The Life in My Years

The second of two parts about the Trump Administration’s assault on the First Amendment.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ~ Alexander Butcher, 2016 winner of the Orwell Youth Prize.

It’s a mostly innocuous op-ed, but it got flagged as being anti-Semitic and posing a threat to American interests. If that’s the case, then the standard for either offense is a chasm so broad that it can gobble millions of people, citizen or immigrant. The breadth of that standard can only be defined as a rationale to help the administration reach the deportation goal that it set early on (which by some reports is lagging and making Trump furious), to get rid of people it considers to be undesirable or subversive, and to strike terror and subsequent silence into people who would have the temerity to speak out against the policies of the Trump regime. Or maybe it’s just as simple as retaliation. Because retaliation and vengeance are hallmarks of the Trump regime.

The “controversial” opinion piece with the unwieldy title, “Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions,” was co-authored by Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, and was published on March 26, 2024 in The Tufts Daily. Link to op-ed – here.

The piece is almost solely concerned with the Tufts University policies towards the Gaza War and Tufts University President’s rejection of resolutions passed by the student Senate regarding Israel and the Gaza War. Of four resolutions that were taken up by the Senate the three that passed called for:
The university to stop the sale of Sabra products because its co-owners, the Strauss Group, have materially supported the Israeli military’s Golani Brigade.
The university president, deans and provost to acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, and to apologize for (Tufts President) Kumar’s previous statements.
The Tufts Investment Office to disclose all of the university’s investments and then divest from companies tied directly and indirectly to Israel.

And for her trouble, on March 27, 2025, one year and one day after the article was published, Ms. Öztürk, after having had her F-1 visa revoked, was accosted on a public street by unidentified, masked, federal agents, hauled into a van, held incognito, and then eventually transferred to a federal detention center in Louisiana. A video of the kidnapping that has been viewed widely on social media could easily be mistaken for a scene straight out of Nikita, a TV series about a shadowy U.S. Government agency gone rogue.

If the dispatching of Kristi Noem’s DHS goons on a public street was staged to make anyone considering speaking out against the administration think twice, then it certainly succeeded to some extent. That is called terrorism.

Speaking for Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin said that Marco Rubio had “determined” that Ms. Öztürk’s activities could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.”

A statement released by a DHS spokesperson said, “Rumeysa Ozturk is a Turkish national and Tufts University graduate student, granted the privilege to be in this country on a visa. DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.” (After Signalgate, the idea of this administration lecturing about “commonsense security,” is at once hilarious and ironic).

No charges were cited, DHS couldn’t be specific as to what her compromising activities were, and could not specify how Öztürk posed a threat, so it can only be assumed that she was kidnapped over her part in writing the op-ed.

The article, does not mention Hamas and the only sentence that could remotely be considered controversial reads, “Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.” It couldn’t be any more vanilla (which by the way, Trump has tariffed, so stock up on ice cream before it’s too late).

How did Ms. Öztürk show up on the DHS radar? More than likely it was from someone in the administration, being tipped off by a vigilante right wing website called Canary Mission, a doxing website that publishes the personal information of students, professors and institutions that it holds to be critical of Israel. Its sole mission is to ruin people or institutions that its publishers determine “promote hatred of the US, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The website has been crowing about the influence it has been having on the Trump regime’s activities.

While the use of an ideological doxing website that is bent on retaliation in order to hunt and harass people is unconscionable and irresponsible, it’s hardly surprising. The Trump regime uses unconscionable and irresponsible methodology as a matter of course. In January, on an episode of Dr. Phil, Tom Homan, Trump’s very own Stasi goon said, “I’m hoping people start calling ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and reporting because we have millions of people in this country that can be force multipliers for us if they just call us with information.” Snitching on fellow citizens is one of the tools in the authoritarians’ toolbox.

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Cowing the rabble
It’s clear that a key component of the regime’s plan is to instill fear. Critical to the despot’s strategy is intimidation; the use raids, deportations and pressure on universities and the press to frighten people and organizations into silence and submission.

On an episode of her podcast “Trumpland with Alex Wagner,” the host reports on the government’s efforts to stifle First Amendment rights through the use of terror by using the example of the Trump Administration’s strong arming of Columbia University into submission. She speaks with Adam Kinder, a student and the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Political Review.

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Adam Kinder: “We’re not a newspaper, but we’re just basically a venue for any students. We’ve got a staff of 220 to share their opinions, to share their commentary. And yeah, that mission has absolutely been threatened by what’s going on.”
Alex Wagner: “Are people freaking out on staff?”
Adam Kinder: “Yeah, absolutely. Literally, 10 minutes ago, I got an email from one of our former writers, an alumnus, not a current writer – — who wanted to have all of our articles taken offline because she’s threatened, because she’s an international worker now. And that’s not new, it’s something that people have been trying to do ever since doxing became a problem on campus, removing articles about Gaza. But, I mean, I’ve gotten at least five of these emails in the past week.”
Alex Wagner: “And is it about Gaza, or is it just about political dissent generally?”
Adam Kinder: “It’s definitely about political dissent generally. It’s not restricted to Gaza in the slightest. I mean, this person that just emailed me did so because the articles were about China and how China is going to move forward given the current international situation. And in my view, that’s not particularly controversial, right? But the reality is that nobody knows what’s on the table. They just don’t want that information, their commentary out there, because they’re not sure what the ramifications of their speech are going to be. – But it’s also just speech, in general, that might be considered controversial by the current administration, especially related to China, Iran, any of these, you know, major geopolitical in particular flashpoints, right? And I can only imagine that soon, that’s going to move to domestic social issues, right? Transhealthcare, DEI, I mean.”

Later in the podcast, Wagner speaks with Political Science major, Ishaan Barrett, who tells her, “I told my mom today that I was going to be speaking with you and she was like, hey, well, make sure you get a list of talking points so that you don’t say anything you might regret. And that there isn’t a way for, somehow, people to link together your criticisms of the university and patch together that, somehow, criticism against Trump, even though I’ve been writing and criticizing these issues now for almost a year and a half.” Link to podcast transcript, here.

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Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has been on the frontline of intimidation with his belligerent rhetoric.
“Do not come to the U.S. if you do not agree with the government (emphasis mine) – we will find ways of getting to you and we have ways of really hurting you.”
“We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” The problem with this statement is that the government has lumped support for innocent Palestinians who are being bombed, starved and forced from their homes, and the condemnation of indiscriminate bombing of non-combatant targets, with anti-Semitism and support for Hamas. It’s a big leap, but useful for a regime that is looking for any excuse to kick people out of the country in order to meet Trump’s deportation goals.
“We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety” . . . “It’s that simple.”
“We don’t want terrorists in America” . . . “I don’t know where we have gotten it in our head that a visa is some sort of birthright. It’s not… If you violate the terms of your visitation, you’re going to leave.” The problem with this is that the evidence of “terrorism” has been at best specious, and at worst, outright fabrication.

Terrorism
Masked, unidentified, plain clothed men accosting people at homes and on the street in broad daylight; sweeping them up and tossing them into unmarked vans, methods that would make Tony Soprano green with envy, for the so-called crime of having an opinion on issues that are legitimately open for discussion? That is terrorism.

“. . . if you do not agree with the government” What constitutes agreement with the government and who is the umpire? Does wearing a t-shirt with a watermelon on it constitute disagreement with the government or support of terrorism? A flag of Palestine? Having a Palestinian friend? What about wearing a keffiyeh? A hijab? Owning a Palestinian cookbook? The possibilities are endless and it seems that the regime is willing to utilize any possibility no matter how specious.

When do government goons in plainclothes and masks start tossing citizens into unmarked vans? When do they use the “accidentally on purpose,” excuse after a citizen has been renditioned to a gulag in El Salvador, never to be heard from again?

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Unbridled hypocrisy
How ironic that the Trump Administration which has fashioned itself as a bastion of free speech is persecuting, jailing, prosecuting, and literally kidnapping people who are exercising their Constitutional right to dissent, is the same administration that has chastised European nations for stifling free speech.

The administration’s violations of the First Amendment come in the wake of Vice-President J.D. Vance’s insulting diatribe before leaders of the E.U. at the Munich Security Conference, in February 2025. The hypocrisy of the Trump Administration is so blatant as to be literally breathtaking, as Vance chastised European nations for stifling free speech and concluded the upbraiding with, “ . . . So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite.” Vance continued “ . . . under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.” Text of the speech, here.

If, as Marco Rubio said, “We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety,” then when is the plane carrying 1500 insurrectionists, who were convicted of unlawful entry into the halls of Congress and attacking police officers, among various other charges, leaving for El Salvador?

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Do I have moments of pause before hitting the publish button on this site? Absolutely. Anyone who protests or dissents should be experiencing moments of pause if they’re wise. I was given a keffiyeh by a friend. I intended to wear it but now I’m wondering about the wisdom in that.

If an innocuous op-ed can be grounds for kidnapping by federal agents how far away are we from jailing or deporting a citizen for writing a blog that is highly critical of the Trump regime? We’ve learned from the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case that while the government might admit to a mistake, it’s loathe to go through the trouble of correcting that mistake.

I, and people like me have to ask ourselves how far we are willing to stick our necks out. And that’s exactly what the administration is banking on. It’s a lot easier to have people self deport or self censor than it is to go through the trouble of rounding up the people who would have the audacity to be critical of the exalted leader.

There’s a storm of fear that’s brewing over something that Americans have, for all their lives, considered basic and natural – the exercise of free speech. We’re living under a clearly lawless regime that is not hesitant to give any random person a one way trip to a concentration camp in El Salvador on trumped up (pun intended) charges, and then refuse to bring that person back if an error was discovered.