The Department of Homeland Security allegedly ran a sweeping, politically motivated surveillance campaign against protesters, unions and nonprofits with no criminal basis, according to a court filing by a lawyer for a defendant charged in the protests.
Undercover agents posing as protesters are being accused of surveilling community meetings at churches, parks, libraries, schools and union halls in what one defense attorney calls an “unprecedented campaign” to “spy on Minnesotans.”
The allegations came from a Thursday court filing in a criminal case against 15 people charged in June with conspiring to interfere with federal officers during protests against “Operation Metro Surge.”
Roughly 3,000 federal officers were deployed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for what the department called its “largest immigration enforcement operation ever,” resulting in thousands of arrests and clashes between protesters and federal agents.
The Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, opened “Operation Puppet Master” four days after Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal immigration officers.
“These agents surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE’s lawless rampage in our state,” wrote defense attorney Kevin Riach, who represents Isaac Sant, one of the 15 defendants.
HSI said that it does not comment on the existence or status of specific ongoing investigations, nor on investigative methods.
It directed inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The program aimed to identify “violent opportunists and agitators.”
It was “opened to document the integration of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Undercover Agents (UCAs) into groups, organizations, or other gatherings identified by intelligence information and other sources as potentially threatening to law enforcement personnel,” according to court records.
Investigators also unleashed a second initiative, “Project Whipple Shield,” to probe “instances where individuals and organized networks have exploited events to engage in acts of violence, destruction of property, intimidation of federal officers and employees and attempts to impede federal operations.”
Undercover agents posing as activists surveilled meetings, and one agent allegedly tried to entice a participant into “direct-action” activity, telling him “going to jail did not bother him.”
At one church meeting, agents captured attendees’ license plates, then compiled an “intel workup” with names, addresses and family and employment data.
HSI Agent Desmond Garcia had told the grand jury that “no one is ever investigated or looked at or even researched on for First Amendment protected activities.”
Agents “surreptitiously” recorded dozens of conversations with protesters, and separately, gathered information on Minnesotans from law enforcement databases and internet searches to build dossiers that the filing says are now available agency-wide.
HSI presented the grand jury a graph titled “The Conspiracy,” which included groups like the AFL-CIO — the largest coalition of labor groups in the U.S — the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and even a bicycle repair shop.
It also obtained financial records from Service Employees International Union, the Communications Workers of America, Voices for Racial Justice and the Sunrise Movement. In the summons seeking Communications Workers of America records, HSI instructed the responding financial institution, “You are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time.”
The motion ties the case to President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which it says “directs DOJ to prosecute ICE protesters and opponents of the administration.”
Mr. Riach asked the court to order prosecutors to turn over additional material, including undisclosed surveillance reports, data from agents’ phones and laptops and internal communications regarding the two operations.
