1. The government continued its push to spy on you indiscriminately — When Edward Snowden revealed to the American public the extent of the federal government’s surveillance programs, the country was outraged for a few fleeting moments. But the issue of privacy violations has largely faded into obscurity since then, even as the government’s push for these policies continues. Before leaving office, Barack Obama granted more surveillance authority to federal agencies, and once Trump took office, his administration began pushing to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which has not only swept up the records of foreigners, but also American citizens.
2. Just as in the Obama years, the civilian death toll from American military operations was swept under the rug — Despite some mainstream reports on the mass casualties the Trump administration has incurred durings its ramped up operations in the Middle East, over all, concerns over the loss of innocent life remain lost on the American public. Though Obama dropped over 26,000 bombs during his last year in office — a massive number — the Trump administration dropped over 20,000 in its first six months. Roughly halfway through the year, over 2,000 civilians had died, and in the battle of Mosul, alone, over 3,200 died as a result of the U.S. coalition, contributing to a total of between 9,000 and 11,000 civilian deaths.
3. Police violence continues — Aside from several high-profile instances of police brutality, including the brutal shooting of Philando Castile, a legal gun owner (the officer was acquitted of all charges and received a settlement from the police department), and the recent instance of a cop forcing a pet owner to behead his own dog, mainstream attention on the system problem of police misconduct has been quiet this year (especially compared to 2014, for example, when protests in Ferguson, MO, drew ongoing national attention). At the same time, President Trump encouraged officers to be rough with suspects and continued to assert his unwavering support for law enforcement, claiming anti-police sentiment is “wrong” and “dangerous.” He also reinstated the federal government’s program of granting military gear to local police. Meanwhile, American police continue to kill civilians at staggering rates, with estimates ranging between 976 and almost 1,182 for 2017. The number of cops killed in 2017 was the second-lowest in 50 years, according to data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
DYI
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