Tag
Incidents where national security is invoked to justify rights violations, or where policies genuinely threaten national security. Covers misuse of security pretexts to bypass legal constraints and suppress dissent.
4 incidents
Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern
Trump's threat to jail journalists for reporting on a military rescue mission during the Iran war extends the administration's documented pattern of using national security claims to suppress press freedom and criminalize journalism.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Senior US officials including the Vice President, Defense Secretary, and CIA Director used a personal Signal group chat to discuss classified strike plans targeting Houthi forces in Yemen. A journalist was accidentally added. The Defense Secretary shared specific targeting and timing information, which the Pentagon inspector general later found put US personnel and the mission at risk. The incident revealed systemic disregard for classified information handling procedures.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE fired 350 NNSA nuclear weapons workers, including warhead assemblers at Pantex and radioactive waste managers at Savannah River, as part of a 2,000-person Department of Energy purge. Most firings were rescinded within 24 hours after bipartisan alarm over nuclear stockpile security, but the incident exposed DOGE's indiscriminate approach to agencies with critical national security functions.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
A systematic campaign of security clearance revocations targeting political opponents, critics, and former officials who investigated or prosecuted Trump, including 51 intelligence officials, prosecutors, state attorneys general, and even an entire private cybersecurity company — constituting an unprecedented use of classification authority for political punishment.