Community groups involved in anti-ICE protests disturbed by scope of federal surveillance
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Members of community groups and non-profits are outraged by revelations that federal law enforcement infiltrated community meetings and surveilled anti-ICE activists in Minnesota over the winter.
Minister JaNaé Bates, co-executive director of the non-profit Faith in Minnesota, said sending undercover federal agents into meetings at places like churches and union halls is a “horrific” violation, because those are spaces where people safely gather to exercise basic rights like free speech.
“It is something that the American people and Minnesotans absolutely shouldn't tolerate,” Bates said. “Nothing is normal about departments being weaponized against people who are doing what Minnesotans do: love their neighbors and take care of them, deliver them food, make sure that they're safe.”
Bates believes President Donald Trump’s administration has been weaponizing the U.S. Department of Justice to scare people who disagree with their policies into staying silent. She said that approach didn’t work during the height of the ICE surge into Minnesota, and she doesn’t expect it to work now after the surge has officially ended.
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“We didn’t freak out about ‘How do we make sure that we’re not the next ones to be targeted?’ No,” Bates said. “We said, ‘How do we protect our neighbors? And then we’re going to stand together when they do come for us.’”
For democracy’s sake, Bates hopes there will be “massive investigations on the very same departments who dare to investigate us now.”
The revelations about widespread surveillance are contained in legal documents released Thursday as part of a motion for discovery in the case of 15 Minnesotans charged with felony conspiracies tied to anti-ICE protests.
The incomplete reports show federal agents scanning license plates outside protests and compiling personal information on people as part of a program they called Operation Puppet Master. The program was apparently intended to find what the government described as "violent opportunists," but undercover agents seem to have focused mostly on meetings in church basements and public protests. The federal government also subpoenaed financial records from local nonprofits and labor unions they saw as supporting anti-ICE efforts.
One document shows that community groups, nonprofit organizations and labor unions were tied by federal prosecutors to the alleged conspiracy of the Minnesota 15 during grand jury proceedings. A coalition of statewide groups on Thursday released a statement condemning the investigations and reinforcing their right to peacefully and constitutionally oppose the administration’s policies.
“Minnesotans have already proven we won’t cave to bullies,” the groups’ statement read. “We know the power we have when we organize and act together, and we’ll continue using that power to defend our neighbors and our freedoms.”
Former Hennepin County prosecutor and current University of Minnesota School of Law Professor Amy Sweasy said it's not necessarily illegal for federal agents to surveil people at public events like meetings. But the way the federal government proceeded here is the opposite of how law enforcement in the United States traditionally has been expected to behave.
"This appears to have the cart and the horse kind of reversed, that it's an investigation first, looking for information to then match it up, perhaps, with conduct on the back end," Sweasy said.
While the people facing conspiracy charges have a legal right to find out what information the government gathered about them, there could be many other people whose information was collected who aren’t able to confirm it, Sweasy said.
”Is it theoretically possible that there's civil remedies to sue the government for, perhaps, a violation of civil rights for something like this? Yes,” Sweasy said. But “does everybody who is even caught up in this web even know that they're involved?”
Former Macalester College Professor Peter Rachleff said this tension between the rights of the public and the power of the federal government has been a through-line in American history. He said the federal government’s behavior in Minnesota is reminiscent of the government’s efforts to undermine the Civil Rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and ‘70s.
“Throughout American history, those in power have used the resources available to them to preserve, protect, even enhance and expand their power,” Rachleff said. “When there is fear coming from government, fear that there are movements on the ground that might challenge their authority, they begin to leverage and deploy those resources.”
The pendulum has swung both directions in American history, Rachleff said. When the federal government blatantly oversteps its power, he said there’s typically a push by the public to put checks on the government’s actions.
“Given that we're on the precipice of midterm elections, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the next term of the United States Senate and Congress, that we will see bills introduced to try to limit these powers that are being used by the administrative or executive branch of the government,” Rachleff said.
American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota Policy Counsel John Boehler said the kind of surveillance used by the federal government can be damaging to civil society because there’s very little oversight over the federal government’s actions. But one takeaway for Boehler is that the government didn’t appear to find much evidence of criminal activity as they surveilled activists and community gatherings.
“Sure, they were there in meetings and they infiltrated, but what they heard was neighbors discussing patrols and whistles and grocery deliveries,” Boehler said. “Even when the federal government tried to suggest a more direct action approach, that wasn’t taken up.”
Boehler said he’s curious what other information may become public from the Minnesota 15 conspiracy case. He said threatening people with possible prosecution for engaging in protected activities like protest could chill people’s willingness to exercise their Constitutional rights.
“If you don't feel comfortable having a conversation in your church, or having a conversation with your union colleagues, or participating in nonviolent protests and demonstrations with those groups, [then] the government is broadly sweeping in most of the First Amendment-protected groups into one retaliatory effort,” Boehler said.
Defense attorney Kevin Riach filed the motion for discovery that asks the judge to, among other things, order the government to release all reports related to surveillance, including records of another federal project called Operation Whipple Shield, which appears to have gathered info on protesters and others at the federal building where people protested throughout the winter.
The judge overseeing the case has ordered the government to respond to the defendant's motion on or before next Friday. Neither the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office nor the U.S. Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment.
