{"id":21857,"date":"2025-08-22T11:42:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=21857"},"modified":"2025-08-22T11:42:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:42:59","slug":"how-much-free-speech-will-trump-destroy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/22\/how-much-free-speech-will-trump-destroy\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Free Speech Will Trump Destroy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

How Much Free Speech Will Trump Destroy?<\/a><\/h1>\n

Counterpunch, August 22, 2025<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it is known that authorities have power to coerce, few people will wait for actual coercion,\u201d economist Friedrich Hayek wrote in the 1956 foreword to his 1944 classic The Road to Serfdom<\/i>. Hayek\u2019s insight could be the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Trump administration\u2019s zealotry for assailing freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk, who was wearing a hijab, was a Fulbright scholar working on a doctorate at Tufts University. Ozturk didn\u2019t know what was happening when she was first grabbed and later said she thought she might be killed.<\/p>\n

She was abducted and vanished into the maw of the federal detention system. She was put in leg shackles and had a chain placed around her waist. She was frog marched out like a terrorist kingpin.<\/p>\n

A federal judge speedily ordered the Trump administration not to remove Ozturk from New England. But Trump administration officials ignored that court order and hustled Ozturk from Massachusetts to federal detention facilities in Louisiana.<\/p>\n

Almost a year before she was seized on the streets near Boston, Ozturk had coauthored an op-ed piece for the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university\u2019s refusal to divest from Israel despite \u201ccredible accusations of \u2026 indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was all it took to nullify the formal student visa that the U.S. government had previously approved for Ozturk. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson justified seizing the 30-year-old graduate student: \u201cDHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated.\u201d Ozturk never mentioned Hamas in her op-ed. Ozturk has not been linked to any campus protests at Tufts or elsewhere. She simply cowrote an opinion piece. As the New York Post<\/i> noted shortly after her arrest, DHS \u201calleged that Ozturk was a supporter of Hamas but has yet to provide any evidence to that effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video of the arrest spurred tidal waves of online celebrations by groups who wanted to forcibly silence all campus protests. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about the case while traveling in Guyana, he justified revoking Ozturk\u2019s visa: \u201cIf you apply for a visa \u2026 and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, and cause chaos \u2014 we\u2019re not giving you that visa.\u201d Rubio added: \u201cIt\u2019s crazy \u2014 stupid, even \u2014 for any country to let people in who say, \u2018I\u2019m going to your universities to riot, take over libraries, and harass people.\u2019 We gave you a visa to study and earn a degree \u2014 not to become a social activist tearing up our campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio promised: \u201cEvery time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.\u201d Is criticizing a foreign government now considered proof of lunacy in the White House? Does the Trump administration consider op-eds to be a weapon of mass destruction? Or did the secretary of state somehow become an omniscient expert on derangement?<\/p>\n

On March 27, more than 30 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanding information on the case in which the video \u201clooked like a kidnapping.\u201d<\/p>\n

On March 28, federal judge Denise Casper blocked the Trump administration from deporting Ozturk and ordered the administration to respond to Ozturk\u2019s legal challenge (now aided by the ACLU) to her detention.<\/p>\n

Ozturk was moved from state to state \u2014 including Vermont \u2014 so the Trump administration could avoid a habeas petition in federal court challenging her detention. In a subsequent congressional hearing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared that \u201chabeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country, and suspend their right.\u201d Actually, habeas corpus expresses an individual\u2019s right to be brought before a judge and formally charged \u2014 or be released. The Constitution recognized the right of habeas corpus even before the Bill of Rights was added to the original document. But perhaps Noem and other Trump policymakers decided to go Lincolnesque.<\/p>\n

Ozturk has asthma and had several asthmatic attacks in lockup. At the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, she slept with 23 other people in a cell meant for 14. \u201cNone of us are able to sleep through the night. They come into the cell often and walk around triggering the fluorescent lights. They shout in the cell to wake up those who work in the kitchen around 3:30 am each day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ozturk stated that a federal officer told her: \u201cWe are not monsters. We do what the government tells us.\u201d So, of course, federal officials are blameless for any rights that they violate. The \u201cwe are not monsters\u201d line has been around the track a few times. Historically, it didn\u2019t do well in 1946 as a defense at Nuremberg.<\/p>\n

Trump administration officials talked as if alleged protesting was sufficient to banish any foreigner they targeted. But the First Amendment doesn\u2019t specify that it only applies to people that the White House approves. Former ICE Chief of Staff Deborah Fleischaker slammed the targeting of Ozturk as \u201ca First Amendment violation. ICE had a policy in place that said that First Amendment activity was not to be the basis of enforcement action. That\u2019s not why you enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 13, the Washington Post<\/i> detonated the Trump case against Ozturk by publishing extracts from a confidential State Department memo. Prior to Ozturk being seized outside of Boston, senior DHS official Andre Watson sent a memo to the State Department stating that \u201cOZTURK engaged in anti-Israel activism\u2026. Specifically, [Ozturk] coauthored an Op-ed article\u201d that \u201ccalled for Tufts to \u2018disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.\u2019\u201d But the State Department found that no federal agency had turned up any evidence that Ozturk \u201cengaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization.\u201d Despite Rubio\u2019s vilification of Ozturk, the feds didn\u2019t have squat on her. But the State Department covertly nullified her visa anyhow, paving the way for the DHS ambush outside Boston.<\/p>\n

At an April 14 federal court hearing, a Trump Justice Department lawyer declared that the federal judge had no jurisdiction over the case. Federal judge William Sessions III responded: \u201cIf the government then says, \u2018oh, no, she can\u2019t be released because we have a detention order in immigration, which is inviolate, and she\u2019s not going to be released,\u2019 then we\u2019re in a constitutional crisis.\u201d The Trump administration lawyer speedily denied wanting any constitutional crisis.<\/p>\n

\n

DHS wanted Ozturk expelled from the United States under a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that entitles the Secretary of State to deport any foreigner if there are reasonable grounds to believe their presence has \u201cadverse policy consequence for the United States.\u201d But there was no such evidence for Ozturk, so the Trump administration instead used a legal authority under which the secretary of state can deport anyone on his own decree \u2014 no evidence required.<\/p>\n

On May 9, Sessions ordered that Ozturk be immediately released. Sessions declared, \u201cThere has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the Op-Ed.\u201d Sessions also declared: \u201cHer continued detention cannot stand,\u201d stating that keeping her locked up \u201cpotentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of people in this country who are not citizens.\u201d Sessions said that Ozturk raised \u201ca very substantial First Amendment claim\u201d as well as a \u201csubstantial claim\u201d that her due-process rights were violated. As the \u201cLawDork\u201d blog summarized the judge\u2019s comment from the bench during the court hearing, \u201cAddressing the question of [Ozturk\u2019s] \u2018dangerousness\u2019 and \u2018risk of flight,\u2019 Sessions noted that he was not going to be deferring to an immigration judge, who, he pointed out \u2018are executive branch employees,\u2019 subject to executive branch oversight. Instead, he found, \u2018There is absolutely no evidence that she has engaged in violence or advocated violence.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk\u2019s attorney, declared, \u201cWhen did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?\u201d Jessie Rossman, another attorney for Ozturk, commented, \u201cFor 45 days, R\u00fcmeysa has been detained in Louisiana \u2014 over 1,300 miles from her friends, her community, and her lawyers. During that time, she has suffered regular and escalating asthma attacks. And at the same time, the government has failed to produce any justification for her detention.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this farce isn\u2019t over yet. As Politico<\/i> noted, \u201cSessions\u2019 order, while expressing severe doubts about the constitutionality of Ozturk\u2019s detention and deportation, only applies to her immediate confinement. Efforts by the Trump administration to deport Ozturk will continue in immigration court.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be the height of folly for Americans to presume they face no peril from entitling the feds to seize boundless power to punish students\u2019 speech. Ozturk\u2019s name was provided to the Trump administration by Betar, an organization that the Washington Post<\/i> characterized as a \u201cmilitant Zionist group.\u201d U.S. citizens are at risk as well. A spokesman for Betar declared: \u201cWe provided hundreds of names to the Trump administration of visa holders and naturalized Middle Easterners and foreigners\u201d who have criticized Israeli policies. Last February, the Anti-Defamation League condemned Betar as an extremist organization. The Trump administration canceled the visas of more than 1,500 foreign students, many of whom were accused of having joined protests in the prior year and a half. Some of those cancellations were later revoked after a surge of bad publicity.<\/p>\n

Any precedent for blanket censorship will propagate like a COVID virus. Many conservatives and libertarians may shrug off Ozturk\u2019s degradation because they have no interest in criticizing the policies of foreign governments. But the Ozturk case hinged on collective guilt \u2014 on assuming that anyone who advocates a position is culpable for any crimes committed by any other advocate with the same view.<\/p>\n

Ozturk\u2019s persecution could be a linchpin in the Trump administration efforts to silence all protests that rile up his donors. Trump, discussing the protests over Gaza, promised wealthy supporters at a May 2024 fundraiser: \u201cOne thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they\u2019re going to behave.\u201d In April 2025, the Trump administration demanded that Harvard University cease enrolling any foreign students who Trump appointees label \u201chostile to the American values.\u201d Or at least \u201cAmerican values\u201d as defined by the current White House. On May 22, the Trump administration formally banned Harvard from admitting any foreign students \u2014 the ultimate solution to vexatious foreigners who caterwaul about atrocities.<\/p>\n

American history demonstrates that persecution that starts with foreigners often snowballs into targeting American citizens. Three months after the 9\/11 attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft proclaimed in congressional testimony: \u201cTo those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and \u2026 give ammunition to America\u2019s enemies.\u201d In other words, critics were traitors \u2014 regardless of how many civil liberties Ashcroft actually destroyed. And the definition of pernicious speech continually expanded. In 2004, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, stumping for President George W. Bush\u2019s reelection campaign, told audiences: \u201cPolitical criticism is our enemy\u2019s best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

To subvert freedom of speech after 9\/11, it wasn\u2019t necessary for the feds to formally nullify the First Amendment. One of the nation\u2019s most prominent pundits, Michael Kinsley, admitted in 2002 that he had been listening to his \u201cinner Ashcroft\u201d: \u201cAs a writer and editor, I have been censoring myself and others quite a bit since September 11.\u201d Kinsley conceded that sometimes it was \u201csimple cowardice\u201d that sparked the censorship. I also experienced plenty of such cowardice from editors after 9\/11 and long beyond.<\/p>\n

Has the Trump administration gone \u201cFull Nixon\u201d barely two months after the inauguration? In 1973, Nixon White House aide Tom Charles Huston lamented in congressional testimony the tendency of the FBI \u201cto move from the kid with a bomb to the kid with a picket sign, and from the kid with the picket sign to the kid with the bumper sticker of the opposing candidate. And you just keep going down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nixon administration\u2019s systemic paranoia led it to launch preemptive attacks on its suspected opposition, from secretly searching psychiatrists\u2019 offices to bugging the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building. Nixon\u2019s landslide victory in 1972 did not save him from the exposure of the cover-up of White House crimes.<\/p>\n

Does the Trump administration feel entitled to kidnap anyone who espouses an idea it disapproves \u2014 or foreigners? What will be the next opinion to sanctify broad-daylight federal kidnappings? Are federal policymakers trying to frighten everybody into submission and silence?<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this piece was posted by the Future of Freedom Foundation. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

James Bovard<\/em><\/strong> is the author of <\/em>Attention Deficit Democracy<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>The Bush Betrayal<\/em><\/a>, and <\/em>Terrorism and Tyranny<\/em><\/a>. His latest book is Last Rights: the Death of American Liberty<\/a>. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at <\/em>www.jimbovard.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Much Free Speech Will Trump Destroy? Counterpunch, August 22, 2025 \u201cIf it is known that authorities have power to coerce, few people will wait for actual coercion,\u201d economist Friedrich Hayek wrote in the 1956 foreword to his 1944 classic The Road to Serfdom. Hayek\u2019s insight could be the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1122,4504,649,708],"class_list":["post-21857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-free-speech","tag-ozturk","tag-rubio","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Much Free Speech Will Trump Destroy? - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Trump administration's persecution of a Turkish graduate student in Massachusetts is a warning bell for free speech across the board\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/22\/how-much-free-speech-will-trump-destroy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Much Free Speech Will Trump Destroy? 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21858,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21857\/revisions\/21858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}