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How Donald Trump Could Weaponize US Surveillance in a Second Term
Donald Trump has vowed to go after political enemies, undocumented immigrants, and others if he wins. Experts warn he could easily turn the surveillance state against his targets.
If a president was interested in prosecuting their political opponents, crushing protests, targeting undocumented immigrants, and had the right people in place to help them carry out those plans, surveillance could become a valuable tool for accomplishing those goals. Nixon and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover famously surveilled the president’s political opponents and activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., through a program called COINTELPRO. If the FBI and the Department of Justice are staffed with people who won’t push back when Trump orders them to do things that might be legally or morally questionable, they may carry out his wishes, and Americans may discover how much their privacy rights have eroded over the years.
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