E-Pluribus | February 13, 2026
Gov't using 'secretive orders' to restrict speech. Rumeysa Ozturk can't be deported. EU: the new USSR?
A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Sarah McLaughlin: The Trump administration is using secretive orders to crack down on dissent
Allegations have surfaced that the federal government is abusing administrative subpoenas—which lack the typical court oversight required of traditional subpoenas—to silence critics of current immigration policies. Sarah McLaughlin makes the case against this particularly insidious method of speech restriction at MS Now:
Imagine finding out that the government is issuing secretive orders to unearth your personal information and then sending federal agents to question you — all because you sent an email criticizing the life-or-death decisions the government makes.
That sounds like something out of China, Russia or the increasingly dystopian United Kingdom, right? Well this time, it’s happening here.
The Trump administration is reportedly abusing oversight-free administrative subpoenas to chill protected speech. Recent targets include a man who sent an email criticizing efforts to deport an Afghan man on humanitarian parole seeking asylum.
While subpoenas have been used to chill speech across numerous presidencies, the way this administration is using them, and the broader repressive pattern they are part of, should disturb all Americans. As The Washington Post reported this week, a Philadelphia-area retiree wrote an email to a federal prosecutor last year asking him to “[a]pply principles of common sense and decency” to the deportation case of an Afghan man, who feared death at the hands of the Taliban. Only the retiree’s first name, Jon, is given, as he fears for his safety.
Only hours later, to Jon’s shock, he received a notice from Google that the company had received a subpoena compelling the release of identifying information, including older account activity and his physical address. The Department of Homeland Security issued an administrative subpoena, which doesn’t require the oversight of a judge or grand jury, to get Jon’s information. DHS attempted a similar stunt to target internet commenters who posted about Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jacob Sullum: An Immigration Judge Finds No Legal Basis To Deport a Student Arrested for an Op-Ed
The federal government can’t deport Tufts University graduate student and foreign national Rumeysa Ozturk, thanks to a recent decision by an immigration judge. Critics allege she had expressed support for the terrorist group Hamas after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. But that version of events didn't hold up in court. Jacob Sullum reports:
Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was targeted for deportation nearly a year ago because she had co-authored an anti-Israel op-ed piece that appeared in a student newspaper, can remain in the United States thanks to a recent decision by an immigration judge. In that ruling, which came to light this week after Ozturk’s lawyers mentioned it in federal court, Judge Roopal Patel, who works for the Justice Department, concluded that there was no legal basis to deport Ozturk.
The Trump administration can ask the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body within the Justice Department, to review that decision. But Ozturk is safe for now. “Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government,” she said in a written statement. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”
Ozturk, a Turkish citizen, was one of several international students targeted by the speech-based deportation campaign that President Donald Trump began promising on the campaign trail and repeatedly trumpeted after taking office. She was arrested by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside her apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25. Her lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition in Massachusetts, but it was transferred to Vermont after she was sent there. She was later sent to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, where she remained until William K. Sessions, a federal judge in Vermont, ordered her release on May 9.
Finn Andreen: The European Union Now Resembles the Soviet Union
Free-speech advocates have chastised the European Union (EU) in recent years for its increasingly totalitarian tendencies, most notably its expanding restrictions on expression. Some have even suggested that the EU’s behavior bears uncanny similarity to the Soviet Union’s. At the Mises Institute, France-based political commentator Finn Andreen spells out the parallels:
Considering the recent development of the European Union, it seems appropriate to look at a meme that has been going around for some time, namely, “EUSSR.” The implication is, of course, that the EU is starting to resemble the Soviet Union. Though this might sound like a bad joke on the face of it, there are in fact many common points between the European Union and the Soviet Union, and the EU planned direction …
In early 2025, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned Europeans of “old, entrenched interests” hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Though this is clearly a case of the pot calling the kettle black, there is undoubtedly some truth to this, as the EU has been turning the screws ever tighter on freedom of speech (e.g., via the Digital Services Act and most recently with the probable ban of social networks for children).
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The examples above show that in many ways the EU is moving towards the Soviet model, closer to what was planned had the USSR not collapsed. This is part of a general trend across the Western world that has been on-going for several years, to increase statist technocratic control of society in all areas; public opinion (restrictions on freedom of speech), private property (CBDC for public financing of government debt and control dissent), and even physical movement (digital health pass, carbon restrictions). Ironically, this is part of the globalist plan of the Western financial oligarchy.
Around X
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) announces a lawsuit against the federal government for its alleged attempt to strong-arm Facebook and Apple into censoring its users.
Your periodic reminder that civilization can’t advance without freedom of speech, as Elon Musk beautifully outlines below: “Are people you don’t like allowed to say things you don’t like? If not, it’s not free.”
Fact-checking nonprofit NewsGuard is suing the Federal Trade Commission, alleging the agency is abusing its regulatory power to censor the website’s journalism. The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues they have a compelling case.
