Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead
“Given the judiciary’s longstanding reluctance to second-guess presidential power grabs involving national security, the national-security state has repeatedly used that deference to expand both its own reach and the power of the presidency. Call something a matter of national security and the normal rules start disappearing: Courts defer. Congress retreats. Secrecy expands. Executive power grows. ‘National security’ has been used as the justification for surveillance, secret courts, classification, warrantless spying, military intervention, watchlists, detention, border searches, censorship claims and the concealment of government misconduct. That game is hardly new. Nixon played it. Bush played it. Obama played it. Biden played it. Trump may not have invented the national-security dodge, but he has taken it to increasingly absurd extremes.” (09/22/26)