OUR DAILY THREAD: Gestapo Signs
Police state of alert
THE SET-UP: Military.com is a solid, niche news source. It aggregates and reprints a significant chunk of its daily feed, but it also generates original work targeting the interests of active duty personnel and veterans.
And as you’ll see, I’d better be careful when using the word “targeting.”
That’s what Elizabeth Hartman, “a Marine veteran and writer who reports on governance and accountability issues in the veteran non-profit space,” learned from her surprise interaction with the FBI. She was visited by the Kashed-out Feds at the end of last year after she’d publicly criticized the leadership of Student Veterans of America (SVA). But somebody at SVA didn’t take kindly to the light she shined on the org:
Central to her criticism were SVA’s IRS Form 990 filings, which the organization posts on its own website. According to SVA’s Form 990 for the FY2023, Jared Lyon received $258,596 in reportable compensation. In the following year, FY2024, Lyon’s reportable compensation rose to $288,939. On the form for FY2025, SVA lists Lyon’s reportable compensation at $412,500, representing an increase of roughly 60% over two years.
She’d found something good reporters often find when they have the time, the resources and the gumption to look under rocks—self-dealing and corruption. But those rocks often get overlooked in the Trumped-up newscycle. There’s a giant shiny object in the White House and a convenient shiny object transmitter in everybody’s hand. Trump’s indefatigable presence alone must’ve aided and abetted a couple thousand crimes of corruption simply by monopolizing our attention. It’s hard to find a needle in haystack, let alone in a zone flooded with rhetorical feces. But Hartman not only found a needle, journalistically-speaking she found the brass ring of needles:
Hartman has argued that this compensation growth occurred while SVA reported lower overall revenue than in prior years, a disparity she says raised serious governance concerns. For purposes of this article, the relevance of those filings is that her criticism was grounded in SVA’s own public disclosures, not speculation or private accusations.
In other words, she was able to use their own words and numbers against them.
Her scrutiny began after she learned SVA allows non-veterans to be members, a policy she viewed as misleading given the organization’s name. From there, she began examining SVA’s publicly available financial filings and internal practices.
Hartman had a story with legs. So, she ran with it:
In a series of Substack posts and LinkedIn updates, Hartman focused on executive compensation, board oversight, and what she described as a pattern of insulating leadership from accountability. In one widely viewed LinkedIn post, she wrote that after publishing about SVA, she was contacted by numerous veterans and former staff who told her that financial issues were “just the tip of the iceberg,” and concerns about leadership behavior had previously been raised with the board.
And that’s when the trouble started. And by “trouble” I mean “revenge.” But not just revenge, but revenge via the FBI. Kinda like “swatting,” in fact. Instead of calling 911 with a phony emergency, the then-CEO and President of SVA appears to have taken Hartman’s social media presence and framed a narrative of a potentially violent, heavily-armed menace who may be “a threat to national security.”
That’s quite a charge, folks.
Maybe the FBI was just doing its due diligence?
Maybe.
Or maybe Lyons knew someone in the regime? He’d been to a signing ceremony during Trump’s first run. Does he know someone who knows someone at the DOJ?
Or was it more like the early occupation of Afghanistan when the US offered bounties on al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers? Many Afghan settled a score by “informing” on a neighbor or rival. The US would drop in for a raid, pick up the “suspected terrorist” and spirit them away. Some of those otherwise innocent farmers and herders ended up in Gitmo.
It’s all so eerily familiar.
Now think of how often we hear Americans being characterized as “a threat to national security.” The same is also true of “domestic terrorist” and “domestic terrorism.” We know the DOJ and FBI are tracking down a vast left-wing conspiracy that doesn’t really exist. They are also looking for signs of “pre-crime” and monitoring social media for “thought crimes.” Journalist Ken Klippenstein got one of those brass rings when, as Jacobin noted, he got his hands on a national security policy memorandum called “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” known as NSPM-7. Here are the “signs” they are looking for:
anti-Americanism,
anti-capitalism,
anti-Christianity,
support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
extremism on migration,
extremism on race,
extremism on gender
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.
Recall that the regime started out by “vetting” the social media of foreign students to find “un-American speech.” And that’s migrated to vetting incoming tourists … and and museum displays.
We’ve also seen the DOJ respond to Trump’s whims with a series of investigations … like Jim Comey and Letitia James and Jay Powell … and the DOJ just issued subpoenas to five Minnesota Democrats. To say the DOJ and the FBI have been “weaponized” doesn’t quite capture the scope of what’s happening. Palantir’s advanced tech is being used by ICE to generate targets for raids. Like the “Lavender” targeting program Palantir reportedly developed for the IDF in their wipe-out-entire-families bombing campaign, Palantir pores over social media, among many other things, to generate targets. In fact, it was recently revealed that Palantir got access to Medicaid data to help it acquire targets for ICE/CBP to arrest and raid.
The pall of authoritarianism has been hanging over everything and, at the very least, it appears former SVA CEO Jared Lyons may have taken advantage of it when he, or someone close to him, likely decided to weaponize the FBI for his own ends:
Hartman said she was later informed multiple posts had been submitted to the FBI for review, including posts depicting firearms related to her hunting activities. “Some of my hunting-related posts were some of the posts that were brought to their attention,” she said.
She said the focus on firearms became central to how her criticism was portrayed to authorities. Hartman frequently uses marksmanship metaphors such as being “over target” or “sighted in” to describe investigative focus, language she said was stripped of context and treated as literal threats. She said she was asked whether she intended to harm Lyon or commit violence at an SVA event, allegations she has consistently denied.
This is of particular concerns to the veterans in Military.com’s audience:
Hartman’s account raises questions about how lawful speech, particularly when paired with firearms imagery common in veteran culture, can be escalated into a law enforcement matter based on interpretation rather than intent.
It also raises questions about the FBI’s investigatory process. What did they see that appeared to be a threat to national security? Or is the FBI now just reflexively knocking on doors because they can? Or because they can intimidate?
Hartman smartly said nothing without a lawyer present and the investigation was quickly dropped. She still heard from Lyons via a “cease and desist” letter that “incorrectly asserted she was currently under a criminal investigation and weapons had been removed from her home by law enforcement.” And now that piece of data is floating around the searchable ether:
“If I dare say something about an organization,” she said, “now I have to consider whether that organization will weaponize my use of firearms and attempt to have them taken from my home.”
Weapons aren’t the only thing that can be weaponized in this burgeoning police state. Words and pictures and memes and ideas are all searchable signs you might be up to something no good. Thanks to the Supreme Court, so too are the color of your eyes and your hair, or maybe its the way you roll the letter “R”. Or maybe its the protest you attended or the podcast you like. Anything could be fair game. I guess we won’t know where the bottom is until we stop sliding down the slippery slope. - jp
Luxembourg social media company linked to US immigration crackdown
https://www.luxtimes.lu/businessandfinance/luxembourg-social-media-company-linked-to-us-immigration-crackdown/125009709.html
ICE are using a terrifying Palantir app to hunt their targets
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2026/01/20/palantir-app-tracks-deportation-targets/
US citizen says ICE took him at gunpoint in only underwear despite frigid cold and no warrant
https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-immigration-us-citizen-detained-hmong-d009590a491c0c8243ef21ef24db7182
US citizen detained by ICE fights to prove her citizenship despite birth certificate
https://www.wmar2news.com/local/us-citizen-detained-by-ice-fights-to-prove-her-citizenship-despite-birth-certificate
U.S. citizen detained by for 6 hours talks about experience [KSDK News]
US citizen detained by ICE agent ‘because of your accent’ [WRAL]
Lawyers for MD woman detained 25 days by ICE want case dropped
https://thedailyrecord.com/2026/01/20/maryland-woman-ice-detention-us-citizen-case/
Woman who was arrested, shackled and detained at ICE center shares her experience
https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/woman-arrested-shackled-detained-ice-center-shares-experience-129355498 [ABC News]
Trump’s “roving patrols” are closing in on Americans
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/20/trump-ice-border-patrol-us-citizens-detained