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America First Legal (AFL) has published another batch of documents (referred to collectively as “Deep State Diaries”) originating from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advisory outfit, Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.
AFL refers to this body as the “Brennan-Clapper committee” since it included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan.
The group has been disbanded, judging by AFL’s press release also thanks to its efforts, and now internal notes from meetings, which the non-profit said it obtained through litigation, have seen the light of day.
These documents focus on the way the Biden administration and its allies handled the events of January 6, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and social platforms for what AFL says is “targeting and surveillance of political dissent.”
The internal notes reveal that January 6 proved useful in expanding surveillance, with one member of the group saying that policies regarding collection and reporting intelligence on Americans changed following the events on that day in Washington.
Notably, this has to do with more surveillance powers regarding what’s known as domestic violent extremism (DVE) – to whatever law enforcement decides to apply this label.
And the way they apply it, according to AFL’s “Deep State Diaries” material, is to persons who are religious, members of the military, or Trump supporters.
It’s easy to see how January 6 might have given momentum to carry out more surveillance of online speech – one of the participants in a conversation revealed in the now-unveiled documents also remarked that the nature of the support for the “mission set” had changed by becoming political.
This is interpreted to mean that January 6 was an excuse to change the scope of the activities of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A, a part of the DHS) – by expanding it.
As for the source of the support mentioned in the exchange, AFL notes that the group was heavily Democrat-leaning (98% of contributions the members – former intelligence community officials – made went to candidates of that party).
An unnamed member of the group at one point made the suggestion that I&A should, post-January 6, adopt practices that “even the FBI says it does not have the authority to do, the Senate has refused to give to any law enforcement agency, and members of Congress generally oppose,” AFL remarked.
