Non-State Actress: The Iceberg #10

June 10, 2025: Fight for Your Right to Troll Men on the Internet

BLUF

In this country, law is a promise to the American people of how the government will behave and how the people are expected to behave in return. Examine which laws are ignored and which are enforced in the name of national security - whether it is protecting your right to troll the Chinese Communist Party on the internet or ignoring the legal and constitutional obligations and limitations of the US military.

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Last Week in Review

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No New Friends

President Donald Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation on June 4, 2025 barred entry into the United States to individuals from specific countries and significantly limited access for others also based on country of origin. Citing national security priorities, considerations, and risks resulting from ‘deficient screening and vetting processes’ in these countries, the Proclamation explicitly argues individuals are inherently more likely to, “bear hostile attitudes toward [the United States’] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles,” and are to prone to, “advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists or other threats” to the United States to warrant consideration for travel visas.

This is super messy…The screening and vetting processes to obtain a visa for lawful travel to the United States is a process completed by…the United States. And not the country of origin. And the United States take this *so* seriously, there are like 7+ agencies and departments involved in the process!¹ While President Trump is sucking the oxygen out of the State Department by radically deresourcing and restructuring the State Department, the federal entity primarily responsible for visas into the United States, like a young white man in a communal workspace on a Zoom call with absolutely 0 regard for the volume of his voice, the Department of Homeland Security is no slouch here either. Given the energy and resources made available to DHS, the Proclamation’s suggestion that this cannot be done is weird af.

Yes the people submitting applications need to have documentation showing who they are, and this can be *really* hard in a place like Yemen, but it is far from impossible. I know of what I speak because I have more direct experience in the visa screening and vetting process in support of friends from some of these nations than I would prefer to have.

The document then goes on to highlight concerns regarding visa overstay percentages per country, but does not provide a bunch of stuff necessary to make the data useful…unless the data is intended to support a *very* specific argument and that isn’t really what data is supposed to do².

Using information out of context is a classic malinformation technique. Malinformation is when correct information is intentionally misrepresented in how it is communicated or otherwise to prove a point not supported by the full picture. It’s like when someone photoshops their picture and suggests their 6 feet tall instead of embracing their 5’10 self.

Said another way, the President of the United States wrote a proclamation saying the immigration and visa processes he is so proud of are deficient, and rather than fixing the problem to keep America safe he’s blamed those deficiencies on 19 other countries. Even though a not insignificant number of those countries’ governments cannot feed their citizens because they are too busy preventing them from using the internet (Turkmenistan), torturing them and ensuring female cats have more rights than the human women who live there (Afghanistan), are overrun by armed gangs and terrorists (Haiti, Sudan, Chad), etc.

This is far from the only White House-led activity branded as national security based immigration enforcement going on this week. Most of us are following or seeing lots of California-focused headlines and watching what is most certainly heading towards a generational civil-military friction point in the coming days with the planned (as in not yet happened) illegal (as in not permitted under US law unless the Insurrection Act is invoked, which is not currently the case) deployment of US Marines to California alongside more than 2000 members of the National Guard in response to protests against ICE raids throughout the state. Regardless of personal opinion on the appropriateness, morality, or effectiveness of ICE’s actions, this is an objectively heated and increasingly dangerous moment - for people and for rule of law in the country I love so dearly.

The Executive Order or “Proclamation” we just walked through is an important example of how the activity in California is not in isolation. These are just two examples of what is an increasingly whole of government via the Executive Branch overhaul of systems. The Executive Branch is moving to force the US government overall not merely to no longer objectively identify and evaluate threats through screening and vetting but undermine the rigor of this process by blaming weaknesses on countries of origin. President Trump and Senate-confirmed members of the Cabinet are also explicitly attempting to use the US military against the people of this nation - which is illegal and actually the exact situation the Founding Fathers cited the Second Amendment is meant to protect against.