“Florida man seeks to create a state counterintelligence unit and claim sweeping surveillance powers over people whose ‘views’ or ‘opinions’ he dislikes.” It’s not nearly as amusing as the usual “Florida man” headline, and it may lead to a blueprint for lawmakers far beyond Florida.

If Florida enacts House Bill 945, it will create a national first – CIA-style structure at the state level that blurs the traditional line between state law enforcement and intelligence work. It likely wouldn’t remain a local experiment. Red states often borrow aggressively from one another’s policy playbooks, on everything from gerrymandering to anti-abortion laws to transporting immigrants to Democratic-led states. A state-level intelligence office empowered to scrutinize residents based on ideology is precisely the kind of proposal likely to spread once normalized.

The bill would create an operational intelligence office charged with identifying and disrupting threats to Florida and the United States. That alone should raise questions. The federal government already spends enormous sums (by some accounts, trillions of dollars since 11 September 2001) on national security and counterterrorism. Why should states duplicate those functions without demonstrating a clear need, specialized expertise, or meaningful oversight?

The bill’s language allows scrutiny based on ‘views’ and ‘opinions’, a standard that echoes some of the darkest chapters of American surveillance history

It could be not only wasteful but dangerous. One of the core lessons of the 9/11 commission was that fragmented intelligence systems and siloed operations can undermine security rather than enhance it. After September 11, Congress created the........

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