By Matt Taibbi, Substack, 10/10/22

After publishing “On John Lennon’s Birthday, a Few Words About War” last night, old friend and former Moscow Times editor Matt Bivens* and I discovered we’d written on the same topic. You can find Matt’s excellent essay here. He notes a big thing I missed. A series of ominous statements was buried in Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent joint press conference with Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, trumpeting the “tremendous opportunity” the Nord Stream blasts afforded to remove “the dependence on Russian energy.” A few public figures questioned those comments, but Blinken said something else that was worse. The relevant passage:

I also made clear that when Russia made this move, the United States and our allies and partners would impose swift and severe costs on individuals and entities – inside and outside of Russia – that provide political or economic support to illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory…

We will hold to account any individual, entity, or country that provides political or economic support for President Putin’s illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory.  In support of this commitment, the Departments of the Treasury and Commerce are releasing new guidance on heightened sanctions and export control risks for entities and individuals inside and outside of Russia that support in any way the Kremlin’s sham referenda, purported annexation, and occupation of parts of Ukraine.

There’s no way to know what a State Department official might believe meets the definitions of “political support,” support “in any way,” the “Kremlin’s sham referenda,” or any of a half-dozen phrases in that passage. This is why the negative precedent of government watch lists after the PATRIOT Act was important. By making lists, officials can seriously impact your life without notice or right of appeal. Even if courts later strike down the activity, it may take nearly 20 years to get there, and that’s assuming a) the state discloses enough to make a court challenge possible and b) they abide by any judicial rulings.

From Google and Twitter to the Departments of Justice and State, we’ve become a blacklisting society, and it’s beginning to look like the excesses of the Bush years were just a warmup.

Continue reading here.