Written by Julie
Hello!
Thank you for joining today. In today’s report, I’d like to touch on a couple of topics that seem to be trending in the last 24 to 48 hours.
The most concerning topic is Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. There seems to be a lot of concern around this announcement, the most crucial being the suspension of due process.
Although the surge of cartels throughout our City Neighborhoods has increased dramatically over the years, the method by which these cartels should be investigated, arrested and possibly deported was always handled through local law enforcement working with agencies to confirm whether these individuals were Constitutionally protected, or not. Rounding up individuals and just assuming they are undocumented or labeling them as “illegal aliens” then shipping them off to prisons in other countries is not how we do things in the United States of America.
It was shocking to learn that many Americans have no recollection of history. The controversy around the last time an Administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 left a permanent black stain on the American consciousness. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II involved the forced relocation and incarceration of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent, including American citizens, into internment camps, primarily in the western interior of the country, based on Executive Order 9066 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942.
As San Franciscans, and especially Californians we felt this personally as many of our neighbors and friends we grew up with had stories of relatives who were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in camps. This stark history lesson showed us how dangerous this precedent is in a free society.
Even more troubling was the flagrant dismissal of the verbal order from the chief judge of the Washington, D.C., District Court, James Boasberg, who explicitly told the government to turn around any aircraft that had already departed the country if it was still in the air. Top lawyers and officials in the Trump Administration made the determination that since the flights were over international waters, Boasberg’s order did not apply.
Clearly this invocation of the Alien Enemies Act was a clandestine effort, done in secret, at the last minute, and as a surprise attack in order to thwart the rule of law.
This latest story should give all Americans pause, whether natural born citizens or those in the process of obtaining citizenship. This is a time where all of us need to put our differences aside regarding our opinions on immigration and stand hand-in-hand and shoulder-to-shoulder. We are against authoritarianism and despotism which seems to be defining our country daily in ways that are difficult to explain away rationally.
The second issue that seems to be trending is the sudden, troubling rise of “swatting” incidents. Swatting is the action or practice of making a call under false pretenses, to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address. Many conservative Trump influencers on social media have been the target of swatting over the last few days.
At first, the influential users were complaining about how many pizzas were being delivered to their home even though they themselves never ordered pizzas and no one they knew had ordered pizzas to be delivered to them on their behalf. There were some instances where the delivery people were instructed to bang on the front doors and not stop until someone opened the door and accepted the pizzas. There was another instance where the call-back number of the person making the delivery was the number of a local police department. This means that whoever was using ordering the pizzas in order to harass the influential users was impersonating the police, which is a serious offense.
Naturally, the influencers, afraid for their safety and the safety of their families, called the police to make a report that they were the target of harassment.
Then the incidents seemed to escalate. Even more influencers were sharing on their social media feeds that suddenly their local police department and in some cases even SWAT teams were dispatched to their homes, with guns drawn. This is where things have the potential to get very dangerous.
Apparently perpetrators of these swatting incidents were calling the local police departments of the various influencers, giving the police the influencers’ private home addresses and saying these influencers were either causing domestic disturbances, were brandishing firearms and in one case, an influencer was accused of taking his wife’s life. In this particular case, when the police arrived at the residence, the wife answered the door and police immediately knew something was amiss and they had been used.
The troubling part in all of this is that in both cases: the pizza delivery as well as the swatting incidents, the influencers don’t know who is perpetrating this. And, it’s the not knowing that is causing a collective rise in anxiety, palpably felt in their social media tweets and posts.
In my experience with being the victim of a swatting campaign in my past I knew the perpetrators. In each instance, the swatting stemmed from wanting to seek revenge. First, a boyfriend who was handcuffed and taken away after he smothered me with a pillow until I nearly passed out, had revenge in mind after his release. Weeks after that incident, he called 911 and claimed I was causing a domestic disturbance. This was impossible as I was working two 8-hour shifts that day. When I arrived home from work, the police were waiting to arrest me.
The second incident of swatting came from a former friend and co-worker who conspired with my roommate of 7 years to unlawfully lock me out of of my apartment. When I contacted the San Francisco Homeless Advocacy Projects, the SF Tenants Union and even the SF Bar to seek help in being unlawfully locked out of my apartment, these individuals used those agencies, including the SF Police, to fabricate false allegations against me.
In both cases, I knew the individuals personally and I knew they were using the police, public servants, agencies and other means in order to hurt me and seek revenge.
Because of my personal experience with being the victim of swatting, I see things a little differently. The first thing I notice is that what all these victims have in common is their staunch, steady dedication to Trump and his policy. It’s unclear if they are as supportive of Elon Musk or even JD Vance, but each of these influencers who have been targeted are firmly MAGA and nothing will change their mind.
Perhaps someone, or a group of individuals, feels threatened by this loyalty to Trump and has instigated this campaign to terrorize them into submission or to upend their loyalty somehow.
All I can say to this is that each influential user who is being targeted is working with their local law enforcement to get to the bottom of who is terrorizing them. If you are on social media and you see these influencers talking about these instances, be gentle with them. In some cases, children were home and I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to suddenly have police, or even delivery people, aggressively pounding on the front door of your home.
We may not agree with the viewpoints of these influencers but we can all agree that showing compassion toward them in this troubling time may make a world of difference. Their levels of anxieties are spiking right now and I feel this rising anxiousness is what the perpetrators wanted. We can thwart that altogether through a simple act of genuine kindness, even if it is in the form of a comment online.
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See you tomorrow where JP will be back on camera bright and early at 10am Central Time!