Garrison Davis

As Marlon Kratz of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund told the New Republic, quote, what's happening in Atlanta is a vision of the future.

This is a test run of a repressive playbook that authorities on many different levels are experimenting with to discover what they can get away with.

Unquote.

Let's look at some examples of expanding surveillance, increasing police resources, and the strategies for counterinsurgency that are spreading in the era of Trump 2.0.

In January of this year, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene

introduced a resolution titled Deeming Certain Conduct of Members of Antifa as Domestic Terrorism and Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization, which the measure justifies by referencing multiple instances of protesters in Atlanta being charged with domestic terrorism.

The Atlanta-based surveillance company Flock Safety gained early notoriety for their camera towers placed around the slated Cop City construction site in the South River Forest, which protesters repeatedly toppled.

Flock has grown massively the past four years, with over 80,000 quote-unquote AI-powered cameras in 49 states.

These cameras complete over 20 billion scans per month.

Flock cameras and license plate readers have spread all around the country and are used by all manners of agencies, including ICE, as well as Texas sheriffs who have used the Nationwide Camera Network to track pregnant women seeking abortions.

Border Patrol has used Atlanta's local Flock Camera Network to make over 3,200 searches from January to November 2025.

In April 2025, President Trump signed an executive order titled Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.

This order calls to, quote, Unleash high-impact local police forces, protect and defend law enforcement officers wrongly accused and abused by state or local officials, and surge resources to officers in need, unquote.

It directs the Attorney General to create a mechanism to have private sector law firms provide pro bono legal defense to police officers who, quote, unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law, unquote.

This tries to make it harder for police to be held accountable for both civil and criminal misconduct, basically extending qualified immunity to the criminal realm.

The order also calls to use federal resources to increase pay, expand training, and strengthen legal protections for police officers, as well as to, quote, seek enhanced sentences for crimes against law enforcement officers, promote investment in the security and capacity of prisons, and increase the investment in and collection, distribution, and uniformity of crime data across jurisdictions, unquote.

The Attorney General is directed to review and remove any previous accountability restrictions placed on local or state law enforcement agencies that might unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.

And then finally, quote, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense in consultation with Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies, as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist state and local law enforcement and shall determine how military and national security assets training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime, unquote.

As the police become further militarized, the military prepares to do more policing.

One of the executive orders from Trump's police takeover of Washington, D.C., contains a section directing the Secretary of Defense to quote, "...designate an appropriate number of each state's trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances."