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Comment by hypeatei | Hacker News Reader

> Throwing around words like ‘police state’ and ‘regime’

When agents are coming to your house after a protest (how did they even find your identity?) to ask questions then I'd say it's fair to call it that. Remember, we've lived under a surveillance state since Bush and 9/11; a police state is a logical step once an authoritarian comes into power.

> No one is being questioned for speech alone, only when it relates to a possible crime

And the "possible crime" is what here? If he was being interrogated for a possible crime, he wouldn't be free to leave and they would need to read him his rights.

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It’s unreasonable to assume the FBI is doing anything but investigating crime without evidence. The man was voluntarily interviewed because his name came up in an investigation. Most interviewees are leads, not suspects. People are mistaking routine inquiries for persecution. Saying “we’re investigating the protest” is like saying “we’re investigating the football game.” It refers to related incidents, not the activity itself.

It's not unreasonable, you can read the NSPM-7[0][1] which is an overarching strategy for agencies like the FBI to follow.

  NSPM-7 directs a new national strategy to “disrupt” any individual or groups “that foment political violence,” including “before they result in violent political acts.”

  In other words, they’re targeting pre-crime, to reference Minority Report.

The whole order is pretty dystopian, using loose labels like "anti-Americanism", "anti-capitalism", "anti-Christianity", and "extremism on migration" as indicators of an extremist.

0: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...

1: https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-commo...

NSPM-7 isn’t a license for thought policing. It’s an investigative strategy for identifying actual criminal activity within the bounds of existing law and oversight.

Referencing Minority Report is a false analogy that ignores the film’s real controversy, which was about punishing people for crimes that hadn’t happened, not investigating credible threats.

There are no new federal crimes being prosecuted that are tied to speech. Investigations still operate under existing law targeting criminal conduct, not expression.

You seem to think that monitoring rhetoric is inherently authoritarian, but it isn’t. Those markers are used to flag potential risks, not to criminalize beliefs. The strategy is about identifying when ideology begins translating into real-world violence, which is a basic and necessary function of law enforcement, not government overreach.

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