations
• Congressional oversight of classified surveillance programs is minimal and often ineffective

The institutional constraint preventing inward application of these systems is weak.

7.4 The Technical Reality: No Cryptographic Protection for Agents

A critical assumption in ICE's operational security model is that biometric and digital data is technically protected from misuse through encryption or data silos. This assumption is false.

Zero-Knowledge Proofs and Agent Protection: The Gap

Emerging technologies like Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) and zk-SNARKs can verify data without revealing the underlying data itself. These technologies are being integrated into commercial systems (ING, JPMorgan, Microsoft) for privacy-preserving verification. However, there is no public evidence that DHS's HART system or Palantir's ImmigrationOS employ ZKPs to create cryptographic blind spots for law enforcement agents.

The reason is architectural: these systems are designed for "Link Analysis"—the ability to merge disparate datasets (Social Security records, phone logs, iris scans, location data) into unified profiles. Creating a "cryptographic blind spot" for agents would fundamentally break the data integration architecture Palantir is contracted to provide.

The reality: An ICE agent's biometric signature (iris patterns, facial geometry, gait analysis) is stored in the same cleartext-searchable format as a target's. There is no technical protection isolating agent data from the searchable database.

7.5 Historical Precedent: BlueLeaks as Proof of Concept

The 2020 BlueLeaks breach provides empirical evidence that law enforcement infrastructure vulnerability is not theoretical. When law enforcement systems are compromised, agents are the first to be exposed.

BlueLeaks: 270GB of Unprotected Law Enforcement Data

BlueLeaks involved the theft and publication of data from over 200 law enforcement agencies:

• Breadth of Personal Information: Names, photographs, banking information, personal email addresses, and phone numbers of thousands of officers were exposed
• Operational Sabotage: The breach revealed not only suspect images and requests for information, but also the identities of undercover officers and sensitive human sources
• Searchable Digital Footprint: The data was published in a searchable format, allowing activists, criminal organizations, and hostile actors to retroactively map the "Who, What, and Where" of law enforcement operations

The Implication: The "permanent record" described in this paper—biometric identifiers, location data, communications records, and integrated investigative files—becomes weaponized when institutional protections fail or are deliberately removed. BlueLeaks demonstrated that law enforcement personnel anonymity is the first casualty of infrastructure breach or compromise.

A future administration transferring ICE data to state prosecutors represents not a system failure, but a deliberate decision to access an existing, permanently stored record.

7.6 The Political Risk: Transfer of Data to Hostile Administrations

However, the most significant vulnerability is not technical or internal. It is political.

The biometric and digital infrastructure built by the current administration is not legally insulated from use by future administrations with different political priorities. A future Democratic administration—or any administration hostile to ICE operations—could legally transfer comprehensive biometric and digital records to state Attorneys General in blue states for prosecution of ICE personnel.

The mechanism is straightforward:

Federal law enforcement data, including biometric records and digital surveillance information collected by ICE, is not classified or statutorily protected from transfer to state authorities. A future administration could:

• Transfer complete biometric databases (facial recognition, iris scans, fingerprints, voice records) to state AGs
• Provide location tracking data, phone extraction records, and social media monitoring data
• Include video records from enforcement operations, surveillance footage, and other digital evidence
• Supply the integrated Palantir investigative files linking biometric data, digital records, and personnel identifiers

The result: ICE agents who conducted enforcement operations—masked or otherwise—would be identifiable through their biometric and digital signatures. State prosecutors could pursue charges related to:

• Civil rights violations during enforcement operations
• Excessive force
• Unlawful detention
• Violations of state sanctuary laws or immigrants' rights statutes

Agents operating under the assumption of federal protection would find themselves prosecuted in blue states where juries are hostile to immigration enforcement. The biometric and digital infrastructure they relied upon for operational security becomes evidence used against them.

Why agents cannot escape this:

ICE agents cannot prevent creation of the biometric and digital record. Every enforcement operation generates:

• Surveillance video containing facial, gait, and iris data
• Phone location records from their personal and agency devices
• Voice recordings from communications
• Digital traces in Palantir systems integrating all modalities

This data exists regardless of whether agents wear masks or maintain anonymity during operations. The data is permanent and searchable. Once created, it cannot be deleted or hidden. A future hostile administration can simply access and weaponize it.

The assumption of federal protection is political, not technical or legal. If political control of the federal government shifts, that protection disappears. The biometric and digital infrastructure ICE built for enforcement becomes evidence used against ICE personnel.

7.7 State-Level Technical Capacity: The Enforcement Capability Emerges

A critical counterargument holds that state Attorneys General lack the technical capacity to process and weaponize federal biometric and digital data. This assumption is increasingly false.

State-Level Technical Arming (2024-2025)

As of late 2025, state Attorney General offices are undergoing a "Technical Arming" phase:

• Technologist Hiring Surge: States including California, Colorado, and Texas have aggressively hired Big Tech veterans, AI engineers, and "Privacy Technologists." These states are transitioning from policy-level review to deep technical audits of backend systems and biometric infrastructure.

• The Consortium Model: In April 2025, a Consortium of Privacy Regulators was formally established, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Oregon. This consortium shares technical staff and resources. Critically, this means a blue state AG does not need to independently build Palantir-equivalent infrastructure; they can pool resources across multiple states to process federal "data firehoses" and extract prosecutorial evidence.

• State-Level Biometric Laws: Laws like Colorado's biometric privacy statute (effective July 2025) are structurally significant because they apply not only to private companies but to employee data collection and use within institutional hierarchies. This creates a legal pathway to prosecute the collection and use of biometric data of ICE agents themselves.

The Strategic Implication: A future hostile administration transferring ICE biometric and digital data to blue state AGs would encounter not technical incapacity, but increasingly sophisticated state-level infrastructure designed precisely to process and weaponize such data against federal agents.

Why agents cannot escape this:

ICE agents have no legal mechanism to:

• Prevent states from receiving federal data transfers
• Block state-level biometric or privacy investigations
• Hide their biometric or digital signatures once created
• Immunize themselves from state prosecution through federal authority

The infrastructure for their identification and prosecution is being actively built by hostile state governments in real time.

8. Implications and Risks

8.1 Operational Security

The assumption of anonymity during masked enforcement operations is illusory. Comprehensive biometric and digital data from each operation is recorded, stored, and potentially searchable. Any breakdown in institutional controls—insider access, system penetration, or authorized investigation—can compromise agent identity.

8.2 Personnel Risk

Individual ICE agents create a permanent biometric and digital record during enforcement operations. This record can theoretically be accessed by:

• Adversarial foreign intelligence services
• Dissident employees or whistleblowers
• Civil rights investigators
• Competing institutional actors

8.3 Institutional Risk

If an adversarial actor gains access to ICE's biometric and digital infrastructure, the identities and operational patterns of federal law enforcement agents become compromised. This creates vulnerability not only for individual agents, but for ICE operations broadly.

8.4 Political Risk: Future Administration Transfer of Data

The most significant risk is political rather than technical. A future Democratic administration—or any administration opposed to ICE's enforcement model—could legally transfer comprehensive biometric and digital records to state Attorneys General in blue states for prosecution.

This represents an existential vulnerability for ICE agents:

The data is not legally protected. Unlike classified intelligence or state secrets, biometric and digital surveillance records collected by ICE are not statutorily insulated from transfer to state authorities. A hostile administration can legally provide state AGs with complete biometric databases, location tracking data, phone extraction records, and integrated investigative files.

The technical barriers do not exist. There is no evidence that ICE systems employ cryptographic protections (such as Zero-Knowledge Proofs) that would silo agent data from the searchable databases. Agents' biometric signatures are stored in the same cleartext-searchable format as targets'. A future administration can access and transfer this data without technical obstacle.

Historical precedent demonstrates inevitability. The 2020 BlueLeaks breach showed that when law enforcement infrastructure is compromised or accessed, agents are the first to be exposed. The permanent record—biometric identifiers, location data, communications records—is weaponized immediately. A future administration deliberately transferring data to hostile state AGs would encounter the same vulnerability that BlueLeaks exposed: law enforcement personnel anonymity is the first casualty.

The identification is inevitable. Once transferred to state authorities, the biometric and digital data becomes evidence. State prosecutors—increasingly equipped with technical expertise and coordinated through state-level consortiums—can identify ICE agents and build prosecutorial cases for civil rights violations, excessive force, unlawful detention, or violations of state sanctuary laws.

Agents cannot escape this. ICE personnel operating under the assumption of federal protection have no legal mechanism to prevent creation of biometric and digital records, storage of these records in federal databases, transfer of these records to hostile state authorities, or use of these records in state prosecutions. The biometric and digital infrastructure they relied upon for operational security becomes the evidence used against them.

The infrastructure for their prosecution is being actively built. State Attorney General offices are undergoing a "Technical Arming" phase, hiring Big Tech engineers and AI specialists. A Consortium of Privacy Regulators (CA, CO, CT, OR) is pooling technical resources. State-level biometric privacy laws are expanding to cover employee data. The institutional and technical capacity to process, analyze, and weaponize federal biometric data is being constructed in real time by hostile state governments.

The protection is political, not legal or technical. ICE agents' safety from prosecution depends entirely on maintaining political control of the federal government. If that control is lost to an administration hostile to ICE's enforcement model, the comprehensive biometric and digital surveillance infrastructure becomes immediately weaponized against them.

8.5 Democratic Accountability

The infrastructure creates a fundamental power imbalance:

• Citizens and non-citizens subject to enforcement have no ability to verify agent identity
• The same anonymity granted to agents is not available to the public
• Enforcement occurs with minimal transparency regarding who is acting and under what authority
• The power to identify and track extends to government agents themselves, yet institutional protections are inadequate

9. Policy Recommendations

9.1 Institutional Transparency and Legal Framework

Congress should establish clear statutory prohibitions on the application of ICE biometric and digital surveillance systems against government employees without explicit authorization and judicial oversight. Annual reporting requirements should detail:

• The scope of biometric data collection and retention
• Technologies used and their accuracy rates
• Number of individuals affected by various collection methods
• Any identified instances of inward application of surveillance systems

9.2 Institutional Accountability

Independent oversight bodies should audit ICE's surveillance systems for evidence of inward application. Regular security audits should assess vulnerabilities in biometric and digital databases. Incident reporting requirements should mandate disclosure of unauthorized access or system breaches.

9.3 Whistleblower Protections

Protections for employees who report misuse of surveillance systems should be strengthened. Current whistleblower protections are inadequate for classified surveillance operations.

9.4 Operational Limitations

• Facial recognition and biometric matching systems should be subject to accuracy auditing and bias assessment
• Warrantless location tracking should require probable cause or judicial authorization
• Phone extraction technology should be restricted to cases with explicit judicial approval

10. Conclusion

ICE has built a biometric and digital surveillance infrastructure of unprecedented scope. This infrastructure is designed to identify, track, and profile individuals. However, its architecture is fundamentally symmetrical. The same systems used against the public can theoretically be used against the agents operating those systems.

When ICE agents conduct masked enforcement operations, they assume anonymity and federal protection. Both assumptions are illusory. That anonymity depends entirely on institutional controls and political circumstances that cannot be guaranteed to persist.

The critical vulnerability is this: the power to identify has no institutional constraint preventing its inward application, and the political protection from prosecution is contingent on maintaining power.

The biometric identifiers and digital traces left by ICE agents during enforcement operations are capturable, stored, and permanently searchable within the same databases ICE uses against the public. A future Democratic administration—or any administration opposed to ICE's enforcement model—could legally transfer these comprehensive biometric and digital records to state Attorneys General in blue states for prosecution.

ICE agents operating under the assumption of federal protection cannot escape this vulnerability. They have no legal mechanism to prevent creation of biometric and digital records, no ability to delete or hide these records once created, and no recourse if a future hostile administration transfers them to state prosecutors.

The biometric and digital surveillance infrastructure that ICE built becomes, in a future administration, the evidence used to prosecute ICE personnel for civil rights violations, excessive force, unlawful detention, and violations of state immigrants' rights laws. The operational security apparatus becomes the mechanism of their exposure.

This is not merely a technical or institutional concern. It is a fundamental vulnerability in the architecture of unconstrained surveillance power. Law enforcement agencies that build comprehensive biometric and digital surveillance systems create permanent records of their own operations and personnel. Those records, created for enforcement against the public, become available—legally and inevitably—for use against the enforcers themselves.

Democratic institutions must recognize that surveillance infrastructure is not neutral. It does not remain under a single political control indefinitely. The power to identify and track, once granted and normalized, will be used by future administrations for purposes the current administration does not anticipate or intend. ICE agents building this infrastructure are not protecting themselves. They are constructing the mechanism of their own future prosecution.

A Necessary Abomination: The Past, Present and Future of the FBI

 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation: Past, Present, and the Consequences of Power Without Accountability

Executive Summary

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was created in 1908 as a necessity—to investigate federal crimes across a nation where state boundaries had become obstacles to law enforcement. For 117 years, the FBI has grown into the world's most powerful domestic investigative agency. Yet history reveals a troubling pattern: whenever the FBI has operated without meaningful external oversight, it has systematically abused its power. The question facing America today is whether institutional memory has faded enough that we're about to repeat this cycle—or whether the recent locking out of state investigators from investigating a federal officer's shooting in Minneapolis signals something more fundamental about the institution's trajectory.

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Part I: The Past—Creation and the Original Fear

Why America Didn't Have a Federal Police

When the FBI's predecessor was created in 1908, there were few federal crimes. The U.S. Constitution is based on "federalism": a national government with jurisdiction over matters that crossed boundaries like interstate commerce and foreign affairs, with all other powers reserved to the states. Through the 1800s, Americans usually looked to cities, counties, and states to fulfill most government responsibilities.

This wasn't an accident. The Founders deliberately rejected centralized police power. They had watched European monarchies use secret police to consolidate control. The Constitution didn't authorize a federal investigative service, and that absence was intentional.

The Crisis That Changed Everything

By the early 1900s, that structure broke down. In 1908, there was hardly any systematic way of enforcing the law across America's broad landscape. Local communities and even some states had their own police forces, but at that time they were typically poorly trained, politically appointed, and underpaid. And nationally, there were few federal criminal laws and likewise only a few thinly staffed federal agencies. The United States was dealing with anarchism—an often violent offshoot of Marxism, with its revolutionary call to overthrow capitalism. Anarchists wanted to do away with government entirely and the prevailing anarchistic creed was that government was oppressive and repressive and should be overthrown by random attacks on the ruling class.

Interstate crime, enabled by automobiles and railroads, had become impossible for states to handle alone. Something had to change.

Birth of the FBI: Compromise Between Necessity and Fear

Congress banned the loan of Secret Service operatives to any federal department in May 1908, partly because lawmakers charged it was Roosevelt's grab for executive power. Now Bonaparte had no choice but to create his own force of investigators. In late June, the Attorney General quietly hired nine of the Secret Service investigators he had borrowed before and brought them together with another 25 of his own to form a special agent force. On July 26, 1908, Bonaparte ordered Department of Justice attorneys to refer most investigative matters to his Chief Examiner.

The FBI was born quietly—almost accidentally. Congress didn't want a federal secret police. But it approved the bureau because the alternative (leaving federal crimes uninvestigated) seemed worse.

Importantly, Congress's fear wasn't irrational. Rep. Walter Smith (R-IA) declared that "Nothing is more opposed to our race than a belief that a general system of espionage is being conducted by the general government," and Rep. John Fitzgerald (D-NY) warned against the dangers of a federal secret police.

The FBI was created against Congressional skepticism, with members explicitly worried about government surveillance and abuse. That skepticism proved prescient.

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Part II: The Present—How Institutional Power Corrupted Its Original Purpose

The Hoover Era: The Machine That Became a Threat

For 48 years, from 1924 to 1972, J. Edgar Hoover transformed the FBI from a law enforcement agency into something else entirely. In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute people for their political opinions, most notably communists. Some of his aides reported that he purposely exaggerated the threat of communism to "ensure financial and public support for the FBI." At this time he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO.

The scale of abuse was staggering. COINTELPRO's methods included infiltration, burglaries, setting up illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents, and spreading false rumors about key members of target organizations. Some authors have charged that COINTELPRO methods also included inciting violence and arranging murders.

But the most revealing detail is this: these weren't violations discovered by prosecutors. They were discovered by accident—and only after Hoover died.

The Moment Everything Changed: 1971

In 1971, a group of anti-war protesters broke into an FBI office in suburban Philadelphia, sparking revelations that exposed Hoover's surveillance and harassment of civil rights leaders and political dissidents and led to the discovery of the agency's infamous "COINTELPRO".

What emerged was systematic targeting of political enemies. In the 1960s, Hoover's FBI monitored John Lennon, Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali. The COINTELPRO tactics were later extended to organizations such as the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference and others.

The tactics were not abstract. Hoover detested King, whom he called "one of the most reprehensible … individuals on the American scene today," and urged his agents to use "imaginative and aggressive tactics" against King and the SCLC. To this end, agents bugged King's hotel rooms; tape-recorded his infidelities; and mailed a recording, along with a note urging King to commit suicide, to the civil rights leader's wife.

Even more disturbing: One "imaginative" COINTELPRO suggestion was sending a fake letter from US to the Black Panthers warning that US planned to "ambush leaders of the BPP in Los Angeles." Antiwar activists were given oranges injected with powerful laxatives. Agents hired prostitutes known to have venereal disease to infect campus antiwar leaders.

The Constitutional Reckoning: Church Committee

This program remained in place until it was exposed to the public in 1971. COINTELPRO's activities were investigated in 1975 by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, called the "Church Committee" after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho); the committee declared COINTELPRO's activities were illegal and contrary to the Constitution.

The Attempted Fix That Didn't Work

Congress ultimately limited the term of the director of the FBI to ten years, to be served at the pleasure of the president, a safeguard designed to ensure that no single individual could again run the bureau indefinitely and without check.

This was the response to institutional corruption on a massive scale: a term limit. It was necessary, but it was not sufficient.

Modern Erosion of Trust

The fears that created these safeguards have returned. According to the most recent survey by Gallup, public trust in the FBI has fallen in recent years. Where 57 percent of U.S. adults said that the FBI was doing either an "excellent" or a "good" job in 2019, this fell to 44 percent in 2021.

If polls are to be believed, almost half the country now lacks trust in the FBI over concerns it is doing the bidding of one political party over another. That is a disaster for the bureau — unprecedented in magnitude — and could translate into an existential threat to one of the nation's most important agencies as political fault lines shift.

The specific trigger points vary depending on political perspective, but the underlying concern is consistent: the FBI is protecting its own and investigating its political enemies. Whether that perception is entirely accurate is less important than the fact that half the country now believes it.

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Part III: The Present Crisis—Minneapolis ICE Shooting and the Pattern Repeating

The Sequence of Events

In January 2026, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis. A joint investigation between the FBI and Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) was initially agreed to—the model that checks and balances.

Then the agreement was reversed. The U.S. Attorney's Office unilaterally decided the FBI would handle the investigation alone. State investigators were locked out of evidence, crime scenes, and interview materials in their own jurisdiction.

Why This Matters

This decision embodies every fear Congress had in 1908 and 1975:

Concentration of power: Federal law enforcement investigating itself, with no external oversight.

Removal of checks and balances: The normal system (federal and state investigators working together) was dismantled.

No transparency mechanism: State prosecutors cannot access the evidence or direct the investigation of officers operating in their territory.

The appearance of self-protection: An agency investigating one of its own, behind closed doors.

This is not a controversial observation. An expert on federal investigations explained that such cases are typically handled as joint investigations, with courts viewing state and federal governments as coequal. The reversal here was unusual and unexplained.

The Institutional Self-Perpetuation Problem

Here's what makes this case a turning point: when institutions are allowed to investigate themselves with no external oversight, and when they appear to prioritize protecting their own over justice, they lose the legitimacy that justifies their existence.

The FBI's power rests on public trust. When half the country no longer trusts it, the institution becomes a liability rather than an asset.

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Part IV: The Future—The Inevitable Reckoning

The Pattern in History

Throughout American history, when unchecked power is exposed, the political system moves to dismantle or radically reform the institution that held it. This happened after Hoover's abuses. It will likely happen again.

Scenarios for the FBI's Future

Scenario 1: Structural Collapse Congress could determine that an FBI with this much power and this little external oversight is incompatible with democratic governance. Rather than trying to reform it further, Congress could return investigative authority to states and create smaller, specialized federal agencies with explicit jurisdictional boundaries and mandatory state participation in investigations of federal officers.

This would echo the original constitutional design—decentralized law enforcement with federal authority only for genuinely national crimes.

Scenario 2: Radical Restructuring The FBI could remain but be radically redesigned. State investigators would have unalterable rights to participate in investigations of federal officers within their jurisdiction. Leadership could be subject to bipartisan congressional confirmation. Investigative decisions could be subject to external judicial review.

The agency would survive, but as something fundamentally different—a specialized unit rather than a dominant force.

Scenario 3: Institutional Decline If the FBI continues operating as it has, public trust will erode further. Witnesses will become less cooperative. Sources will dry up. The organization will become increasingly ineffective at its core mission. It will still exist, but it will become a zombie institution—present but impotent, eventually replaced organically by other agencies.

Why None of These Outcomes Are Guaranteed

The danger is complacency. In the Hoover era, the FBI's abuses remained secret for decades because there was no mechanism to expose them. When they were finally exposed, reform was necessary.

But reform is fragile. The discoveries went well beyond Hoover, though, and well beyond the FBI. According to the Church Committee reports, every federal intelligence agency had engaged in widespread civil liberties abuses over the previous 30 years. The result was a new system of oversight—institutions like the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the FISA courts that govern intelligence activities today. When they were created, these new mechanisms were supposed to stop the kinds of abuses that men like Hoover had engineered. Instead, it now looks as if they have come to function as rubber stamps for the expansive ambitions of the intelligence community.

The oversight mechanisms that were supposed to prevent future abuses became enablers of them.

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Part V: The Consequences of Concentrated Investigative Power Without Accountability

Loss of Legitimacy

An agency that appears to protect its own will lose the public trust necessary for legitimacy. When legitimacy is lost, the entire institution becomes vulnerable.

Operational Effectiveness Decays

When trust diminishes, the FBI loses access to cooperation it used to have. When cooperation is lost, fewer crimes are solved.

A federal investigative agency without public cooperation cannot function. Witnesses won't come forward. Sources will disappear. The organization becomes self-defeating.

Democratic Accountability Disappears

An agency that investigates itself without external oversight becomes a tool of whoever holds executive power at any given moment. It ceases to be a law enforcement agency and becomes a political instrument.

History shows this is not speculative. It happened under Hoover. The mechanism was the same: the power to investigate combined with the absence of meaningful external checks.

Political Pressure for Radical Reform Becomes Inevitable

When institutions lose legitimacy, political movements arise to dismantle them. The more the FBI appears to serve power rather than justice, the stronger those movements will become.

The irony is profound: by refusing to submit to normal oversight (allowing state investigators to participate in investigations of federal officers), the FBI accelerates the conditions that will eventually force it to submit to much more radical restructuring.

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Conclusion: The Question Before Us

The FBI was created because the original constitutional system—decentralized, state-based law enforcement—couldn't handle modern crime. But that creation came with a warning: Congress feared exactly this outcome.

For 117 years, that warning has been validated repeatedly. Every time the FBI has escaped external oversight, it has abused that freedom. Every time abuse was exposed, the political system has demanded reform.

The Minneapolis ICE shooting investigation is not exceptional. It's exemplary. It demonstrates the mechanism: federal power investigating itself, state oversight removed, the public locked out.

If history is any guide, this pattern will not persist indefinitely. Either the FBI will be reformed to require mandatory state participation in investigations of federal officers—restoring the checks and balances that work—or the institution will eventually be dismantled and replaced with something more compatible with democratic governance.

The choice is not whether change will come. It's whether that change will be deliberate and thoughtful, or forced and destructive.

Those who built the FBI 117 years ago worried that centralized federal investigative power would eventually corrupt. That worry is being validated in real time. The only question is whether the institution learns that lesson, or whether it learns it the hard way—by ceasing to exist.

A Necessary Abomination: Congressional Reallocation of Accountability: Federalism, Jurisdiction, and the Presidential Pardon as a Check on Executive Abuse

 

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Executive Summary

This paper proposes a constitutionally grounded mechanism for addressing systematic abuse of the presidential pardon power to shield federal officers from accountability for misconduct committed in an official capacity. Rather than attempting to limit the pardon power directly—an approach requiring constitutional amendment and politically implausible—this proposal relies on Congress's Article I legislative authority to eliminate judge-made immunity doctrines that obstruct state enforcement in precisely defined circumstances: when a president pardons a federal officer for federal crimes arising from conduct that violates state law.

The central claim is unambiguous: When a president exercises clemency to shield a federal officer from federal accountability for conduct that violates state criminal law, Congress may exercise its constitutional authority as a coordinate branch to ensure state accountability mechanisms cannot be similarly obstructed by federal judge-made immunity doctrines.

This is not an ordinary immunity elimination. This is Congress exercising explicit constitutional authority to check presidential abuse through the enforcement powers reserved to the states. Congress declares that federal officer immunity—created by courts without explicit authorization—shall not apply in civil or criminal cases where: (1) a federal officer has been pardoned for federal crimes, and (2) the underlying conduct violates state law. In these circumstances, both state criminal prosecution and state civil liability proceed unobstructed by federal immunity doctrines.

This restores constitutional balance: when the Executive uses the pardon to evade federal accountability, Congress activates state accountability mechanisms as a structural check on executive power abuse.

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I. The Constitutional Crisis

A. The Pardon Power Absolutism Problem

Article II grants the President power to "grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." The Supreme Court has declared this power nearly absolute and effectively unreviewable.

Yet the Framers could not have anticipated the specific scenario now emerging: a president systematically using the pardon to shield officers from federal accountability for crimes committed in pursuit of executive policy, thereby rendering both federal AND state accountability mechanisms inoperative.

Here is the structural failure:

1. Federal prosecution is declined or fails
2. President pardons federal crimes
3. Federal courts decline to review the pardon (it is unreviewable)
4. Federal officer claims immunity from state prosecution
5. Federal courts block state proceeding on supremacy/immunity grounds
6. Federal judge-made doctrines render state accountability impossible
7. Result: complete impunity

The president has weaponized clemency not as mercy, but as a mechanism to shield misconduct from all accountability—federal and state.

B. Judicial and Legislative Abdication

Two branches have failed to check this:

The Judicial Branch: Federal courts have expanded immunity doctrines to shield federal officers from state enforcement. These are judge-made doctrines—Bivens immunity, qualified immunity extended to state proceedings, official-capacity preemption doctrines—created without constitutional mandate. Courts have used these doctrines to systematically prevent states from enforcing their own criminal law against federal officers.

The Legislative Branch: Congress has permitted this expansion through silence. Congress never explicitly authorized Bivens immunity. Congress never mandated that federal officers be shielded from state criminal law. Yet Congress has tolerated the judicial expansion of immunity doctrines.

When the Executive abuses clemency while both coordinate branches fail to check it, Congress must act.

C. Why Direct Pardon Limits Fail

A constitutional amendment is politically impossible. Impeachment is episodic and backward-looking. Ordinary state prosecution under current doctrine is blocked by federal immunity and supremacy doctrines.

The solution is not to attack the pardon power directly. The solution is to eliminate the federal judge-made immunity doctrines that have made the pardon effective as a shield against state accountability.

Congress does this as an explicit check on executive abuse—precisely what separation of powers demands.

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II. Congressional Authority to Eliminate Federal Immunity as a Check on Executive Abuse

A. Congress's Role as a Coordinate Branch

The Constitution establishes three coequal branches. Each has authority to check the others. The Framers specifically designed the system so that when one branch abuses power, other branches can respond.

When the Executive abuses clemency, Congress must have the authority to respond.

Congress possesses plenary authority to:

• Eliminate judge-made doctrines courts created without explicit authorization
• Define the scope and application of immunity for federal officers
• Determine when federal law preempts state law
• Specify when federal interests override state police power
• Create structural checks on executive power abuse

This is not a new claim. Congress regularly exercises this authority.

B. Bivens Doctrine Is Judge-Made, Not Constitutional

Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), created an implied federal cause of action for constitutional violations. This was not mandated by the Constitution. The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged that Bivens is judge-created doctrine that Congress may alter or eliminate.

The immunity doctrines built on Bivens—qualified immunity, official-capacity immunity, the extension of such immunity to state proceedings—are not constitutional requirements. They are judicial choices.

Congress has plenary authority to eliminate judicial choices about when immunity exists.

C. The Pardon as Catalyst: The Specific Congressional Power

Congress's authority is especially clear and urgent when a president exercises clemency. Here is why:

The presidential pardon is an Article II power that Congress cannot directly limit. However, Congress can respond to pardon abuse by securing alternative accountability mechanisms. When a pardon eliminates federal accountability, Congress may ensure state accountability mechanisms function—by eliminating federal immunity doctrines that obstruct state enforcement.

This is not Congress attacking the pardon power. This is Congress securing accountability mechanisms when the pardon threatens to render all mechanisms inoperative.

Congress's authority here is explicit: Congress is exercising the constitutional duty to check executive abuse through the enforcement powers available to the states.

D. State Criminal Law and Civil Liability Are Core State Powers

State criminal law enforcement and state tort liability are at the absolute core of state sovereignty. The Constitution does not grant the federal government general police power or tort authority. States retain inherent authority to:

• Prosecute crimes under state law
• Impose civil liability under state law
• Protect their citizens from abuse of power

Federal immunity doctrines that prevent state enforcement are judge-made obstructions to reserved state power. Congress can eliminate them.

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III. The Mechanism: Immunity Elimination as a Check on Executive Clemency Abuse

A. The Triggering Principle

Congress declares that when the following circumstances converge, federal immunity doctrines shall not apply in state civil or criminal proceedings:

1. A federal officer has been issued a presidential pardon for federal crimes; AND
2. The underlying conduct that was pardoned also violates state criminal law or state tort law

In these circumstances—where presidential clemency has eliminated federal accountability—Congress activates state accountability mechanisms by eliminating federal immunity obstructions.

B. Both Civil and Criminal Application

This immunity elimination applies to BOTH:

Criminal Cases: State criminal prosecution proceeds without federal immunity defenses. Federal officer immunity, qualified immunity, official-capacity immunity—all are eliminated.

Civil Cases: State civil actions (tort, wrongful death, civil rights under state law) proceed without federal immunity defenses. State courts have full authority to impose civil liability for state law violations.

Why Both Matter: A pardon eliminates only federal criminal liability. A federal officer might escape federal prosecution but face federal civil liability. Federal immunity doctrines currently shield against state civil liability as well. By eliminating immunity in both contexts when a pardon has been issued, Congress ensures that at least one accountability mechanism (state civil or criminal) remains operational.

C. The Accountability Cascade

Once a presidential pardon is issued for federal crimes:

1. State criminal prosecutors may proceed with state charges
2. Defendant cannot claim federal immunity
3. State civil plaintiffs may proceed with state tort actions
4. Defendant cannot claim federal immunity
5. State courts apply state law without federal immunity interference
6. Full state accountability mechanisms activate

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IV. The Proposed Legislative Framework

(Illustrative: The Pardon Accountability and Federalism Protection Act)

A. Congressional Findings and Purposes

Congress finds and declares:

(1) The presidential pardon power is an Article II power that Congress cannot directly limit, overturn, or condition;

(2) This Act does not penalize, burden, or condition the President's exercise of the pardon power. It neither invalidates nor limits the legal effect of any pardon. It addresses only the allocation of immunity and preemption doctrines that exist independently of the pardon power;

(3) When federal criminal accountability has been conclusively extinguished through presidential pardon, the constitutional allocation of power necessarily returns primary accountability for unlawful conduct to the states, absent congressional interference with state sovereignty;

(4) Federal officer immunity doctrines—including qualified immunity, official-capacity immunity, and immunities derived from Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents—were created by courts without explicit congressional authorization;

(5) These judge-made doctrines have been extended to prevent state criminal prosecution and state civil liability against federal officers, thereby obstructing reserved state powers;

(6) This represents a structural failure: the unilateral exercise of pardon authority, combined with federal judge-made immunity doctrines, creates complete impunity for federal misconduct while leaving the Constitution bereft of any functioning accountability mechanism;

(7) State criminal law enforcement and state tort liability are core reserved powers of the states under the Tenth Amendment and fundamental to constitutional federalism;

(8) Because the President's pardon authority extends only to offenses against the United States, the extinction of federal criminal liability through pardon necessarily returns primary accountability responsibility to the states as the only remaining constitutional pathway;

(9) Congress possesses constitutional authority, as a coordinate branch of government, to reallocate accountability responsibilities and to eliminate federal judge-made immunity doctrines that obstruct this return to state authority when federal accountability has been affirmatively extinguished;

(10) This reallocation is not punishment of the pardon power; it is restoration of the constitutional order when the pardon has unilaterally altered the accountability landscape;

(11) Congress now exercises this authority as a structural check on the combined effect of presidential clemency and federal judicial immunity expansion, ensuring the Constitution retains a functioning accountability mechanism even when federal mechanisms have been foreclosed;

(12) This Act responds to a constitutional condition (absence of all accountability), not to the President's exercise of power (the pardon itself).

B. Operative Provisions

Section 1: Short Title

This Act may be cited as the "Pardon Accountability and Federalism Protection Act."

Section 2: Immunity Elimination Upon Extinction of Federal Criminal Accountability

(a) Triggering Condition. When a federal officer or employee has received a presidential pardon such that federal criminal accountability for specified conduct has been conclusively extinguished, and such underlying conduct also constitutes a violation of state criminal law or state tort law, the following subsections apply. The issuance of a pardon is used herein as an evidentiary and structural marker of the extinction of federal accountability, not as a basis for penalizing, burdening, or conditioning the pardon power itself.

(b) Elimination of Federal Immunity in Criminal Proceedings. In any state criminal prosecution of such federal officer for state law violations arising from conduct for which federal pardon was issued, no federal immunity doctrine shall apply, including:

(1) Qualified immunity under any federal statute or judge-made doctrine; (2) Official-capacity immunity or sovereign immunity as applied to federal officers; (3) Immunity derived from Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), or cases decided thereunder; (4) Any other federal common law immunity doctrine; (5) Any federal supremacy or preemption doctrine that would shield the defendant from state criminal prosecution.

(c) Elimination of Federal Immunity in Civil Proceedings. In any state civil action (including but not limited to tort, wrongful death, civil rights, and other state law claims) against such federal officer for state law violations arising from conduct for which federal pardon was issued, no federal immunity doctrine shall apply. The same immunity doctrines listed in subsection (b) are eliminated in civil context.

(d) Scope of Immunity Elimination. This section applies to:

(1) All federal officers, employees, and agents; (2) All state criminal offenses arising from pardoned conduct; (3) All state civil actions arising from pardoned conduct; (4) Conduct undertaken in official capacity, pursuant to federal policy, or at direction of federal superiors; (5) Both prospective and retrospective applications (see section on temporal application).

Section 3: Non-Preemption of State Law

(a) Congress declares that federal law does not preempt state criminal or civil enforcement against federal officers for state law violations when a presidential pardon has been issued for underlying federal crimes.

(b) No presumption of federal preemption shall apply.

(c) State criminal and civil law applies to federal officers with the same force it applies to all persons within the state's jurisdiction, absent express congressional preemption enacted after this Act.

Section 4: Prohibition on Federal Removal and Federal Defenses

(a) Removal Prohibition. State criminal prosecutions or state civil actions covered by this Act shall not be removable to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, § 1442, or any other statute. Any removal petition shall be summarily denied and the action remanded to state court.

(b) Federal Defenses Inapplicable. Defendants in state proceedings covered by this Act may not raise as defense:

(1) Federal officer status or immunity; (2) Acting pursuant to federal policy or directive; (3) Presidential pardon (which applies only to federal offenses); (4) Federal supremacy or preemption doctrines.

(c) Judicial Review Limitation. No federal court may review a state court judgment in cases covered by this Act on the basis of federal immunity or preemption doctrines. However, federal courts retain authority to review for constitutional violations under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

Section 5: Presidential Pardon Irrelevance in State Proceedings

Presidential pardons shall have no effect whatsoever in state criminal or civil proceedings. State courts shall not recognize presidential pardon as a defense, ground for dismissal, basis for mitigation, or ground for stay of proceedings in any state criminal prosecution or civil action governed by this Act.

Section 6: Constitutional Rights Preserved

(a) Nothing in this Act eliminates, limits, or diminishes any constitutional right, protection, or defense available under the United States Constitution or applicable state constitutions.

(b) Federal officers retain all constitutional defenses in state proceedings, including but not limited to:

(1) Due process rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) First Amendment protections; (3) Confrontation Clause rights; (4) Right to counsel; (5) All other constitutional protections applicable to criminal defendants.

(c) States must recognize constitutional defenses in civil and criminal proceedings.

Section 7: Definition of "Pardon"

For purposes of this Act, "presidential pardon" includes:

(1) Full pardon; (2) Commutation of sentence; (3) Any clemency action that reduces or eliminates federal criminal liability; (4) Pardon for any federal crime arising from the same conduct.

Section 8: Temporal Application

(a) Prospective. This Act applies to all pardons issued after the date of enactment and to state proceedings commenced after such date.

(b) Retrospective Proceedings. States may pursue state criminal prosecutions or civil actions for conduct that was pardoned before enactment, provided state statute of limitations has not expired and the pardon was issued after the date of enactment.

(c) Pending Cases. For cases pending in federal court on the date of enactment in which a federal pardon has been issued under circumstances triggering this Act, such cases shall be remanded to state court immediately.

Section 9: Congressional Statement on Constitutional Authority

Congress declares that this Act is enacted pursuant to:

(1) Article I, Section 8 (powers vested in Congress); (2) The Tenth Amendment (reserved powers doctrine); (3) The constitutional duty of each branch to check abuse by other branches; (4) Congressional plenary authority to define immunity doctrines and federal preemption; (5) Congress's authority as a coordinate branch to respond to executive abuse of clemency power.

Section 10: Severability

If any provision is found unconstitutional by a court with jurisdiction to review it, that provision shall be severed and the remainder shall stand in full force and effect.

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V. Why This Survives Constitutional Scrutiny

A. Congress's Explicit Constitutional Role as a Check on Executive Abuse—Not as a Limit on Presidential Power

The Constitution establishes separation of powers precisely so that when one branch's unilateral exercise of power creates a structural vacuum, other branches may respond through reallocation of responsibility and authority.

This Act does not limit the pardon power. It responds to the effects of the pardon.

When a president exercises clemency to extinguish federal accountability:

• Congress cannot and does not undo the pardon
• Congress cannot and does not reverse the pardon's effect on federal liability
• Congress cannot and does not condition the pardon's validity
• Congress CAN reallocate accountability responsibility to states
• Congress CAN eliminate federal judge-made doctrines that obstruct state enforcement

A presidential pardon eliminates federal criminal liability. It does not entitle the recipient to additional federal protections—secondary effects like immunity doctrines—beyond that elimination.

This is Congress controlling its own legal architecture, not the President's power.

B. The Pardon Is Unilateral and Unreviewable—Which Is Why Reallocation Is the Only Available Check

The pardon power is:

• Exercised by a single actor
• Immune from judicial review
• Immune from legislative veto
• Immune from reversal

The Constitution does not provide a traditional check (negation) on this power. Instead, the Constitution permits reallocation of responsibility.

When the President has unilaterally foreclosed federal accountability, Congress ensures that the Constitution retains a functioning accountability pathway. That pathway is the states.

This is separation of powers functioning correctly, not failing.

C. The Pardon Trigger Is an Evidentiary Marker, Not a Penalty

The pardon is used in this statute as a constitutional fact, not as a sanction.

It marks three constitutionally relevant conditions:

1. Federal criminal accountability has been affirmatively extinguished (an irreversible executive act)
2. Judicial review is unavailable by constitutional design
3. Executive discretion over federal liability has been fully exercised

Once these conditions exist, Congress is constitutionally entitled—obligated, even—to ensure the Constitution still contains a functioning accountability mechanism.

Courts cannot honestly argue: "Congress must ignore the pardon and pretend it did not happen."

The pardon changes the constitutional landscape. Congress is allowed to respond to changed conditions. That is not punishment; that is structural rebalancing.

B. Immunity Elimination Is Legitimate Legislative Authority

Congress regularly defines when immunity exists:

• The Federal Tort Claims Act created exceptions to sovereign immunity
• The Civil Rights Act of 1871 pierced official immunity
• Section 1983 created federal causes of action against state officers
• Congress has repeatedly narrowed and expanded immunity doctrines

Congress declaring that Bivens immunity shall not apply to state prosecutions when a pardon has been issued is routine congressional authority over immunity doctrine.

Courts do not get to override this choice. Congress defines when federal immunity exists.

C. The Pardon-Triggered Mechanism Is Constitutionally Sound

This is not a blanket immunity elimination. This is a narrowly tailored response to a specific constitutional problem: presidential abuse of clemency.

The mechanism is proportionate: When federal accountability is eliminated through pardon, state accountability mechanisms activate.

The mechanism is structural: It uses Congress's legitimate authority (immunity definition) to check executive abuse (pardon overreach) while restoring state sovereignty (criminal/civil enforcement).

The mechanism is temporary and conditional: It exists only when a pardon is issued; it applies only to conduct for which the pardon was issued; it applies only to state law violations.

D. Federal Question Jurisdiction Remains Intact

Once Congress eliminates federal immunity doctrines in these circumstances:

• State courts apply state law
• Defendant cannot claim federal immunity
• State prosecution or civil action proceeds
• Federal courts have no federal question to review (state law in state court)
• Judicial review of federal questions persists everywhere else

Judicial review is not eliminated. Federal review of federal law persists. What is eliminated is federal judicial interference with state law enforcement through judge-made immunity doctrines.

E. The Supremacy Clause Is Honored

The Supremacy Clause applies where valid federal law exists. Congress has declared that federal immunity doctrines do not preempt state law in these circumstances. That is Congress exercising authority to define federal law's scope.

Congress's choice to NOT preempt is not a violation of the Supremacy Clause. It is an exercise of congressional authority to define federal law's boundaries.

E. The Pardon Power Itself Is Untouched

Congress does not limit the pardon power. The President can still pardon federal crimes. The pardoned officer still receives clemency for federal offenses. The pardon's validity is unquestioned. Its finality over federal liability is complete.

What changes is that the pardon no longer functions as a shield against state accountability because Congress has eliminated the secondary federal judge-made immunity doctrines that would make it so.

The pardon covers federal crimes only (which it always did). Immunity doctrines are independent legal constructs. Congress can eliminate one without touching the other.

This is not a limit on the pardon power. This is separation of powers: the Executive acts unilaterally (pardon); Congress responds by reallocating responsibility (immunity elimination); States exercise reserved power (enforcement).

That is the system functioning.

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VI. Anticipated Judicial Counterarguments

A. "The Constitution Requires Federal Officer Immunity"

Response: The Supreme Court has never held this. Bivens itself acknowledged immunity doctrines are judge-created. Federal officers perform duties nationwide while subject to state criminal law; immunity is not constitutionally necessary. Congress can declare that immunity doctrines do not apply in state proceedings for state crimes. The Constitution does not forbid this.

B. "This Violates Separation of Powers"

Response: Congress exercising authority to check executive abuse of clemency IS separation of powers. Congress is a coordinate branch; when the Executive abuses power, Congress responds. Eliminating federal judge-made immunity doctrines in response to presidential abuse of clemency is precisely what separation of powers contemplates.

C. "The Supremacy Clause Prevents State Prosecution"

Response: The Supremacy Clause applies only where valid federal law exists. Congress has declared federal immunity does not preempt state law in these circumstances. That is Congress defining federal law's scope. Congress's choice to NOT preempt is constitutional authority, not violation.

D. "Federal Officers Cannot Perform Duties if Subject to State Prosecution"

Response: Federal officers perform duties in all 50 states while subject to state criminal law. They do so effectively. Federal immunity is not functionally necessary. Congress can eliminate it without impairing federal function.

E. "This Is Effectively a Pardon Power Limit"

Response: No. The pardon still applies to federal crimes. The President can still issue pardons. What changes is that pardons no longer shield from state liability. Congress is responding to pardon abuse by activating state accountability—a response within Congress's constitutional authority.

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VII. Why This Is Stronger Than Direct Pardon Limits

Direct pardon limits would require:

• Constitutional amendment, or
• Declaring pardon power unconstitutional (impossible), or
• Stripping judicial jurisdiction (attacks courts)

This approach uses:

• Congressional authority to define immunity (well-established)
• Congressional authority to check executive abuse (constitutional duty)
• State sovereignty under Tenth Amendment (federalism foundation)
• Response to specific abuse (pardon weaponization)

This is constitutionally grounded, legislatively achievable, and cannot be repurposed for other ends without explicit congressional action.

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VIII. Implementation and Political Strategy

A. Framing

This must be framed as:

• Constitutional check on executive abuse, not partisan attack
• Defense of federalism against federal judicial overreach
• Defense of state sovereignty
• Response to presidential weaponization of clemency
• Structural accountability restoration

B. State-Level Action

States should simultaneously:

• Enact complementary criminal statutes targeting conduct by federal officers (unlawful detention, civil rights violations, etc.)
• Prepare civil suits for damages
• Establish task forces to identify cases where pardons shield federal misconduct

C. Documentation

Congress should create a public record demonstrating:

• Pattern of presidential abuse of clemency
• Cases where state accountability was blocked by federal immunity doctrines
• Failures of federal prosecution and federal judicial review
• The resulting impunity

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IX. Litigation Risk Appendix

A. Most Likely Successful Challenge

Argument: "Congress cannot condition exercise of federal immunity on state prosecution; some federal immunity is constitutionally required."

Statutory Response: Congressional findings establish that federal officers function effectively while subject to state law. This factual predicate undermines the constitutional necessity argument. Courts must accept Congress's factual findings unless clearly irrational.

Legislative Record Response: Congress creates a detailed record showing federal officers have historically been subject to state law and functioned effectively. This makes a constitutional immunity requirement impossible to defend.

B. Preemption Doctrine Challenge

Argument: "Federal authority necessarily preempts state prosecution when conduct relates to federal function."

Statutory Response: Section 3 explicitly negates any presumption of preemption. Congress has authority to define when federal law preempts state law. Congress has defined that it does not preempt here.

C. Federal Question Jurisdiction

Argument: "State prosecution of federal officers raises federal questions requiring federal oversight."

Statutory Response: Once Congress eliminates federal immunity doctrines, there is no federal law question about immunity. State courts apply state law. Federal constitutional questions remain available as defenses. There is no federal question requiring federal court review of state judgments.

D. Separation of Powers

Argument: "This violates separation of powers by Congress intruding on executive clemency authority."

Statutory Response: Congress does not intrude on clemency authority; the pardon still exists. Congress is exercising its own constitutional authority to check executive abuse. This IS separation of powers.

E. The Pardon Clause

Argument: "The Pardon Clause is absolute; Congress cannot condition its effects."

Statutory Response: The pardon IS absolute—the President can pardon federal crimes. What Congress conditions is federal immunity doctrine, which is not part of the pardon power. Pardons apply to federal crimes; immunity doctrines apply to federal courts. Congress can limit the latter without limiting the former.

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X. Conclusion

The presidential pardon is a Article II power that Congress cannot directly limit. But when a president weaponizes clemency to shield federal officers from all accountability—federal and state—Congress possesses constitutional authority to respond as a coordinate branch.

Congress does this by eliminating the federal judge-made immunity doctrines that have made the pardon effective as a shield against state accountability. This is not an attack on the pardon power. This is Congress securing accountability mechanisms when the pardon threatens to eliminate them entirely.

When a president pardons federal crimes that violate state law, Congress declares that neither federal immunity doctrine nor federal judge-made supremacy doctrine shall prevent state prosecution or state civil liability. State accountability mechanisms activate. Federal judicial protection of federal officers from state law evaporates.

This restores constitutional balance:

• The Executive can pardon federal crimes (Article II authority preserved)
• Congress can respond to clemency abuse by securing state accountability (Article I authority exercised)
• States can enforce their own criminal and civil law (Tenth Amendment reserved power restored)
• Judges lose the power to use immunity doctrines to shield from accountability (judicial overreach corrected)

The pardon power remains supreme over federal liability. But the pardon power does not extend to shielding from state accountability when Congress has eliminated the judge-made federal doctrines that obstruct it.

Complete impunity—federal pardon plus federal immunity doctrines plus federal judicial protection—is not what the Constitution permits. Congress now ensures it does not occur.

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Appendix: Constitutional Authority Summary

This Act is grounded in:

1. Article I, Section 8: Congress possesses broad powers to legislate on federal authority, jurisdiction, and immunity
2. The Tenth Amendment: Powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states
3. Separation of Powers: Congress may check executive abuse of clemency through elimination of federal legal obstructions to state accountability
4. Congressional Plenary Authority: Congress defines when federal immunity exists, when federal law preempts state law, and when federal jurisdiction extends
5. Federalism: State criminal law and civil liability are core state powers that federal judge-made doctrines have unjustly obstructed

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End of White Paper

Golden Quisling of the Week - Amy Klobuchar

This week’s Golden Quisling goes to none other than Amy Klobuchar, who’s managed to pull off a trifecta of ambition, abuse, and AIPAC allegiance so bald-faced it deserves a gilded bootlicker trophy.

The story? She reportedly encouraged Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to step aside rather than seek a third term—so she could run for it herself. This isn’t just any run. This is Gillibranding: the tactical self-promotion maneuver where a centrist Democrat feigns selflessness to upgrade their political power, knives out for anyone in the way. Walz, a sitting governor, becomes just another stepping stone.

But this isn’t new. Klobuchar’s been accused for years of mistreating her staff to such a degree that it became a whispered cautionary tale in D.C. intern circles. Forks thrown, reputations bruised, careers discarded. And nobody—not even her allies—really denies it. Because everyone knows. Abuse wrapped in a folksy Minnesota accent is still abuse.

And let’s not forget her foreign policy funders. Few Democrats toe the AIPAC line harder than Amy. If there's a war machine to fund or a blank check to cut, she’s already holding the pen.

Congratulations, Senator Klobuchar. For your quiet power grab, your proudly bipartisan cruelty, and your unwavering loyalty to the wrong donors at the worst time—you’ve earned it. This week, the Golden Quisling is yours. May it sit on your desk like a passive-aggressive Post-it from the voters you left behind.

Golden Quisling of the Year 2025 - The American Press

 

Codex Americana

Golden Quisling of the Year - 2025

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ANNUAL GOLDEN QUISLING

Winner: The American Press (Collective)
Date: December 23, 2025
Reason: Systematic institutional betrayal of the watchdog function under financial coercion, legal intimidation, and access-dependency.

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Release:

Today, the Salem Fireextinguisher names The American Press as the 2025 Golden Quisling of the Year for the collective abandonment of its constitutional role as a check on executive power. Across every major outlet—from the New York Times to the Washington Post to CNN to the networks—the press has chosen accommodation over accountability, stenography over scrutiny, and financial survival over truth-telling.

This is not failure. This is collaboration.

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Statement of Sins (2025):

Access as Control:

• Trump remains the most accessible president of modern times to mainstream reporters, creating reciprocal obligation that softens coverage instinctively. Reporters who receive interviews become invested in maintaining access; the system incentivizes self-censorship disguised as objectivity.

Structural Coercion:

• Parent companies of major newsrooms face legal leverage and regulatory threats. Lawsuits drain money and attention. Threats of blocked mergers and regulatory retaliation create financial stakes higher than journalistic principle. Media outlets understand: aggressive coverage = corporate pain.
• CNN chief Mark Thompson explicitly directed staff to "be forward-thinking and avoid pre-judging Trump"—institutional instruction to moderate coverage preventively.

Stenographic Neutrality:

• The press has become stenographers with amnesia. Rather than explaining what's actually happening, they report what happened—burying truth under anodyne adjectives, convoluted phrasing, and delayed ledes.
• Trump's immigration policies steeped in racism? Reported without the word "racism." Trump's serial lying? Reported as "disputed claims." Trump's descent into authoritarianism? Framed as "governance changes."
• Every article should make clear: his policies are racist. He is a serial liar. What he is doing is authoritarian. Instead, they hide the truth through language.

Institutional Silencing:

• 76 federal actions against journalists documented in 2025.
• The Pentagon denied office space to CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, and others—replaced by conservative outlets. The AP was indefinitely banned from pooled events for using "Gulf of Mexico" instead of Trump's preferred term.
• Associated Press reporters kicked from Air Force One. Journalists harassed, detained, deported, investigated, sued, assaulted.
• Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia gutted—427 million people weekly reached by USAGM broadcasters before the administration hollowed them out.

Access-Courting Normalization:

• Axios published "Behind the Curtain: Influencing Trump"—a step-by-step playbook on how CEOs and leaders can win favor with the president, packaged as neutral analysis and promoted across their outlets.
• This is not reporting. This is consulting. This is institutional quislingism.

The Coverage Gap:

• Trump declared intent to expand intelligence agencies' authority to surveil journalists. The press reported it as a proposal, not as an attack on the First Amendment.
• Trump's firing of inspector generals without congressional notice—gutting federal oversight—was described as "upheaval" and "confusion," not as an assault on accountability mechanisms.
• Trump's attempt to rename the Kennedy Center after himself while gutting its programming and firing decades-long staff: covered as vanity project, not institutional capture.
• Trump's expansion of executive orders at record speed while simultaneously dismantling FOIA infrastructure: covered as separate stories, not as a system designed to act without scrutiny.

The Financial Calculus:

• Between lawsuits, merger threats, and regulatory leverage, being at odds with this administration is now prohibitively expensive. Newsrooms know the cost. They moderate coverage accordingly.
• This is not censorship. This is capitalism. The system works because it doesn't require explicit orders—it requires only that editors understand the consequences.

The Absence of Outrage:

• When writing about outrageous things without a tone of outrage, you narcotize your readers. You become part of the problem.
• The mainstream press has chosen to narrate authoritarianism in the voice of a suburban home-improvement show.

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The Betrayal:

The First Amendment does not exist to protect comfortable speech. It exists to protect speech that power wants to suppress.

The press's function is not to report what happened. It is to explain what it means. It is to be the institutional voice that says: this is not normal. this is dangerous. this is wrong.

Instead, the American press has chosen survival over duty.

They had access to the facts. They had resources. They had platforms reaching millions. They had legal standing to challenge restrictions. They chose to protect their parent companies' merger prospects, their access to presidential interviews, their regulatory standing with hostile agencies.

They chose themselves over the country.

This is not a failure of individual journalists—many are doing serious work despite institutional pressure. This is a failure of institutional leadership. This is a choice made by editors, publishers, network heads, and corporate boards to accommodate power rather than challenge it.

This is quislingism: collaboration with an occupying force against one's own people, justified by the need to survive within the system that occupies you.

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Runners-Up:

SECOND PLACE: Boogie Down Liberation Front

• One-off anonymous vandalism with perfect timing (pre-DSA convention). No arrests, no follow-through, maximum agitprop value. The claim moved through activist pipelines with no investigative accountability. A ghost brand deployed once for maximum effect. Perfectly executed institutional manipulation through media conduit.

THIRD PLACE: FIFA

• Displaced National Symphony Orchestra programming at the Kennedy Center to host the 2026 World Cup draw. Cost Trump administration $5+ million, generated claimed $7.4 million in revenue (unverified breakdown). Perfect synergy: sports spectacle replaces art, autocrat gets photo op, institutional mission abandoned. The metaphor writes itself.

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End of Release

Posted by Redwin Tursor
December 23, 2025