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Florida Bill Spurs Political Persecution and Surveillance Fears — Sponsor Says ‘Trust Me’
Controversial Florida legislation is raising alarms over issues including free speech, political persecution, surveillance, and viewpoint discrimination. But the bill’s sponsor says opponents should trust him to alter what critics charge is broad language that could be used to target alleged subversives based on their opinions.
The bill, which advanced in committee on Tuesday, “would allow secretive government surveillance and arrests of Floridians based on views, opinions or actions,” according to the Florida Trident.
The “primary mission” of what would be a new Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) unit “would include the detection, identification, and neutralization of ‘adversary intelligence entities,’ which include a ‘person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat of are inimical to the interests of the this state and the United States of America.'”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Danny Alvarez, “told the committee Tuesday that an amendment was in the works addressing concerns that he said had arisen in recent days over dangers the bill posed to free speech and risks of political persecution.”
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Rep. Alvarez says he is “very aware” of the concerns surrounding First Amendment rights. “But just understand, this is going after terrorists, nation state bad actors, not political speech.” He defended the need for the new legislation, citing the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
“People are looking for boogeymen here,” Alvarez said of the bill’s critics, according to The Intercept.
“There’s no boogeyman. I’m going to strip everything that makes you question it. You just have to trust me to get to the next committee,” he said. “But while you look for boogeymen, I need to be looking for terrorists. I need to prevent the next bomb.”
Alvarez disputed critics’ concerns, telling The Intercept that his bill “does not authorize investigations based solely on speech.”
“Any action must be tied to demonstrable conduct and constitutional standards. The First Amendment remains fully intact, and the unit operates under strong statutory safeguards and oversight.”
But critics see a “civil liberties nightmare in the making that could be used to target Muslims and alleged subversives based solely on their views or opinions, much like the FBI’s notorious COINTELPRO program,” The Intercept noted.
Adversary Intelligence Entities
“According to the bill,” The Intercept reports, “adversary intelligence entities” are entities that “include but are not limited to ‘any national, foreign, multinational, friendly, competitor, opponent, adversary, or recognized enemy government or nongovernmental organization, company, business, corporation, consortium, group, agency, cell, terrorist, insurgent, guerrilla entity, or person whose demonstrated actions, views, or opinions are a threat or are inimical to the interests of this state and the United States of America.”
Bobby Block, the executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, “said the bill’s sweeping language leaves open the possibility that the new unit could target people simply based on their views, citing the language about actors who hold views deemed ‘inimical’ to Florida,” meaning harmful or hostile.
“What does that mean? If I’m not a white Christian nationalist, does that mean my views are inimical to the values? It begs a lot of questions,” Block said.
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Image: Official Florida House photo
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The White House has confirmed President Donald Trump is moving to push the controversial SAVE America Act further right — which could make it even easier for the left to reject.
Many were confused or critical when President Trump claimed on Thursday that the SAVE Act — a voter ID bill that critics say will disenfranchise millions of Americans — would reshape rules for sports participation and health care access for transgender people, which the current text of the bill does not actually do.
According to Trump’s Truth Social post, the bill requires voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, and no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. It also bans “men in women’s sports,” and “transgender mutilation surgery for children, without the express written approval of the parents.”
The president, after uproar from the right, dropped the parental approval portion and called to ban all transgender surgery for children.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Friday about Trump’s additions to the legislation.
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After declaring that he wants the SAVE Act passed “as soon as possible,” Leavitt acknowledged that Trump “has added on some priorities” to the bill in recent days, “namely no transgender transition surgeries for minors. We are not gonna tolerate the mutilation of young children in this country. No men in women’s sports. The president putting all of these priorities together, it speaks to how common sense they are.”
“These are all common sense priorities of this president that are backed by the vast majority of Americans and he wants Republicans to act on them as quickly as possible,” she claimed.
According to Democracy Docket, Leavitt’s comments “mark the first time the White House has publicly confirmed that Trump is pushing to attach anti-transgender policies to the SAVE America Act.”
Noting that even if the Senate were to pass the legislation with Trump’s latest priorities in it, the bill would have to head back to the House, Democracy Docket reported, “for another vote — a potentially difficult hurdle given the narrow margin by which it passed initially.”
But, even “without those additions, the bill faces long odds in the Senate, where most legislation requires 60 votes to pass and where Democrats have vowed to block it.”
Republican Majority Leader John Thune has said he opposes changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to help the bill’s passage.
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Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump and his administration are under fire for what critics say is a lack of planning for his war against Iran. The fallout is already being felt in the economy, from rising gas prices to sinking financial markets, and a myriad of other potential crises.
“I’ve seen a lot of Presidents fall short of their promises but I’ve never seen any President just doing the opposite of everything promised on purpose,” charged U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). “Prices, Epstein, wars. Just absolutely racing to betray his voters.”
One hour later, he followed up, writing: “Did they think this through?”
The Atlantic’s Karim Sadjadpour earlier this week reported, “I have spoken with current and former U.S. officials privy to the decision making” on Iran, “who describe a total lack of planning and contradictory aims among those worried about the war effort and those more concerned about the war’s domestic political implications.”
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Ken Martin earlier in the week charged: “Trump and his incompetent administration had no plan to get Americans out of danger after their planned attack on Iran. Now, American citizens are stuck in an active war zone. This is a complete disaster.”
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On Friday, the State Department said that 24,000 Americans had returned from the Middle East, but thousands more remain. The “vast majority” of those who returned “were able to make their way home on their own through commercial means,” the Associated Press reported.
The rapidly rising price of oil and gas, and access to them, appear to be among critics’ greatest concerns.
“Apparently no one in the White House thought starting a war in the Middle East might affect oil prices,” lamented U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). “Now families are paying the price at the pump for pure amateur hour.”
Longtime journalist Jim Roberts delved even further.
“Listening to White House official Kevin Hassett this morning is making it crystal clear that the Trump administration had no plan for dealing with the disruption of energy supplies in the Mideast,” he wrote, adding: “And now the Pentagon is trying to figure out how to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson warned, “By April, energy experts say, the Iran War could be a full blown energy crisis.”
Citing reporting from the Financial Times, macroeconomist Philip Pilkington wrote that the “Trump administration forgot to refill its Strategic Petroleum Reserve before launching Total War in the Middle East.”
Patrick De Haan, the widely cited head of Petroleum Analysis at Gas Buddy, referencing President Donald Trump’s remarks about the price of gas rising, warned: “it doesn’t appear the admin is yet aware there’s actually a problem, so that means there’s nothing yet to fix. I do hope this changes soon.”
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Image via Reuters
Washington Post readers are pushing back against the paper and an op-ed that laments what its author sees as a shortage of evangelical Christians in the “halls of power.”
“Evangelicals are 23 percent of U.S. adults and one of the most loyal Republican voting blocs, with 81 percent backing Donald Trump in 2024,” writes author Aaron M. Renn. “Yet despite six of the nine Supreme Court justices being appointed by Republican presidents, there are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court.”
The Supreme Court “is just one of the many elite institutions in which evangelicals are absent or underrepresented,” he continues. Declaring that evangelicals “have excelled in politics,” he points to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and House Speaker Mike Johnson as examples.
Arguing that evangelicals “are also prominent in well-run and profitable businesses with relatively low cultural impact, such as food processing (Tyson Foods) and retail (Hobby Lobby),” he says that “they are all but absent from the leadership of prestigious universities, major foundations, Big Tech companies, leading financial firms and large media companies.”
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“A stronger evangelical presence in elite institutions could strengthen them while addressing polarization and public mistrust,” he continues. “The lack of evangelicals in the halls of power contributes to anti-institutional public sentiment. It also deprives those institutions of an important pool of talent.”
Washington Post readers scorched the op-ed and the paper.
“The author remarked, more than once, of the lack of formal education among the vast numbers of evangelicals,” wrote one reader. “He then questions the lack of said evangelicals on corporate and college boards and in executive offices. Am I the only one seeing a connection here?”
“Is this not a request for a new DEI program to benefit evangelicals?” asked a reader.
“I am an evangelical Christian,” said a critic. “Please don’t hold up Mike Johnson or Josh Hawley as an example of what Christ calls us to be. Perhaps the reason for our absence in the halls of power is the fact that the majority chose to elect an amoral, corrupt narcissist to be president. We should be absent from that depth of depravity.”
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One reader encouraged the author to “go see the musical Godspell and see just how far off the mark the American Evangelicals are.”
“Since when did adherence to fundamentalist religious beliefs become a litmus test for government or institutional leadership?” asked a reader. “Aren’t we currently bombing a country based on that system? This ‘newspaper’ is devolving into an internet forum.”
“So now MAGA wants DEI for Evangelicals,” said one reader. “This is fantastic stand-up comedy material.”
“In some cases, not all, the author is confusing evangelical with fundamentalist,” wrote one critic. “The author is also narrowing the meaning of evangelical by using a political frame, not a theological frame. Many evangelicals define themselves via strict adherence to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (or the Plain) … I wish the author had explored at least modestly the increasing breadth of what the designation ‘evangelical’ represents in Christianity, not on Capital Hill.”
“Do you expect to be trusted in fields of science when you deny evolution?” asked a reader.
“Evangelical Christianity is the antithesis of intellectual pursuit, science, and progress,” wrote a reader.
And one critic, appearing to refer to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” charged: “Dreaming of Gilead, are you?”
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Image via Reuters
White House Confirms Trump’s Shift That Pushes SAVE Act Further Right
‘Pure Amateur Hour’: Trump Slammed for ‘Absolutely Racing to Betray His Voters’
‘Dreaming of Gilead?’ WaPo Hit for Op-Ed Mourning Lack of Evangelicals in ‘Halls of Power’
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