Hundreds of thousands of Washington residents oppose the Trump administration’s continued deployment of the National Guard. The only way to make sure this never happens again is to make D.C. a state

Hundreds of thousands of Washington residents oppose the Trump administration’s continued deployment of the National Guard. The only way to make sure this never happens again is to make D.C. a state

Last August, President Donald Trump manufactured a phony “crime emergency” to surge National Guard troops and federal agents into our nation's capital. This deployment came on the heels of similar surges in Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago. He even told military leaders that the National Guard was fighting “a war from within,” and that American cities could be used as military “training grounds.”

While the Trump administration backed down in many of the other cities, the nation’s capital has remained filled with nearly 5,000 National Guard troops from more than 15 states. National Guard members have harmed residents like Anna King, a retired Army Captain who received a Purple Heart for her service in the Iraq War, was sitting on her front patio when three National Guard members walked through her gate, told her that she was detained, and violently restrained her. The Guard members pinned her to the ground, kneeled on her back, and handcuffed her tightly, refusing to loosen the handcuffs after she complained. King suffered significant injuries from the incident, particularly in her wrist, which required surgery.

Last August, President Donald Trump manufactured a phony “crime emergency” to surge National Guard troops and federal agents into our nation's capital.

It’s also draining taxpayers’ wallets. The current cost of the deployment is more than $3 million per day, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. This year alone the cost of having the National Guard in D.C. will total around $600 million.

Now, the Trump administration has declared that this unprecedented domestic deployment will continue into 2029. Despite opposition lawsuits and opposition from the ACLU, Washington, D.C. residents, and local elected officials for troops to leave, the Trump administration continues to use Washington neighborhoods as test sites for domestic military use and other extreme policies the administration wants to spread around the country. Unlike other jurisdictions that successfully pushed back against this unconstitutional use of the military, Washington, D.C. is not legally recognized as a state.

Now, the Trump administration has declared that this unprecedented domestic deployment will continue into 2029.

Without D.C. statehood, the District’s elected officials do not control the District’s National Guard — the president does. The presence of thousands of National Guard troops in Washington threatens to normalize this administration’s misuse of the country’s troops against its own people. National Guard troops should only be deployed for true emergencies, like natural disasters or a riot at the capitol that attempts to disrupt the transfer of presidential power. Our country’s national guard troops must not be political props.

District residents pay federal and local taxes but are denied a vote in Congress. Residents are faced with National Guard troops on every corner, but more than 30,000 veterans and 11,000 active-duty servicemembers who live in Washington are denied voting participation in Congress. Indeed, the ongoing denial of full voting rights, where most of the residents in the District are Black and brown, is an egregious form of ongoing voter suppression happening in our country today.

We cannot continue to let out-of-touch politicians use the people of Washington to test the limits and reach of authoritarian power.

Just 65 years ago, District residents finally got the right to vote for the president. It’s only been 53 years since Congress granted the District limited self-governance, and the right to elect a mayor and local legislative body.

Today, the District’s local government has the power to pass and enforce local laws and to pass a budget like any other state. But, unlike a state, Congress has the power to overturn local laws and dictate how it can use its own local tax dollars.

For example, Congress voted to remove nearly $700 million of local tax dollars from Washington’s local budget in February. People who live and work in the District were thrown into limbo simply because Congress decided to overturn local tax law. That would be unthinkable in any other state. We cannot continue to let out-of-touch politicians use the people of Washington to test the limits and reach of authoritarian power. Washington is the canary in the democratic coal mine, and there can be no true democracy without D.C. statehood.

That’s why it’s so important for people living outside of Washington, who actually have representation in Congress, to take on the fight for D.C. statehood as their own. Only then can we ensure that the residents of Washington have their full democratic rights and local freedoms. Tell your member of Congress to support D.C. statehood now.

• 

  Privacy & Technology

  National Security

  As Public Opposition to Flock Grows, ACLU Responds to Surveillance Company’s “New” Updates

  NEW YORK – Amid nationwide outcry against its automatic license plate readers, Flock Safety announced today that it will reduce its standard data retention policy and allegedly provide more control over local data searches, among other changes. However, according to American Civil Liberties Union’s new analysis, many of the proposed changes seem to be a thinly veiled PR attempt to counter communities’ genuine privacy concerns with its mass surveillance system with largely hollow security promises, rather than an earnest effort to address them. While the ACLU acknowledges one potentially positive development, most of the proposed changes stand little chance of making a positive difference for civil liberties. “Transforming an exceptionally dangerous mass surveillance system into one that is fully protective of civil rights and civil liberties is a difficult, if not impossible task. That is even more the case with a company like Flock, whose nearly $1 billion in venture capitalist funding has locked it into an operational model that seeks to trade our privacy for massive profits,” said Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at ACLU. “Given that Flock’s latest announcement still appears more focused on addressing a PR problem than the significant privacy and other harms its products create, we will continue to analyze the company’s proposals fairly and honestly. We just won’t be holding our breath.” Flock operates more than 120,000 automatic license plate readers in at least 6,000 cities across the country, raising serious concerns around mass surveillance, data privacy, and how police and the government can use this data to go after immigrants, protestors, and others. Just this week, the Institute for Justice published a database with more than 100 incidents of ALPR abuse, including romantic stalking, wrongful stops and detentions, non-law enforcement use, and other types of misconduct. One of the changes announced is that Flock will decrease its standard data retention option to one week from 30 days. This seems positive at first blush, but as the ACLU’s breakdown explains, the devil will be in the details. For example, an exception to the data retention policy is something called “Evidence Mode, which is “when a search is tied to a case number, that data is preserved instead of aging out after 7 days.” As the ACLU notes, “If ‘Evidence Mode’ only retains hit result data that police determine may be evidence in an active investigation of a specific case, then the change may be a positive one. But if Evidence Mode triggers the retention of any ALPR data that is searched, then the new mode could indefinitely retain all the ALPR data Flock collects and shares nationally.” Another “change” the company is implementing is that local police will be able to decide what types of offenses other Flock customers can search their data for. The ACLU contends that this is not new. Flock has attempted this before, and the security measure failed because police were easily able to circumvent the system’s requirement that they input the purpose of their search. Finally, Flock announced that in response to the reports of police abuse, they will now require reasons for a search, and that they plan to universally roll out its audit assistance tool to detect police misuse. Flock’s announcement fails to note how easily users have circumvented “search reason” security measures in the past or how its new policy improves the quality of the feature. And while providing “Audit Assistance” to all departments makes sense, the ACLU notes that there is no evidence that the tool works consistently to address what the Washington Post observed is a growing pattern of police officers turning Flock into a personal stalking tool. To determine the efficacy of this tool, Flock needs to have it analyzed by an independent evaluator. Until then, the ACLU says, “we don’t know if the tool is a real security measure or just window dressing.” Dozens of communities across the country have successfully convinced their leaders to cancel Flock contracts, suspend their ALPR programs, or deactivate the cameras, with many more cities considering new legislation to rein in this mass warrantless surveillance tech. In June, the ACLU launched its “Get the Flock Out” campaign to bring together the litigation, advocacy, and legislative efforts of ACLU affiliates in each state, show how communities across the country are fighting back against the spread of Flock and other license plate readers, and lay out how lawmakers at the local, state, and federal level can best protect our rights.

  As Public Opposition To Flock Grows, Aclu Responds To Surveillance Company’s “new” Updates. Explore Press Release.

• 

  National Security

  Free Speech

  Florida Officials Pause Designation of Prominent Civil Rights Groups as “Terrorist Organizations”

  TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Last night, Florida officials paused their plan to designate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a “domestic terrorist organization,” under new laws that went into effect on July 1. This development comes in a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their partners filed on behalf of the civil rights nonprofit and its Florida chapter after Gov. DeSantis and other state officials announced they would quickly move to designate CAIR. According to a court filing, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement now intends to issue regulations to implement the laws, and “no designation will be made before the regulations are finalized.” Lawyers for Gov. DeSantis and other defendants in the lawsuit stated they could not yet provide a timeline on when these regulations would be finalized, and the parties will report again to the court by July 22. “From day 1, Florida officials’ use of this dangerous new designation regime has violated the Constitution. Gov. DeSantis has simply no legitimate basis to brand our clients with one of society’s most reviled labels let alone to force them to shut their doors under threat of crippling criminal penalties, and leave the Floridians they serve without a crucial civil rights voice,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “In the United States, CAIR and all nonprofits have the right to criticize the government, protect religious freedom, and advocate for the causes they believe in.” In April 2026, Gov. DeSantis signed into law HB 1471 and HB 1473 despite public outcry. These laws establish an unprecedented state designation regime and dramatically expand Florida’s authority to both label and punish groups — including nonprofits engaged in First Amendment-protected advocacy — that officials unilaterally decide are security threats. Under the regime, officials can brand nonprofit corporations with debilitating stigma and then use an array of state authorities to immediately silence and incapacitate the organization, its employees, and a wide range of others associated with the group through extraordinarily broad and severe criminal, civil, and administrative penalties. On July 2, the nonprofits’ legal team filed an emergency motion asking the federal court to prevent the designation from going into effect and to allow the groups to litigate the challenge without fear of prosecution under the broad designation laws. The court denied the emergency filings, stating it required further briefing and evidence that Florida officials were following through on their threats. “The fact that Florida officials announced their intent to designate CAIR at their July 1 press conference, before regulations they now plan to issue have come into effect, shows their calculated and cruel plan to designate CAIR is not because it is in any way a threat to public safety, but because doing so suits their political agenda,” said Scott McCoy, deputy legal director, Southern Poverty Law Center. “The State’s decision to negatively brand CAIR has already violated its constitutional rights and inflicted immediate and ongoing harm to it.” CAIR and CAIR-FL are represented in the suit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Akeel & Valentine, PLC, and Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP.

  Florida Officials Pause Designation Of Prominent Civil Rights Groups As “terrorist Organizations”. Explore Press Release.