The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will not directly engage in electronic tapping and surveillance.
The management of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has authorized its staff to gather information about protesters who threaten to damage or destroy any monuments or statues in public places. This was reported Monday by The Washington Post, which has an internal document in its possession.
The DHS will now monitor social networks of individuals or groups who may “damage or destroy monuments, memorials or statues in public places. The document does not say which monuments are concerned or whether they are federal property.
However, authorized employees must clearly explain why a person may pose a threat – “anticipation and intuition that are not sufficient” cannot be relied upon. At the same time, according to the newspaper, the MIB can’t directly engage in wiretapping and surveillance by electronic means, but the agency may ask the FBI to do so.
Racial problems have come to the fore in the United States in connection with the death of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis (Minnesota). Police used a brutal strangulation during his May 25 detention. Floyd died after that in the hospital. All four police officers involved in the arrest were dismissed and charged.
The death of an African-American man triggered mass protests and riots across the country. Against this backdrop, another wave of struggle against monuments to political figures of the past began in the United States. In some cases vandals spoiled the monuments to the prominent leaders of the Confederation, which united the states of the slave-holding South during the Civil War in the USA (1861-1865). In addition, several monuments to navigator Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and the statue of the first U.S. president, George Washington (1732-1799), were demolished in Portland, Oregon.