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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preemptively mobilizing against a potential protest by U.S. truckers inspired by their Canadian counterparts, who for weeks have been protesting against a vaccine mandate and other COVID-19 measures. “The White House said the department is ‘surging additional staff’ to the Super Bowl just in case,” the Associated Press reports, as “the convoy could begin in Southern California as early as this weekend.” The surge is happening despite the fact that the U.S. trucker convoy is— by the DHS’s own admission —more aspirational than anything. In a Tuesday memo to federal, state, and local law enforcement, the DHS said “this event appears to be purely aspirational, because the event is only being discussed online and we lack any information indicating the event is actually being organized.” “There are currently no indications of planned violence or civil unrest,” the memo added. And while some discussion of a potential convoy was taking place online, “we have no indication that individuals discussing participating in these activities in the United States are engaged in anything other than First Amendment-protected activity,” the DHS stated. “Nonetheless, DHS remains concerned that these events could have significant public safety implications or potentially be exploited by ideologically motivated actors to potentially act or encourage others to act violently.” That federal law enforcement is springing into action anyway isn’t surprising—it’s forever creating reasons to enact more of a police state around the Super Bowl, with terrorism, counterfeit goods, and sex trafficking serving as previous pretenses. It seems a hypothetical convoy of truckers is helping to do the trick this year. It’s one of a number of reasons the department is citing for its extreme presence and increased operations at the Super Bowl: DHS support for Super Bowl LVI includes more than 500 DHS personnel providing extensive air and maritime security resources; anti-human trafficking prevention and enforcement support; intellectual property enforcement; chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives detection technologies; venue, cyber, and infrastructure security assessments; intelligence analysis and threat assessments; and real-time situational awareness reporting for our partner. Homeland Security Investigations promises that it will be “investigating and arresting those exploiting children, conducting human trafficking, and identifying and rescuing victims of these crimes” during the Super Bowl. (Such “human trafficking” efforts from Homeland Security tend to translate into things like scaring sex workers, arresting immigrants, and federal agents getting handjobs.) U.S. truck protest rumors simply mean that the Super Bowl will be swarming with even more feds this year. Remember: If you see something, say something. If you’re attending #SuperBowlLVI in Los Angeles, or watching elsewhere, ensure you know the signs of suspicious activity ⬇️ https://t.co/zXyxhja8y4 pic.twitter.com/iBDulxIbsh Homeland Security (@DHSgov) February 11, 2022 The Biden administration is also urging Canadian leaders to get tougher with protesting truckers: The Biden administration urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government Thursday to use its federal powers to end the truck blockade by Canadians protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, as the bumper-to-bumper demonstration forced auto plants on both sides of the border to shut down or scale back production. For the fourth straight day, scores of truckers taking part in what they dubbed the Freedom Convoy blocked the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, disrupting the flow of auto parts and other products between the two countries.
