If Florida enacts House Bill 945, it will create a CIA-style structure at the state level that blurs the traditional line between state law enforcement and intelligence work. A state-level intelligence office empowered to scrutinize residents based on ideology is precisely the kind of proposal likely to spread once normalized.

The bill would create an intelligence office charged with identifying and disrupting threats to Florida and the United States. That alone should raise questions. The federal government already spends enormous sums (trillions of dollars since 9/11) on national security and counterterrorism. Why would states duplicate those functions without demonstrating a clear need, specialized expertise, or meaningful oversight?

That's not just only wasteful but dangerous. After September 11, Congress created the National Counterterrorism Center precisely to prevent disconnected intelligence operations from proliferating. HB 945 moves in the opposite direction, inviting a patchwork of state-run intelligence units operating outside a federal framework, recreating the very fragmentation federal reforms intended to fix.

Although the bill’s sponsor, Tampa area Republican representative Danny Alvarez, says he’s going to make changes to address civil liberties issues, it’s difficult to imagine any linguistic fix that could salvage legislation like this.

The bill’s language allows scrutiny based on “views” and “opinions”, a standard that echoes some of the darkest chapters of American surveillance history. The FBI’s Cointelpro program during the Sixties and Seventies infiltrated protest movements, monitored journalists, and targeted civil rights leaders – not for crimes, but beliefs.

This legislation, if passed, seems unlikely to survive a court challenge.