America Tests the Boundaries of Power in a Time of Crisis

America National Security ICE — (Image Credit: Chad Davis/Wikimedia/CC 4.0)

Welcome to this edition of The Intelligence Brief… This week, the United States finds itself grappling with escalating unrest that reflects more than a series of isolated crises, but a deeper shift in how emergency authority and national security are being applied domestically. In our analysis, we examine 1) how threats to invoke the Insurrection Act amid protests in Minneapolis signal a renewed willingness to deploy extraordinary federal powers, 2) why immigration enforcement has emerged as a flashpoint drawing in law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and political authority at once, 3) how the use of terrorism-related language to describe civil protest risks reshaping legal and investigative boundaries, and 4) what the growing involvement of the U.S. Intelligence Community in domestic unrest could mean for democratic norms if these trends continue unchecked.

Quote of the Week

“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in, and at the same time, we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order.”

– Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

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America in a State of Unrest

Throughout history, one thing has always served as an effective test of the strength of democratic institutions: crisis.

From the perspective of intelligence analysis, which for our purposes can be defined as “the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context,” it is fair to say that this week’s news suggests something quite different from mere crisis—recent events are more akin to a real-time erosion of the once very fine line between emergency authority, and “normal” governance—if such a thing exists any longer in America.

Naturally, the language of emergency has historically played a key role in American governance. Hence, what any sober, nonpartisan analysis of national security issues affecting the United States (and the world at large) right now should reveal is that rather than any single emergency, controversy, or crisis serving as a flashpoint signaling concern, what we are seeing is a pattern… recurring developments that are gradually redefining our concepts of power, security, governance, law enforcement, intelligence, and national security in America.

And, as if it needed to be said, the trend that is emerging is not a pleasant one.

The Insurrection Act

At this moment, Americans find themselves in a place of great unrest. At the heart of much of the public’s concern, Minneapolis, Minnesota, has emerged as a focal point of controversy involving the deployment of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), following the killing of an American citizen, Renee Good, last week.

On Thursday, it was reported that President Donald Trump was considering the invocation of the Insurrection Act in response to unrest that had erupted in Minneapolis following Good’s death. The Act refers to an 1807 federal law that allows the deployment of U.S. troops for domestic law enforcement, and federalization of National Guard units of the individual states under some circumstances, which can include efforts to quell perceived civil disorder.

Significantly, the Insurrection Act offers a statutory exemption to the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the POTUS’s ability to deploy the U.S. military within the United States to enforce civil or criminal law. The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush, who used it to deploy troops to Los Angeles at the request of officials in California. Since its creation, the Act has been used more than two dozen times in U.S. history.

FBI Investigations and Claims of Terrorism

President Trump’s warning arrived just one day after another shooting that occurred in Minneapolis following a confrontation between an immigration officer and a driver from Venezuela who was reportedly in the United States illegally. In postings that appeared on social media, the President said Minnesota officials had failed to control what he referred to as “professional agitators and insurrectionists.”

However, many officials have pushed back on such language being used in reference to U.S. citizens engaging in protest, which includes references by DHS officials to Renee Good’s actions as having been tantamount to “domestic terrorism.”

Thomas E. Brzozowski, the U.S. Justice Department’s former counsel for domestic terrorism in its national security division, recently told the New York Times that it was “not appropriate for officials to characterize this incident as domestic terrorism before the investigation is complete,” adding that processes have traditionally been relied upon within Justice Department investigations, which authorities use “to figure out if behavior could be legitimately described as domestic terrorism.”

On Wednesday night, the Associated Press reported that protests in Minneapolis only intensified near the site of the latest shooting, as federal officers reportedly fired tear gas as demonstrators gathered.

The DHS has said it has made more than 2,000 arrests in Minnesota since early December as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown; meanwhile, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Governor Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other state officials have said they would challenge further federal action in the state, with Governor Walz calling for de-escalation.

A Quiet, Concerning Shift

Amid the natural human responses to such events—anger, fear, sadness, and plenty of others that come to mind—bringing an analytical approach to current developments like those we have seen over the last week is difficult, to say the least.

One crucial observation that can be made in the here-and-now is that no single event, decision, or confrontation is by itself a lone catalyst. Instead, a range of factors are at play—the normalization of emergency language; extraordinary authorities being implemented across multiple domains at once; and, of course, the escalation of rhetoric that characterizes Americans engaged in civil disobedience as being tantamount to “terrorism.”

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Finally, the expanding role of the U.S. Intelligence Community merits close scrutiny, as the FBI’s ongoing investigation into recent ICE shootings includes questions about whether such inquiries could inadvertently broaden the legal definition of political protest, even leading to possible criminalization. At the same time, a recent FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home—executed as part of a probe into alleged retention of classified materials—has drawn significant concern from press freedom advocates who argue the action risks undermining longstanding protections for journalistic activity, and may set a concerning precedent for how government institutions engage with the media.

History suggests that institutions are rarely undone by one dramatic moment, in other words, but by gradual shifts in precedent that accumulate quietly. Whether this period is remembered as a temporary “stress test” for Americans amid times of significant social unrest, or it is to become a lasting inflection point with far greater implications, will depend on how deliberately those boundaries are examined—and defended—right now.

That concludes this week’s installment of The Intelligence Brief. You can read past editions of our newsletter at our website, or if you found this installment online, don’t forget to subscribe and get future email editions from us here. Also, if you have a tip or other information you’d like to send along directly to me, you can email me at micah [@] thedebrief [dot] org, or reach me on X: @MicahHanks.