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During the election campaign in 2008 it was clear some people on the political Right were becoming agitated about the potential for a Black man backed by liberals to become the next President of the United States.

The men who created the New Right chose the Republican Party as the party to attach themselves to, even if they didn’t agree with all of the GOP’s ideas, melding conservatives with the Christian Right.

If history is any guide, lax oversight and secrecy are a recipe for abusive political intelligence gathering by the FBI. Pervasive official secrecy continues to threaten our national values under the Obama administration, in spite of a declared willingness to increase transparency.

While the “religious freedom” industry is busy protecting discriminatory bakeries and pharmacists who refuse to do their job, a humanitarian faces a hefty prison sentence for providing food and water to migrants in the desert.

While some have argued that opposition to a woman’s right to make decisions about her body is a legitimate religious freedom issue, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the religious freedom issue at stake in the abortion debate.

A word of advice to activists and people praying at mosques. If a guy offers you a free stinger missile, he’s probably an informer. If he offers you free IEDs, he’s probably an informer. If he asks you to pledge an oath to his foreign terrorist organization, he’s also probably a government spy.

On May 17, the Des Moines Register reported that the FBI planted an informant in an Iowa City “anarchist collective” planning to “disrupt the Republican convention.” Those advocating undercover surveillance say the government should spy upon political activists to prevent future crime.

In May 2009, Homeland Security released — and quickly retracted — a ” Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” one in a series of reference aids designed to provide operational and intelligence advice to state…