DHS Stretches the Law to Surveil Journalists

A host of new details have emerged in recent weeks about a sweeping and extremely unusual surveillance operation that the Department of Homeland Security launched as part of it’s occupation of Minneapolis last winter, during which agents killed two protestors, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The widespread effort to spy on activists and journalists has drawn comparisons to the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, including COINTELPRO.

One central focus for DHS was an anti-ICE protest at a church. It led to the highly controversial indictment of dozens of demonstrators and two journalists who were covering the protest, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort.

DHS sought reams of information about the protest and, when stymied by judges, found new avenues to get what it wanted. Through a sneaky, highly unusual maneuver, it got access to six months of a Fort’s phone records, her lawyers allege and the Guardian reported. It used the same maneuver to seek information about YouTube videos that journalists, including Fort and Lemon, posted about the protest.

In a weekend article, the Guardian examined how this all worked: After a judge blocked the agency’s efforts to obtain a search warrant, it issued administrative subpoenas under a provision of federal law — 19 USC 1509 — that empowers the government to obtain information to make sure customs duties and taxes are being properly collected. It’s unclear what any of this had to do with enforcing customs duties.

The administration also used this provision to seek information about YouTube videos posted by other journalists and commentators, including Democracy Now, Megyn Kelly, and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Guardian reported. It’s unclear exactly why officials wanted the YouTube records.

The Guardian’s report is the latest revelation in the story of the Minneapolis surveillance, which we’ve been following closely; TPM’s Josh Kovensky wrote last week about how DHS surveilled an Alex Pretti memorial, and obtained records about and sent agents to inform on various activists groups. The operation left behind a paper trail that is emerging in discovery, as cases against various activists charged in the Twin Cities move forward.

Though DHS was trying to find examples of activists plotting to commit violent acts against federal agents, it found little, Josh wrote. Documents show a somewhat absurd series of reports from informants back to DHS. One described attending a Sunrise Movement meeting where “a chick dressed like Zelda” led visitors to different meeting rooms; the agent went to one entitled “de-escalation in action.” “They were pretty big on peaceful protest,” the agent recalled to his debriefer. Another attended a meeting where “speakers educated the attendees on what Socialism is and what the world would look like under a Socialist system of government” but explained that there “was no indication that members of the group wanted to use violence towards ICE Agents.”

Government of Influencers Settles a Factional Dispute

Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was arrested Friday, and has now been deported to the UK.

• Laura Loomer, the chaotic online presence with tremendous influence in the Trump administration, is taking credit. The two used to be friends, but their relationship descended into feuding. She has been calling for Yiannopoulos to be deported for years.
• Yiannopoulos’ schtick, shocking a decade ago, now feels commonplace. It sort of prefigured some of the worst aspects of the Trump administration, including its extremism — he took credit for organizing the infamous 2022 meeting between Kanye West, who was at the time repeatedly making antisemitic statements, Nick Fuentes and Donald Trump.
• More broadly, the Trump administration — and the Republican Party generally — has embraced toxic aspects of social media culture, placing influencers in key roles and trollishly angling much official policy to get a rise out of the administration’s enemies. See: Lake America.
• Not unrelated: The administration has hired a series of right-wing influencers to wage the culture war from within the Pentagon.

Tabs

• Mike Lindell is claiming he will take his idea for how a recount should operate in his failed bid for governor of Minnesota to the U.S. Supreme Court, NBC reports. Lindell, who lost his primary race by a considerable margin, has been pushing for a recount for weeks. The Secretary of State’s office planned to recount the ballots of voters who voted for him and those who voted for Lisa Demuth; he demanded a recount of every ballot cast in the race. The Minnesota Supreme Court rejected that push, writing that, despite Lindell’s claims, state election officials are “not committing any wrongful act, omission, or error.”
• Trump’s efforts to target and in some places possibly shut down voting by mail through a March executive order that is currently being litigated would be particularly impactful in states that will decide the election, the New York Times reports. Already, ballots are arriving slower than in previous years, and in some cases not being counted, according to a separate Times story.
• A lawsuit alleges that some of the gasoline sold at the Freedom Fuel stations Trump has been touting was never paid for, the Washington Post reports.

Man of the Hour

It’s Milo Yiannopoulos (see above), inspiring schadenfreude after his own reveling in ICE’s inhumane treatment of immigrants — though some have questioned whether he was swiftly deported precisely to spare him the experience of DHS detention.

Are We at War?

Yes, with military leaders warning Hegseth against extending operations into 2027.