Kamran Arif, a name instantly recognisable to anyone in Pakistan’s human rights circles, was more than a colleague; he was a friend, a mentor, and a quiet force of clarity.

At his home, tucked between wall-sized shelves stacked with everything from constitutional theory to crime thrillers, sat a book I once borrowed, and then shamelessly failed to return. ‘May It Please the Court: The First Amendment’ is a collector’s gem, a gripping compilation of real Supreme Court cases and the arguments that once gave weight to America’s promise of free speech. It captures a time when the First Amendment still held meaning in the so-called land of the free, before it was gradually emptied by national security paranoia and rebranded as a talking point to defend corporate power and demagogic bluster.

The book revisits the fierce courtroom battles fought to defend free expression, and upholding the First Amendment, the constitutional safeguard that promises freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and the right to dissent without fear or favour — the very foundations of the ‘American dream’.

I was reading the book again recently, and it felt grimly ironic to recall those legal battles now, at a time when the US — once the loudest champion of free speech — is sliding into a state of quiet authoritarianism. Students are arrested for protesting, ICE stalks immigrants through digital footprints, and speech that challenges power is flagged, monitored, and punished. The very rights once argued for so passionately before the Supreme Court are now, seemingly, selectively applied, if not openly discarded.

In yet another chapter of the post-Trump erosion of civil liberties, the US government has formalised what many feared would become the global template for ideological policing: social media vetting as a precondition for entry.

All F, M, and J visa applicants from Karachi and Lahore, including students, researchers, and exchange scholars, are now required to surrender every social media handle used over the past five years and strip away any privacy settings.

The US Consulates in Karachi and Lahore issued a special advisory for F, M, and J applicants, emphasising that mandatory disclosure of social media identifiers is now part of the core screening process. An Instagram post by the consulates reads: “Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an........

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