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More than any other U.S. president in decades, Donald Trump has aggressively pursued military interventions in Latin America.

On Jan. 3, 2026, U.S. special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on charges of narco-terrorism. In the months before the operation, U.S. Southern Command began targeting small, fast-moving boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The death toll from the continuing war on these alleged narco-terrorists has risen to over 200 people.

At the heart of these events is the Trump administration’s stated goal of combating drug trafficking organizations. The White House and State Department have designated a plethora of guerrilla groups, drug cartels, gangs and criminal enterprises as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Washington has also expanded security ties with Ecuador and El Salvador, which are led by right-wing Trump allies. At the same time, the administration has pressured left-wing governments in Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico to join the U.S. war on drugs or else risk Trump’s wrath.

When it comes to opening legal avenues for the application of armed force, the narco-terrorism label is useful. Indeed, it is how the Trump administration justified Operation Absolute Resolve to capture and indict Maduro. Yet Trump’s decision to pardon a right-wing ally – former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández – who was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and related weapons offenses, appeared to some observers to be “at odds with Trump’s war on drugs.”

The history of that war on drugs, however, especially during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, shows that the narco-terrorism label has always been politicized. My research on Reagan and the drug war suggests that the nebulousness of the concept aided U.S. policymakers in achieving fundamentally anti-communist and anti-leftist political objectives.

Shining Path and the roots of narco-terrorism

Peruvian President Fernando Belaúnde Terry first coined the term narco-terrorism in 1982 to describe the infiltration of Sendero Luminoso – or Shining Path – guerrillas into the drug trade.

An ultraradical offshoot of the Peruvian Communist Party, Shining Path was one of the most vicious insurgencies in Latin America. A truth and reconciliation commission later attributed at least half of the 70,000 conflict-related deaths and disappearances to the Maoist guerrillas in their campaign to overthrow the “bourgeois” democratic government. After the Peruvian army chased the guerrillas out of their home base in Ayacucho in the southern Andes, they moved north to the upper Huallaga Valley, the source of over half the world’s cocaine supply at the time.

The Peruvian police, together with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, created special counternarcotics units focused on crop eradication in the upper Huallaga. This strategy sought to reduce the supply of cocaine by eliminating its source, the coca plant. Peasant growers’ resistance to these operations fueled the Shining Path insurgency by providing recruits and creating an opening for the guerrillas to interpose themselves between the farmers and the police.

With the Cold War drawing to a close, a militarized drug war expanded under the administration of George H.W. Bush. As the federal counternarcotics budget nearly doubled, U.S. officials pressured the Peruvians to militarize their counternarcotics efforts, too. But it wasn’t until the Peruvian armed forces pursued a tacit truce with the traffickers that they were able to locate and capture Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán in September 1992 and dismantle the insurgency.

The Peruvian counterinsurgency succeeded due to a strategy that deliberately cut ties between the guerrillas and the drug traffickers. Essentially, the armed forces of Peru took control of the drug trade from the leftist guerrillas. U.S. anti-narcotics officials, together with their Peruvian police colleagues, were less than thrilled with this strategy – as were the tens of thousands of people who were caught in the crossfire. But for myriad U.S. defense officials more interested in defeating Shining Path than stemming the tide of drugs, the narco-terrorism label had facilitated a clear success – and drafted a valuable blueprint.

Colombia and the ‘narco-guerrilla connection’

The incident that indelibly linked the drug cartels and the communist guerrillas in the U.S. concept of narco-terrorism was the November 1985 M-19 siege of the Colombian Palace of Justice, the country’s supreme court. The M-19, or 19th of April movement, so named for a disputed election, had as a main objective to establish socialism in Colombia. The guerrillas took the high court hostage and intended to subject the then-president to a trial. The resulting clash with the military left nearly 100 people dead, including soldiers, guerrillas and 11 of the justices.

Allegations surfaced that Pablo Escobar, head of the notorious Medellín cartel, had paid M-19 for the raid. The guerrillas had apparently stolen hundreds of documents, including U.S. extradition requests for Escobar. Though this motive is still disputed – and even the U.S. ambassador in Bogotá emphasized that the “narco-guerrilla connection” had not been proven – the shocking event hardened U.S. public opinion against the new threat of narco-terrorism.

In April 1986 the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 221, officially linking counternarcotics and counterinsurgency in U.S. foreign policy. The declaration of drugs as a national security threat widened the scope of U.S. involvement in the Colombian counterinsurgency against entrenched communist guerrilla groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army.

That cooperation continues to the present day, though it is currently jeopardized by hostility between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, himself a former member of M-19.

The selective application of trafficking claims

The narco-terrorism label was selectively applied not only to left-wing guerrillas but to the two communist governments in Latin America. The Reagan administration seized upon allegations of Nicaraguan and Cuban drug trafficking to influence U.S. public opinion at a time when the American people worried about becoming bogged down in another Vietnam-style quagmire.

Vietnam had shattered the foreign policy consensus around the containment of Soviet communism, but the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic created a powerful new rationale for U.S. intervention. After Congress, citing human rights concerns, restricted aid to the anti-communist Contra forces fighting Nicaragua’s left-wing Sandinista government, Reagan publicly accused the Sandinistas of drug trafficking.

The only evidence produced to support the charge was likely obtained as the result of a joint DEA-CIA sting operation involving Barry Seal, an American drug smuggler turned DEA informant later played by Tom Cruise in the Hollywood cinematic version of the sordid tale, “American Made.” Questions arose as to whether the Nicaraguan trafficker identified by the sting was even linked to anyone in the Sandinista government.

At the same time, the Reagan administration ignored allegations that the Contras themselves were smuggling cocaine into the U.S. Indeed, a Senate investigation spearheaded by U.S. Sen. John Kerry revealed that administration officials had repeatedly ignored or obstructed evidence of Contra drug trafficking. The CIA’s inspector general found that the agency had received but neglected to verify similar allegations.

These activities were tolerated because they raised money for a cause that Reagan and his supporters viewed as righteous. The Contras were seen as “freedom fighters” struggling to liberate Nicaragua from communism.

Coming full circle

Then, as now, Washington policymakers pursued a regional approach designed to strengthen security cooperation and bolster the military capabilities of allied nations.

In March 2026 the Trump administration created the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, or Shield of the Americas, a security alliance to stop illegal immigration, Russian and Chinese interference, and “narco-terrorist gangs and cartels.” In his remarks at the March 7 opening summit, Trump insisted that “the only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power (of) our militaries.”

Then, as now, this collaboration appears to be aimed at the leftist and communist governments in the Western Hemisphere.

In many cases, the drug framing is an explicit rationale for action. That was most recently on display with the U.S. designation of the two largest criminal gangs in Brazil as foreign terrorist organizations, leading Brazilian officials of the leftist Lula government to warn that any pretext for intervention would be “unacceptable.”

In other cases the administration’s argument is broader. The ratcheting up of military maneuvers, rhetoric and sanctions against Cuba – including declaring the island nation an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. security – has led many to speculate that Cuba is the next target of regime change.

While the narco-terrorism label may be applied selectively depending on the case, the result remains the fulfillment of anti-communist political objectives dating back to the Cold War.

The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, or any other part of the federal government.

Michelle D. Paranzino does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Pennsylvania has become a hot spot for data center proposals and public backlash about where to build them.

I’m a law professor and executive director of Penn State’s Center for Energy Law and Policy. I’m also a native of Archbald, a borough of 7,500 residents in the Lackawanna Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania. My hometown has drawn national attention because of proposals for multiple data centers that would cover 14% of its area.

Because of my professional and personal interest in data centers, I have been researching local responses to data center proposals across Pennsylvania. I’ve learned there are a host of considerations that local officials and citizens are taking into account when they evaluate data center proposals.

Pros and cons of big data centers

At its most basic, a data center is a building that houses and runs large computer systems.

Because data centers tend to be large developments, hosting one can provide a community more tax revenue. This revenue comes from increased property tax assessments as well as newly created jobs.

However, these job are mostly limited to the construction phase. One estimate suggests a moderately large data center would create about 15-30 long-term jobs.

On the other hand, data centers raise concerns about environmental and social impacts. They consume large amounts of energy and water, leading to fears of higher water and electric utility bills for other consumers.

Emissions from diesel generators can contribute to local air pollution and worsen asthma and other health conditions.

Data centers have also been shown to create heat island effects, raising the local air temperature by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).

They can also be loud due to the noise from cooling systems and diesel generators. And some residents object to what they consider eyesores in rural or suburban communities.

Communities can plan ahead

Because of the significant impact that a data center can have on its surroundings, communities benefit from planning ahead before any proposal has even been made in their area.

One of the most powerful tools a Pennsylvania municipality has is its authority over zoning under Pennsylvania’s Municipalities Planning Code.

Under this law, a municipality generally cannot completely exclude from its zoning ordinance a legal use of a property unless it is inherently objectionable. An example of an inherently objectionable use might be a heliport in a heavily residential municipality.

But it can regulate where within the municipality buildings or other structures can be constructed and how they can operate.

Many Pennsylvania municipalities, including East Vincent Township and Jessup Borough, have amended their zoning ordinances to account for data centers.

Zoning ordinances are a powerful tool

The Pennsylvania municipalities of Fairview Township and Butler Township/Arendtsville Borough have restricted data centers to industrial zones. Mayfield Borough has restricted them to commercial zones.

Municipalities can also determine what level of municipal approval is required for a data center development. In Pennsylvania, uses can be allowed “by right,” “special exception” or “conditional use.”

“By right” means that no approval is required as long as ordinance provisions are followed.

By “special exception” requires approval from a municipal zoning hearing board.

By “conditional use” requires approval from the municipality’s governing body. This might be a board of supervisors or borough council.

Most Pennsylvania municipalities that have addressed this issue have designated data centers as a conditional use. Some, such as Butler Township/Arendtsville Borough, have allowed them as a special exception. When a municipal body evaluates an application for a conditional use or special exception, it must determine whether the proposed data center complies with the zoning ordinance and that it would not otherwise injure the public interest.

Setback distances and impact studies

Another significant tool that municipalities have used is setback distances. A setback distance defines how far a data center structure must be from an adjacent property.

In Pennsylvania, ordinances have established setbacks for data centers from 50 feet (15 meters) to 400 feet (122 meters). Many ordinances establish longer setbacks from residential properties, hospitals or schools than from industrial sites.

Many ordinances also require plans or studies to be submitted as part of a zoning application. Noise or sound studies are common ones. These studies are intended to establish background noise levels for the area of the proposed data center and to identify ways to mitigate noise impacts.

Municipalities may also require developers to submit an environmental impact assessment, transportation impact study or emergency response plan, such as for a fire on-site.

How to protect your community

Learning about the specifics of a particular data center proposal can help a community to understand the potential impacts – both positive and negative – and prepare a response.

Local residents and officials should be poised to ask probing questions about:

• power and water demand, and the source of those resources

• infrastructure needs

• utility rate impacts

• cooling system design and noise and resource consumption impacts

• site design and landscape impact

• job creation and tax revenue projections

• noise mitigation strategies

• traffic effects

• air and water pollution emissions

Penn State Extension published a guide to common questions about data centers that may facilitate discussions with community officials and data center developers.

It may be possible in some circumstances for municipalities to negotiate community benefits agreements with data center developers. These agreements can ensure that the host community obtains certain specified benefits, such as local workforce guarantees or infrastructure development, as a result of the data center project.

The drive to build data centers and related infrastructure is moving quickly. By updating ordinances in advance, and diligently collecting information about any data center proposals that are made, local officials and citizens can protect the best interests of their communities.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Michael Helbing’s work for the Penn State Center for Energy Law and Policy has received funding from the Sloan Foundation, Arnold Ventures, the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the National Science Foundation. He is a member of Citizens for a Healthy Jessup and has volunteered for the Democratic Party. He owns shares in PPL Corporation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Americans typically commemorate the nation’s birthday with hot dogs and hamburgers.

Instead, I think we should mark the 250th anniversary of the United States with a hearty bowl of pepper pot stew.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, pepper pot stew was a popular street food. A dish of Afro-Caribbean origin, it was typically made with tripe and other cheap cuts of meat mixed with vegetables, hot peppers and other spices.

Enslaved Africans likely brought the dish to Philadelphia from the Caribbean in the 18th century, when the two regions were tightly connected through trade.

As a historian of women and labor in the early republic, I have learned how important impoverished and ordinary individuals were to the country’s founding. Cooking and preparing food, spinning and weaving cloth, washing and mending clothes, and caring for the sick were just some of the kinds of labor that supported the fledgling nation. Much of this work was carried out by marginalized women who are often overlooked in national commemorations.

One such woman I’ve researched represents both the possibilities and sharp limitations of freedom in that era. She was a pepper pot seller in Philadelphia known to us only as Dina.

Hiding in plain sight

Pennsylvania, like many northern states, responded to the Declaration of Independence’s rhetorical commitment to liberty by enacting a gradual emancipation law.

On the day the law went into effect in 1780, however, its provisions freed no one.

Children born to enslaved mothers before March 1, 1780, would remain enslaved for the rest of their lives. Children born after that date remained in bondage until they were 28 years old. So-called “slaves for life,” the status Dina held, would have had no hope of gaining legal freedom.

In the face of this grim reality, some, like Dina, seized freedom for themselves.

She slipped away from her enslaver, Rev. James Anderson, in Middletown, Chester County, sometime in 1785 or 1786 and made her way to nearby Philadelphia.

Almost all of the information we have about Dina comes from a notice Anderson placed in a local newspaper offering a reward for her return. Each detail is stained with his opinions about the woman he held as property. Anderson described Dina as “lusty,” a word that can be interpreted in a number of ways.

White people generally held insidious ideas about Black women’s sexuality in this period. In the 18th century, lusty also meant insolent, which might have conveyed Anderson’s frustrations with Dina’s unwillingness to accept his authority over her. The word also could refer to health and vigor, so it’s possible Anderson was describing Dina’s physique and general affect.

Nonetheless, the advertisement exemplifies the paradox of liberty and enslavement at the nation’s founding.

It is impossible to know how familiar Dina was with Philadelphia, or if she had friends or family there when she arrived. She might have simply decided that her best chance of avoiding recapture was in an urban area where she could blend in with the free Black community that was growing rapidly due to migration from neighboring states and people manumitted by their enslavers. Dina might have imagined she could tuck herself into the hustle and bustle of this incredibly dense city more easily than in a thinly populated rural area.

After Dina got to Philadelphia, she made an interesting decision. Instead of finding more discrete employment, such as working as a domestic, she supported herself by selling pepper pot stew in one of the city’s markets. According to Anderson, she had been seen “numerous times” over the past 18 months.

One of many Black women selling the dish, Dina could essentially hide in plain sight from Anderson and anyone who hoped to collect the US$4 reward he offered.

It is unclear how long she was able to evade Anderson, but the fact that she maintained her freedom for at least a year and a half is remarkable. Philadelphia’s vagrancy docket is full of examples of freedom seekers who were apprehended almost immediately.

Dina’s ultimate fate is unknown. After Anderson’s three newspaper notices, she disappears from the archive. She may have been captured and returned to Anderson. Or it’s possible that working as a pepper pot seller allowed her to gain her freedom permanently.

Opportunity in Philly’s informal economy

Spiraling war debt and inflation during the 1780s fell heavily on the neediest Americans. In Philadelphia, impoverished people often subsisted on bread. Affordable, hearty street food like pepper pot stew would have offered important nutrients and perhaps pleasure from a good meal. By providing cheap, nourishing food for working Philadelphians, pepper pot sellers could be seen as participating in a kind of informal mutual aid.

However, city officials characterized some market activities during this period as “riotous and disorderly” and imposed stricter regulations around when and where pepper pot sellers could operate. Boisterous gatherings of Black and white working-class people might have seemed potentially threatening or disruptive to city leaders.

Dina’s role as an informal trader echoed across the 19th century. Many Black women took up the pepper pot trade, and some earned decent incomes. These women, in turn, contributed to a range of charitable, religious and abolitionist organizations that formed the backbone of a vibrant Black Philadelphia. They also helped support their families, even in an economic order that devalued Black women’s labor.

As the United States celebrates its semiquincentennial this year, many Americans will be reminded of the stories of popular Revolution-era figures such as Paul Revere or George Washington.

But I’ll be thinking of Dina and the countless other Black women who sold pepper pot stew on the streets of Philadelphia, the nation’s first capital. To me, they symbolize the fragile hope, terrible failures and tireless quest for true freedom that defined the founding era.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Carolyn Zola has received funding from the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Association of University Women.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

When Americans think about campaign finance, they usually picture wealthy donors, political action committees and super PACs pouring money into elections.

But some of the most revealing money moves happen inside Congress itself.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives routinely give campaign money to fellow members of their own party. These transfers make up only a small share of total campaign spending, but they can reveal something important: how parties reward influence, support vulnerable candidates and organize power from within.

In our recent study, my research colleague and I analyzed campaign contributions exchanged among House members from 2009 to 2022, using data from the Federal Election Commission. We looked at who gave money to whom across seven election cycles and asked a simple question: Are these decisions mostly ad hoc, or do they follow clear political patterns?

We found that they are far from random. Internal campaign giving reflects the structure of party politics in the House. Senior members and party leaders are more likely to be givers than receivers, and members facing pressure from outside spending are more likely to attract support from their party colleagues. We also found that Democrats and Republicans organize these campaign contributions differently.

A hidden side of campaign finance

Campaign contributions between House members are legal, common and publicly reportable. In practice, these transfers can help members build alliances, strengthen their party standing and direct resources to competitive races.

That makes these contributions politically meaningful even if they do not dominate the overall money race. More than a financial act, a contribution from one representative to another serves as a signal about who matters and who is vulnerable.

To study this, we treated member-to-member contributions as a network. Each House member was a node, and each contribution created a link from one member to another. This allowed us to track broad patterns over time rather than focusing only on high-profile lawmakers.

Leaders give more than they receive

One of our clearest findings is that party insiders – meaning senior lawmakers and members in formal leadership roles – play a major role in steering campaign cash.

In our study, leadership included the speaker, party leaders, whips, caucus or conference chairs, and committee chairs or ranking members. Across the seven election cycles that we analyzed, about 79% of Democratic leaders and 71% of Republican leaders gave to at least one fellow House member, compared with 65% and 58% of nonleaders.

Leaders also tended to give to far more colleagues. In the 2021-22 election cycle, for example, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries gave to 76 fellow members in our network, Nancy Pelosi to 61, and Republican Steve Scalise to 192. Republican Jason Smith gave to 100 fellow members.

Public reporting shows the scale that these efforts can reach. During the 2021-22 cycle, Kevin McCarthy’s Majority Committee PAC reportedly contributed about US$4 million to select House Republicans in difficult reelection races.

Seniority mattered too, especially among Democrats. Longer-serving Democratic members were more likely to give and less likely to receive. This suggests that experienced members often help channel money toward colleagues with greater electoral need.

The two parties do not look the same

Our study also found a striking difference between the two major parties.

Democratic contribution networks were relatively stable over time. Their giving patterns remained more centralized, with money flowing repeatedly through a smaller set of members. That suggests a more consistent and hierarchical internal system for directing support.

Republican networks changed more over the same period. Early in our study, their money flows were also more centralized. But over time, contributions became less focused on a small core of recipients and were more likely to occur within smaller connected groups. That suggests support was being coordinated less through a single hub and more through clusters of politically connected members.

While Democrats do seem to rely more on a stable central structure, and Republicans appear to have moved toward a more dispersed system, it should not be taken to mean that one party is orderly and the other is chaotic. Both approaches offer their own advantages.

In today’s political language, a uniparty means the idea that Democrats and Republicans are basically one indistinguishable establishment. Our findings point the other way: At least in internal campaign finance, the parties are behaving in distinct ways.

What outside spending may be signaling

We also examined the role of super PACs, which can spend unlimited sums independently to support or oppose candidates.

We found a consistent pattern across both parties: Members targeted by more super PAC activity were more likely to receive contributions from fellow party members and less likely to contribute to others themselves.

A concrete example shows why this matters. In the 2020 cycle, our data shows that outside spending reached about $8.4 million in Abigail Spanberger’s Virginia race for the House and about $7.36 million in Rep. David Valadao’s California race. When that much outside money floods a contest, it sends a public signal that the race is competitive and strategically important. Other lawmakers can see that signal and redirect their own money toward the colleague under pressure.

Why this matters

At a time when the role of money in politics remains deeply contested, such patterns remind Americans that campaign finance is not just a story about donors and interest groups. It is also about how politicians finance one another from the inside.

Those internal flows help show how parties build influence, protect vulnerable members and respond to election pressures. They also offer a window into broader differences between Democrats and Republicans.

More interestingly, it tells a story about party insiders making strategic choices about where money should go — and, in doing so, helping shape the balance of power in Congress.

Mayank Kejriwal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump’s choice for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, has proved controversial. Pulte’s lack of background in national security matters has sparked resistance from Democrats on Capitol Hill, which is not surprising. But some Republicans, too, have expressed dismay at the president’s choice, a Trump loyalist who currently runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

“I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas.

The current director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is leaving the job at the end of June 2026.

Here’s why it matters who holds the job of director of national intelligence.

Principal national security adviser

To speak of telling truth to power seems terribly old-fashioned these days, but as a veteran of White House intelligence operations, I know that is the essence of the job.

The director of national intelligence is the president’s principal adviser on intelligence, though the CIA director has remained somewhat co-equal in that role. In past administrations, the director of national intelligence has been responsible for both the President’s Daily Brief, where the most crucial and sophisticated intelligence is presented, and for the work of the National Intelligence Council.

Most of the President’s Daily Brief items are still done by the CIA, but the director of national intelligence or a deputy briefed the president, daily in most administrations but one or two times a week in the first Trump administration. Now, it is not clear the briefings take place.

The issues in those briefings lean toward the immediate and tactical: What is the situation on the ground in the wars in Iran and Ukraine? If the United States does X, how will the Iranian regime or Russian President Vladimir Putin respond?

But intelligence strives to push presidents and their colleagues to think more strategically: What are the implications of hypersonic missiles? What is the trajectory of the relationship between Russia and China? What are China’s geostrategic objectives, and what is the role of the Belt and Road Initiative in that vision? What if, far from toppling it, U.S. and Israeli attacks push the Iranian regime to become more hard line, or even produce some “rally ’round the flag” effect among previous opponents of the regime.

9/11 led to intelligence changes

I was chair of the National Intelligence Council from 2014 to 2017, providing day-to-day intelligence support to the National Security Council and its committees, as well as trying to find time to do more strategic intelligence, looking at trends and connections across issues, producing what are called National Intelligence Estimates.

The director of national intelligence, known as the DNI, sits atop the 17 agencies that make up what is called the U.S. intelligence community. The director neither runs those agencies nor has full control of their budgets.

Rather, the director of national intelligence coordinates them, which sometimes seems like the proverbial herding of cats. They assemble a combined budget for intelligence, but many of the big agencies, such as the National Security Agency, which makes and breaks codes and intercepts signals of interest, belong to the Pentagon.

The creation of the director of national intelligence position was a direct result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The report of the 9/11 Commission was vividly damning about the failures of communication between agencies in the run-up to 9/11. In meetings in New York that summer, CIA and FBI officers were literally unsure what they could tell each other: The former wondered whether the FBI people were really cleared to hear this, while the latter feared that talking might blow a case they were working on. That lack of coordination played a role in letting the plotters slip through intelligence, often in plain sight.

The result of the commission’s work was the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created the director of national intelligence position.

Before that, the director of central intelligence wore two hats, as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and loose coordinator of the broader intelligence community. Hardly surprisingly, directors of central intelligence spent most of their time running the CIA, for that was the source of their troops – and their troubles when they arose.

A score of blue-ribbon panels over 50 years had recommended breaking the director of central intelligence’s conflict of interest – coordinating agencies and their budgets while running one of them – and creating a director of national intelligence position.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence for whom I worked as chair of the National Intelligence Council, constantly emphasized “integration.” Across agencies, integration mostly means talking to each other and sharing information. This works against the natural tendency to scoop your colleagues.

Across disciplines, integration means better aligning what information intelligence agencies collect with what analysts need.

How integration works

If presidents want to know what the CIA thinks about a particular issue, they can simply ask. Usually, though, the question is what does the intelligence community think, and then the question goes to the National Intelligence Council, the director of national intelligence’s interagency group for intelligence analysis.

The National Intelligence Council is organized like the State Department, with officers for regions and functions. Once a question has been presented, the relevant national intelligence officer will convene his or her colleagues from the other agencies. They will argue about the answer to the question, a process sweetly called “coordination,” then agree on the answer. If need be, the process can be done in a few hours.

Major strategic analyses – national intelligence estimates – like one done in 2022 on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic out to 2026, may take months. In all cases, though, the analysis carefully records where there are differences of view in the intelligence community.

In my last year chairing the National Intelligence Council, of the 700 or so analyses we did, about 400 were responses to questions – called “taskings” in governmentese – from the national security adviser or one of the deputies.

National intelligence officers are national experts from inside or outside federal government, and their deputies – the heart and soul of the NIC – are all assigned from intelligence agencies. The largest number come from the CIA, but I worked with a cyber analyst from the Secret Service and a wonderful analyst from the New York Police Department.

Resolutely nonpolitical stance

What was striking then and has struck me both times I’ve had the privilege of running a U.S. intelligence agency is the dedication of the officers.

They work for the nation, not for a political party or ideology. As chair of the NIC, I had no idea of the politics of my people, save for the several closest to me. For them, telling truth to power is not a slogan. It is what they do. They are always worried about “politicizing” – producing an assessment to suit a policymaker’s preference or, worse, being pressured to do so.

The president’s daily briefers, for instance, give up a year of their lives to come to work at 4 a.m., learn their briefs and then fan out across Washington to brief senior officials. They like being “on the team” of the person they brief, but they become uncomfortable if the conversation turns political.

The director of national intelligence sets the tone for that resolutely nonpolitical stance and polices it through principles articulated in the agency’s analytic integrity and standards. As chair of the NIC, for instance, I’d receive regular assessments of both the quality of our analyses and whether we risked becoming “politicized.”

For their part, do politicians and agency leaders like it when their pet projects are assessed by intelligence as unwise or infeasible? Of course not. I’ve been on that side of the intelligence-policy divide as well. But the United States is much the better for it.

This story, originally published on Dec. 4, 2024, has been updated to reflect that Bill Pulte has been chosen by President Trump to be the acting director of national intelligence.

Gregory F. Treverton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

More people are talking about the Declaration of Independence now than they likely have for decades, largely because of the festivities, exhibits, historical commemorations and other public events associated with the upcoming 250th anniversary of American independence.

But even as they discuss the historical meaning, purpose and ideas of the declaration, they should remember that independence was only the first step in becoming a nation.

Despite laying out the purposes of the new nation, the declaration did not say what kind of government the new United States should have. That discussion was left for later debates, leading first to the Articles of Confederation and then, ultimately, to the Constitution.

Yet, fully understanding the Constitution requires referring to the another crucial founding-era document: The Federalist, known to many as The Federalist Papers. Without it, the Constitution may not have been ratified, and it has helped guide American government and law for the past 2½ centuries.

Drive for ratification

Under the Articles of Confederation, adopted by the Continental Congress in late 1777, the national government was exceptionally weak, unable to levy taxes or tariffs or enforce treaty obligations. Moreover, the states often abused their authority, both over their own citizens and with regard to each other. For example, states would often impose tariffs on each other’s goods, even if those goods were moving only from Virginia to Maryland and vice versa, thereby inhibiting the development of a national market and hamstringing internal trade.

The Constitution sought to correct these problems by creating a much stronger national government able to protect itself from national security threats, both foreign and domestic, and secure liberty at the same time.

Those supporting ratification adopted the name Federalists on the idea that they supported strengthening the national government, which was often described as a federal union. Their opponents, who sought to defeat the Constitution’s ratification, were then dubbed the Anti-Federalists, much to the latter’s consternation.

While there were a variety of Federalist authors writing to support the Constitution during the ratification debates in 1787-88, the essays of The Federalist were specifically co-authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay under the collective pseudonym “Publius.”

The practical political purpose of the essays was to convince New York to ratify the Constitution. Nine states had to ratify to put the Constitution into effect, yet it was recognized that without key states such as New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the Constitution – and more broadly the union – could not survive.

Thus, even though 10 states ratified before New York, enabling the Constitution to go into effect, New York’s ratification remained essential.

Each of The Federalist’s 85 essays – 51 by Hamilton, 29 by Madison and five by Jay – were addressed “To the People of the State of New York.” Nearly all were published in New York newspapers as op-eds, with some republished in other states. They were meant to be read and thought about by an interested and educated public, as the authors understood the importance of public opinion not simply to the ratification process but to any democratic system.

Ratifying the Constitution was the immediate goal of The Federalist. But in making their arguments, the authors went further, addressing fundamental questions of politics by laying out the political theory that underlies that Constitution.

In short, The Federalist sits at the intersection where theory meets practice.

Advancing political science

In “Federalist 1,” Hamilton breaks down major issues to be considered in deciding whether to adopt the Constitution: the utility of the union; the defects of the Articles of Confederation; the need for energetic government; how the Constitution is analogous to the New York constitution; how the Constitution will preserve liberty and prosperity; and how the Constitution creates a republican government. Such a republican government is defined by Madison in “Federalist 39” as a government with powers derived from the people and administered by representatives for a period of time.

Reflecting the political debate, however, the authors had to be flexible with their writing plans as they responded to the arguments made by their Anti-Federalist opponents.

Yet, even in that dynamic environment, there are two consistent themes that contribute to The Federalist’s timelessness.

The first theme revolves around what Hamilton in “Federalist 9” calls “the science of politics.” Hamilton and Madison frequently address the ideas of past political philosophers and the traditional assumptions of what republics were supposed to look like.

This is most evident in “Federalist 10” where Madison overturns the long-held belief, articulated most clearly by the French philosopher Montesquieu and embraced by the Anti-Federalists, that republics needed to be small to preserve liberty.

Madison shows that, on the contrary, it was a large republic that could best deal with the problem of factions and preserve liberty by preventing any faction from gaining a majority, thereby providing “a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.”

Similarly, in “Federalist 70,” Hamilton explains that a single strong executive is not inherently monarchical and antithetical to republican government, but rather is essential to a republic’s proper operation. “Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government,” he wrote.

The Federalist advanced political science itself, changing the conception of what a republic was and could be.

Accounting for self-interest

A second theme is the recognition of how human motivations interact with institutions.

Past philosophers, such as Aristotle, emphasized the necessity of virtue in both the people and their rulers, and Montesquieu argued that virtue was the defining principle of republics.

But Hamilton and Madison, focusing more on historical experience than theory, emphasized the need for institutions to account for the self-interested behavior of officeholders.

This emphasis is evident at the very beginning when Hamilton asserts in “Federalist 1” that a clean debate on the merits of any public proposal “is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected,” and that some people will be driven by personal interests.

In “Federalist 51,” Madison provides the clearest articulation of this view with his famous statement, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.”

In their view, it is not enough to rely on the virtue of officeholders. But we can arrange our institutions in such a way that our low, base, self-interested human nature may be channeled to ultimately serve a higher public good.

This is not, however, to say that The Federalist is a cynical work.

Enlightened statesmen not always at the helm

In “Federalist 55” Madison points out that “there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.”

That optimistic statement is followed by his observation, “Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”

Republics rely on the people having some measure of public virtue to work. The key insight Madison brings out is that such higher qualities alone cannot be relied upon.

The institutions created by the Constitution are set up to be functional, but they are also built to account for the kind of human beings who will inhabit them. As Madison succinctly put it in “Federalist 10”: “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”

Thomas Jefferson called The Federalist “the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written.” It remains the most systematic and important exploration of our constitutional system.

As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, it is worth reflecting on the institutions that have facilitated the endurance of that independence. You can find no better guide to that reflection than The Federalist.

Jordan Cash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

_Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison says alerts from ShotSpotter, a gun detection technology, help officers respond quickly to shootings.

“Without it, I wouldn’t have the closure rate [of resolved crimes] that I have and a lot of families wouldn’t have the justice they deserve,” he said in March 2026, according to BridgeDetroit, a nonprofit news service.

_During a Detroit City Council committee meeting on May 18, 2026, police officials said ShotSpotter led to hundreds of search warrants and confiscated guns in 2025. _

It’s not clear how many arrests resulted last year. Bettison has been quoted saying that ShotSpotter during the May 18 City Council meeting and
256 during a March 23 budget briefing. We reached out to the Detroit Police Department to clarify the number, but it didn’t respond by our deadline.

The department has requested a nine-month extension for ShotSpotter, which would cost the city an additional $US2.06 million, while it considers other vendors to provide gun detection technology, the Detroit News reported.

The system uses a network of acoustic sensors to detect, locate and alert police to shots fired. ShotSpotter is in use in more than 180 American cities, according to the company. The technology has been criticized for its high price tag, ineffectiveness in improving public safety and lack of transparency.

Detroit City Council first approved ShotSpotter in 2020, and the system became fully active in 2021. In 2022, City Council members narrowly approved, by a 5-4 vote, expanding the program to more neighborhoods. The technology now covers approximately 39 square miles (about 101 square kilometers), about a third of the city, and is deployed in the neighborhoods police say are most likely to experience gun violence. The contract that expires on June 30, 2026, cost $7 million over a four-year period.

Divya Ramjee and Tian An Wong are part of a team of researchers who studied the effectiveness of gunshot detection technology in Detroit during its first two years. The study is currently under peer review. They answered the following questions for The Conversation Detroit._

How did ShotSpotter affect calls to 911 to report gunshots?

Wong: Our research first looked at calls to 911 reporting gunshots before and after the first deployment of ShotSpotter in Detroit, covering February 2018 to November 2022. This data is available on Detroit’s Open Data Portal. In the areas of Detroit where ShotSpotter was implemented in 2021, calls to 911 to report gunshots initially dropped by 47%. This effect disappeared about after a year, however, and these calls returned to previous levels.

Our study does not cover the 2023 expansion of ShotSpotter in Detroit, though the data is currently available for those interested.

Although ShotSpotter alert time and location data is publicly available, the outcome of the police response to those alerts, is not and the DPD has never released data on the effectiveness of the technology during these first two years of use. To analyze outcomes, we made a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request to the Detroit Police Department.

Did the technology affect officer response times or the rates of arrests for violent crime in Detroit?

Wong: By analyzing the FOIA data, we found that of the 5,853 ShotSpotter alerts from that first deployment, just two alerts, or 0.03%, resulted in at least one arrest. Additionally, 798 alerts, or 13.63%, resulted in at least one firearm recovered.

Those numbers are obviously low. However, we don’t believe that arrest rates should be used as a measure of ShotSpotter’s success. We need to understand the nature of those arrests and if they helped bring down gun-related incidents in the community.

We did not find any difference in officer response times. Some have argued that the alerts generate responses to events that would otherwise not have been reported due to lack of trust in law enforcement, but it is difficult to verify this claim.

I’d argue the request to renew ShotSpotter is not based on a rigorous review of the technology’s impact. In addition to ShotSpotter, Detroit also introduced a community violence intervention program in 2023 with a similar name – Shot Stoppers. That program determines grant renewals to participating community organizations based on a drop in homicides and nonfatal shootings in their geographic area.

But the reality is that homicides in Detroit hit a 60-year low in 2025, and nonfatal shootings are also significantly down. This tracks with nationwide crime trends. Our research tries to get at the role ShotSpotter played in this reduction, if any.

What do you make of Bettison’s statement that ShotSpotter alerts led to dozens or hundreds of arrests in 2025?

Wong: The arrest data that we obtained from the Detroit Police Department covers February 2018 to November 2022. Bettison is referring to a later time period – after the expansion of the coverage area – so his numbers don’t necessarily contradict ours. The only way to know for sure is to FOIA data for this most recent time period and fact-check what the chief is saying. This process is currently underway.

In the meantime, two arrests, as we found in the actual data we obtained from the police department, compared with 78 – or even 256, as Bettison as said – seems like a big jump, and more context is needed.

Is there any evidence that ShotSpotter saved lives of gunshot victims?

Ramjee: Evidence is inconclusive at best. Some research supports that the technology can potentially increase the likelihood of police transport of gunshot victims to hospitals and reduce EMS response times for victims, which could potentially improve survival outcomes. However, research hasn’t proved a corresponding reduction in mortality rates in areas where ShotSpotter has been deployed across the U.S.

How is ShotSpotter received in other U.S. cities?

Ramjee: There are continued issues with the accuracy of sensors, including false positives and missed gunshot detections, that complicate its practical effectiveness.

The lack of evidence that ShotSpotter improves public safety, given its high cost, has prompted a number of communities to reassess its value. Chicago; San Antonio; Houston; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Portland, Oregon have either terminated existing agreements or indicated that they do not intend to renew them upon expiration.

In New York, the city comptroller indicated that available evidence from a June 2024 audit did not support continued investment in ShotSpotter. Nevertheless, the New York City Police Department opted to renew its contract for an additional three-year term, at a cost of approximately $21.8 million.

What happens to the data ShotSpotter collects? Specifically, does the city of Detroit own it, can researchers access it, and how does that compare to 911 data?

Ramjee: ShotSpotter data ise not broadly shared with the public. The company, which rebranded as SoundThinking, Inc. in 2023, considers the raw audio from sensors, the underlying algorithms and other system-generated data to be proprietary. SoundThinking states that the company only shares alerts, gunshot locations, timestamps and short, isolated audio clips with police agencies. Prosecutors, defense attorneys and courts may also access this incident data as part of criminal cases, depending on legal rules.

Cities and municipalities themselves do not necessarily obtain full ownership of ShotSpotter data even when data is shared with them. In most cases, contractual agreements dictate the access and use of incident data by the respective jurisdictions, and there are generally constraints on how they can store, analyze or publicly release the data.

For 911 call data in Detroit, access to the data depends on the level of detail required. The city’s Open Data Portal provides a large dataset of law enforcement-serviced 911 calls that includes time of incident, call type, response metrics and ShotSpotter-initiated 911 alerts, but it redacts information that exposes a person’s identity.

Obtaining the actual dispatch logs or the arrest outcomes from ShotSpotter alerts typically requires submitting a FOIA request. That process can be tedious, may involve delays due to issues with resources, outdated technology or flawed data reporting practices, and may ultimately result in partial data or data with redactions.

Tian An Wong received funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

Divya Ramjee is affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

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Can kids go to prison? – Artie, age 10, New York City

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The United States has a special justice system for people under age 18. But youth can be tried in adult courts and go to adult jails and prisons for certain crimes.

The youth justice system was created because young people are different from adults. The part of the brain that helps control emotions and actions doesn’t finish developing until your mid-20s. Research shows that most people who commit crimes in their youth grow out of this behavior as they mature.

For this reason, juvenile courts and detention centers are designed to protect young people and help them return to normal life. That’s supposed to be balanced with holding young people accountable in ways that reflect their age and degree of maturity.

The Supreme Court has recognized that children are not little adults. It ruled in 2005 that sentencing a person under 18 to death violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

In 2010 the court reached the same conclusion about sentencing someone under 18 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes other than murder. And in 2012 it ruled that states could not mandate life without parole for people under 18 even if they committed murder.

Juvenile court is not ‘kiddy court’

Many young people who end up in court are accused of delinquency – actions that break the criminal law, such as stealing a car or breaking into someone’s house. If they are found guilty, the consequences can be serious.

They may be put on probation and supervised in their community. But they can also be placed in residential programs or committed to locked juvenile facilities until age 18, or 21 in some states.

Young people can also be charged with what are called status offenses – actions that are illegal for people under age 18, such as skipping school, running away from home or being unable to follow the rules at home. Status offenders can be sent to foster care or group homes, where they are not locked up. They are not supposed to be placed with delinquents in juvenile facilities.

Children in court

The U.S. is more willing than many other countries to try young children in the criminal system. This is true even though the Supreme Court ruled in 1960 that no person should be prosecuted in any court system unless they have a factual and rational understanding of the charges they face and can effectively communicate with their lawyer.

Many youth under age 14 lack these abilities and are not legally competent to stand trial. This was an important reason Massachusetts, where I served as a juvenile court judge, raised the minimum age of juvenile court jurisdiction for all offenses to 12 in 2018.

However, 24 other states and four U.S. territories have no minimum age for trying children in juvenile court. Among the 26 states that do have a minimum, that age is 10. Fourteen states and four territories allow children of any age to be detained or locked up.

The American Bar Association recommends that 14 should be the minimum age of prosecution. That’s the most common standard in other countries.

Trying young people as adults

In every state, cases that involve serious offenses, such as armed robbery or rape, can be moved to the adult criminal system. Generally, youth can be transferred to adult courts at age 14 for certain offenses. Some states allow transfer of people as young as age 10.

This can happen for different reasons. Some states allow prosecutors to ask juvenile court judges to waive jurisdiction after a hearing on the case. Other states let prosecutors directly file cases in the criminal system. Still others have laws that automatically send youth to the criminal legal system solely based on the offense charged.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1966 that transfer to adult court should not occur without a statement of findings or reasons by a judge. When judges considered these requests, the court held, they should take into account the nature of the offense, the impact on the victim, and the offender’s age, maturity, prior history and prospects for treatment.

But in states that automatically steer cases to adult court, or let prosecutors choose to file charges there, hearings don’t occur.

Where you live matters

Today, 28 states and Washington, D.C., have provisions for automatically sending youth to the adult criminal system. Data shows that this policy mainly affects people of color.

Between 2009 and 2024, for example, 80% of Maryland youth charged as adults were Black. In 2017, 84% of Alabama youth charged as adults were Black. And in Nebraska in 2024, 36% of youth transferred to the adult system were Black and 20% were Latino.

Florida prosecutes children as adults for serious crimes and sends juvenile offenders to adult prisons at higher rates than any other state. From 2009 through 2019, more than 16,000 children – some as young as 10 years old – were prosecuted as adults in Florida.

Transferring young people to adult prisons interrupts their education and social development. It also exposes them to high rates of violence by adult inmates.

What’s more, it doesn’t make the public safer. Studies show that youth who are transferred to the adult justice system are 34% more likely to commit new crimes after release than offenders who stay in the juvenile system.

Many of my fellow lawyers believe that trying young people as adults isn’t being smart on crime. In our view, the best way to keep the public safe and rehabilitate young offenders is to treat them in ways that reflect their age. That means channeling fewer young offenders into adult courts and not allowing youth who are transferred to be locked up with adults.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Jay Blitzman was a juvenile court judge in Massachusetts for 24 years, culminating as first justice of the Massachusetts Juvenile Court, Middlesex Division. Previously, he was a founder and the first director of the Roxbury Youth Advocacy Project and co-founded Citizens for Juvenile Justice, where he currently serves on the advisory committee. He is a member of several American Bar Association committees addressing youth justice issues.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The Trump administration on May 20, 2026, indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro for murder, based on the downing of two planes near the Cuban coastline in 1996 that killed four people.

As a historian of Latin America and U.S. foreign policy, I believe the indictment may be the prelude to direct U.S. military action against Cuba.

Before Castro, the last U.S. indictment of a Latin American leader occurred in January 2026, when a U.S. attorney appointed by President Donald Trump charged Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro with narco-terrorism. Those charges were promptly followed by U.S. military strikes on Venezuela and the abduction of Maduro.

Since January, the U.S. has ended the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and has used economic and military pressure to prevent other nations from trading with the island. And Trump recently threatened a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.

I believe that what’s missing from most recent analysis of this situation is the history of U.S. aggression against Cuba. This is essential context for understanding the Trump administration’s recent escalations.

‘Striking at Cuba constantly’

In 1823, U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams identified Cuba as “an object of transcendent importance to the political and commercial interests of our Union.” The 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and replaced him with Fidel Castro, brother of Raúl, directly challenged those interests by asserting political autonomy and expropriating private property.

State Department officials observed that “the majority of Cubans support Castro” because of the government’s redistributive measures and its “real honesty, courtesy, and idealism.” One official warned “that if the Cuban revolution is successful other countries in Latin America and perhaps elsewhere will use it as a model and we should decide whether or not we wish to have the Cuban revolution succeed.”

They decided quickly. By December 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower’s CIA director had approved plans to overthrow the Castro government. U.S. policy thereafter included direct sponsorship and safe haven for Cuban paramilitary groups.

The CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 is only the most famous episode. The U.S. trained 1,400 Cuban exiles to invade Cuba, hoping to ignite a nationwide rebellion. Instead, Cubans rallied behind the government.

Though U.S. analysts often criticize the invasion because it failed, it was also a major crime under international law. Several hundred Cubans were killed.

Fear of a repeat invasion also led Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to send nuclear missiles to Cuba, precipitating the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 that nearly led to nuclear war.

Longtime CIA official Richard Helms later testified that in the early 1960s, “We had task forces that were striking at Cuba constantly. We were attempting to blow up power plants, we were attempting to ruin sugar mills, we were attempting to do all kinds of things during this period. This was a matter of American Government policy.”

In 1976, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two Cuban exiles, planned the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner near Barbados that killed all 73 people aboard.

“The C.I.A. taught us everything,” Posada Carriles said later. “They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage.”

Both men were given refuge in the United States for the rest of their lives.

The Bay of Pigs invasion and the airline bombing violate the core principles of international law, including prohibitions on the unprovoked “threat or use of force” and collective punishment. The U.S. government itself defines “international terrorism” as “violent acts” intended “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion” or to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population.”

By that definition, its Cuba policy qualifies.

By ‘every possible means’

Another U.S. method of striking at Cuba was through economic sanctions, first imposed on the country in 1960. That year, a State Department official wrote that “every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba” so as “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” The logic of collective punishment was clear: make Cubans suffer enough that they rebel against Castro.

This policy is now more aggressive than ever. The tightening of U.S. sanctions since Trump’s first term has reduced Cuba’s income from tourism, remittances and overseas medical missions. Now, by choking off the supply of fuel, the U.S. has critically weakened the healthcare and sanitation systems that depend on electricity.

Medical professionals and United Nations observers have described scenes of ventilators and incubators left without power, pharmacies empty and healthcare workers forced into “horrible decisions” about who lives and dies. A recent medical study reported a 148% increase in infant mortality between 2018 and 2025, meaning that about 1,800 infants died who otherwise would have lived.

‘I was trained as a terrorist by the United States’

The focus of the recent U.S. indictment against Raúl Castro was the incident on Feb. 24, 1996, when the Cuban military, which was headed by Castro, shot down those two planes.

The planes were operated by Brothers to the Rescue, an anti-Castro group of Cuban exiles who said they were aiding Cuban emigres trying to reach Florida. The group’s head, and one of the surviving pilots that day, was José Basulto, a veteran CIA asset and participant in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

In 1962, Basulto fired a cannon and machine gun “16 times” at a Cuban hotel, he later recounted. “I was trained as a terrorist by the United States,” Basulto once told an interviewer.

Basulto’s plane had entered Cuban airspace on Feb. 24, as a U.S. customs service specialist later testified. Correspondence from the day shows that Basulto did so knowingly. The previous July, he had told a TV audience, “We want confrontation.”

While the Cuban military could have deescalated the situation more carefully that day, Cuba had been trying for months to stop the violations of its airspace.

I believe indicting Cuban officials over the incident is disingenuous, given the provocations by Brothers to the Rescue and U.S. actions against Cuba, which are in direct violation of international and U.S. laws that prohibit threats, nondefensive violence and collective punishment.

Kevin A. Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In the case of United States v. James Brien Comey Jr., the U.S. president’s security is pitted against the bedrock right to free speech enjoyed by Americans.

Two federal charges have been lodged against former FBI Director James Comey and are based on his Instagram post that depicted seashells spelling out “86 47.”

Comey’s post was interpreted by the U.S. Department of Justice as a threat to harm President Donald Trump. The indictment, obtained by the DOJ, alleges Comey violated two federal laws: 18 U.S.C. § 871, which makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully” threaten, kidnap or “inflict bodily injury upon the President of the United States,” and 18 U.S.C. § 875, which criminalizes “communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another.”

Comey’s argument against the charges is likely to be twofold: (1) He lacked the requisite intent that the prosecutor needs to prove his case, and (2) even if he had the intent required by the statute, his speech is protected by the First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Louise Flanagan set Oct. 21 as the Comey case trial date.

I’m a scholar of constitutional and criminal law as well as the First Amendment. The charges against Comey exist in a legal gray area that includes the First Amendment and a series of court decisions over five decades that have gone back and forth over what dangers constitute speech that can be punished.

Parsing the charges

In criminal law, there are generally two parts to most crimes – the criminal act and the criminal intent. The criminal act is referred to as the “actus reus.” The criminal intent is known as the “mens rea.”

Some crimes also require a particular result. For instance, murder requires a death of a person. A defendant can neither be charged with nor convicted of murder unless and until the victim dies. If the victim doesn’t die, then at most the defendant can be convicted of only attempted murder.

The criminal charges alleged in Comey’s case don’t require a result, however. The president need not be kidnapped or injured for someone to be charged with violating either of them.

But the prosecutor must still prove the criminal intent and the criminal act for both charges to stick in Comey’s case. In my view, the Justice Department will have a difficult time proving the mens rea against him.

Comey has consistently maintained that he didn’t know “86 47” implied violence against the president.

Meaning and purpose

Comey has stated he came across the shells that spelled out “86 47” while walking on a beach in North Carolina, took a picture and posted it on Instagram.

The term “86” is commonly used to mean “to throw out” or “to get rid of” in American slang. According to Merriam-Webster, the term “comes from 1930s soda-counter slang meaning that an item was sold out.”

Comey later removed the image from Instagram and posted a statement that read, “I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

Even though Comey has insisted that he thought it was a silly picture of shells arranged in a clever way to express a political viewpoint, the Trump administration argues that Comey not only knew the meaning of “86 47” but that he purposefully threatened the president.

What’s plausible?

The first crime charged in the indictment, 18 U.S.C. §871, requires the defendant to have “knowingly and willfully” threatened to kidnap or inflict bodily injury upon the president. This is the statute’s mens rea; the defendant must have known that he was threatening the president of the United States.

Comey’s statements suggest that he didn’t know the threatening nature of his Instagram post. Thus, he cannot be convicted of “knowingly” threatening the president if he didn’t know its meaning.

To convict Comey, the prosecutor must prove that he did, in fact, know the meaning of “86 47” when he posted it.

Comey’s career as a federal prosecutor and his tenure as the FBI director may work against him here. In my view, it’s more than plausible that Comey encountered the threatening version of the term “86” in his career. It’s also more than plausible that the term appears in documents, records and court filings that Comey has drafted and signed over his career, all of which could be used against him at trial.

But even if the Justice Department can prove Comey did, in fact, know the threatening nature of “86 47,” its case against him is not a slam dunk.

And that’s because of the First Amendment.

Testing what’s protected speech

As a constitutional law scholar, I’d expect Comey to argue that his Instagram post was protected speech.

Even though the laws charged in Comey’s case are generally valid and constitutional, criminal defendants can always argue that otherwise valid and constitutional laws are unconstitutional as applied to them and their particular case. Comey is likely to argue this in his defense, but it won’t be as straightforward as one might think.

The First Amendment is not absolute – not all speech and expression is protected by the Constitution.

In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire from 1942, Justice Frank Murphy wrote that it’s “well understood that the right to free speech is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances.”

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Watts v. United States that while “true threats” are not protected by the First Amendment, political hyperbole remains protected speech. The Supreme Court defines true threats as statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of intent to commit an act of unlawful violence against a particular individual or group of individuals, but the speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat.

Watts v. United States involved a threat against the sitting president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson. In that case, Robert Watts expressed his strong opposition to the military draft at a public rally, saying, “If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” He was subsequently charged and convicted under the same statute, 18 U.S.C. § 871, used in Comey’s case.

The Supreme Court reversed the conviction, ultimately agreeing with Watts, who had maintained that his statement was “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.”

As the court explained, quoting an earlier decision on press freedom, “For we must interpret the language Congress chose ‘against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wideopen, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.’”

Since Watts, countless defendants have faced similar charges for threatening the president. Many have been convicted.

In the 1970s, Eugene Hart was convicted of threatening the president after his brother reported Hart’s plan to assassinate President Richard Nixon. An appellate court affirmed his conviction, concluding that Hart’s verbal threat coupled with his detailed assassination plan couldn’t have been “uttered in jest or in the nature of a hyperbole.”

In the 1980s, David Hoffman was convicted of threatening President Ronald Reagan when he mailed a letter to the White House stating, “Ronnie, Listen Chump! Resign or You’ll Get Your Brains Blown Out.” And in 1999, Donald Adams was convicted of threatening the president when he approached the White House gates telling Secret Service officers, “I want to kill the president.”

But in those cases and others, the defendants took concrete steps that demonstrated their sincerity and conscious awareness of the threatening nature of their speech. In my estimation, both are absent in Comey’s case.

Wayne Unger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation