"The Pentagon carried out the secret operation in the early hours of Monday..."

"... days before Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial. The handoff had been in the works for about three years. An initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 was derailed by opposition from Congress. The 11 who were released included Moath al-Alwi, a former long-term hunger striker who gained attention in the art world for building model boats from objects found at the Guantánamo prison; Abdulsalam al-Hela, whose testimony was sought by defense lawyers in the U.S.S. Cole case; and Hassan Bin Attash, the younger brother of a defendant in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case...."

From "U.S. Sends 11 Guantánamo Prisoners to Oman to Start New Lives/The secret mission left the smallest number of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay since the day the detention center opened in 2002" (NYT).

"Extremism researchers say they expect one immediate effect of Trump’s return to be a repeal of the culture shift Biden tried to bring about with his 2021 domestic terrorism strategy..."

"... which pledged more training and personnel to monitor violent far-right networks.... Academic researchers and community groups were awarded federal grants to study and prevent radicalization. That work, however, is not in line with the MAGA agenda. Trump-aligned Republicans have portrayed the stepped-up fight against domestic terrorism as a thought-police exercise that could infringe on First Amendment rights. Some Democrats and civil liberties groups also have expressed wariness of federal overreach...."

From "Trump could hobble renewed fight against domestic terrorism, analysts warn/Based on his first-term record, researchers expect the next Trump administration to shift the government’s focus from white supremacists and other far-right militants" (WaPo).

Yes, some Democrats and civil liberties groups are wary that it is a thought-police exercise that could infringe on First Amendment rights because it is a thought-police exercise that could infringe on First Amendment rights. Thanks to the Democrats and civil liberties groups that haven't lost their way.

Alex DiBranco, executive director of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, said some anti-fascist and gender-focused nonprofits are concerned again about the Trump administration seeking to discredit or even prosecute them by classifying them as far-left domestic terrorist groups....

So join the Trump-aligned Republicans and the Democrats and civil liberties groups who are wary of thought-police exercises that could infringe on First Amendment rights. The great thing about dedication to First Amendment rights is that they are there to protect your side when your side loses its grip on majoritarian power.

"Until this fall, the National School Boards Association was a noncontroversial, bipartisan lobby group. Then its leaders wrote President Biden a letter."

"It alleged that the threatening and aggressive acts against school board members across the country might be a form of 'domestic terrorism' and asked for federal law enforcement intervention. Now, the association is at risk of total collapse....  If the school board association’s goal was to tamp down conservative parent protests, it had the exact opposite effect, galvanizing a movement that coalesced last fall around the idea of parental rights.... In one email, an NSBA board member wrote that [its interim director Chip] Slaven had said the letter had been requested by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for use by the White House. In another, Slaven wrote that the letter included 'additional information on some of the specific threats,' as requested by the White House.... Five days after the NSBA letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland responded. He directed the FBI to work with U.S. attorneys across the country to convene meetings within 30 days with federal, state and local leaders to discuss strategies for addressing threats to school personnel...."

From "National School Boards Association stumbles into politics and is blasted apart/Its leaders compared aggressive school protests to ‘domestic terrorism.’ The backlash was fast and severe" (WaPo).

"There's absolutely a new War on Terror... aimed inward, domestically."

There's absolutely a new War on Terror being initiated -- it'd been lurking for awhile, but it's accelerating now for obvious reasons. This new one is aimed inward, domestically. It entails many of the same frameworks.

They're saying it explicitly:https://t.co/TUkK0mmMxU pic.twitter.com/ygCLuTZe2C

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 8, 2021