5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Latest News
'She's Lying': Journalist Exposes Secret Watch Lists That Trump Official Says Don't Exist
"If we don’t explore more why all of these secret lists exist," one US intelligence officer said, there could be "even more of an environment of paranoia on the ground and more tragic killings.”
Jan 28, 2026
Despite denials from a senior Trump administration official, secret watchlists of Americans are being used by federal agencies to track and categorize US citizens—especially protesters, activists, and critics of law enforcement—as “domestic terrorists," investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Wednesday.
Klippenstein said that two senior national security officials speaking on condition of anonymity told him that there are over a dozen "secret and obscure" watchlists that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI are using to track anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and pro-Palestine protesters, antifa-affiliated individuals, and "others who are promiscuously labeled 'domestic terrorists.'"
"I can reveal for the first time," he wrote, "that some of the secret lists and applications go by codenames like Bluekey, Grapevine, Hummingbird, Reaper, Sandcastle, Sienna, Slipstream, and Sparta (including the ominous sounding HEL-A and HEL-C reports generated by Sparta)."
"Some of these, like Hummingbird, were created to vet and track immigrants, in this case Afghans seeking to settle in the United States," Klippenstein explained. "Slipstream is a classified social media repository. Others are tools used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking."
"There’s practically nothing available that further describes what these watchlists do, how large they are, or what they entail," he added.
Klippenstein's revelation seemingly flies in the face of DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin's recent denial that the administration has a database containing the names of people accused of domestic terrorism.
"There's just one problem: She's lying," wrote Klippenstein.
🚨 I've obtained a list of secret watchlists the Department of Homeland Security uses to keep tabs on American citizenswww.kenklippenstein.com/p/ices-secre...
[image or embed]
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) January 28, 2026 at 1:07 PM
Many observers already thought as much, especially after a masked federal enforcer taunted an anti-ICE protester in Maine by telling her that "we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist."
White House "border czar" Tom Homan—who was recently sent to Minnesota to oversee the anti-immigrant blitz following the departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino amid outrage over the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti—also said this month that "we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault, we’re going to make them famous."
Reporting Tuesday that Pretti—the nurse who was disarmed and then shot dead by federal enforcers in Minneapolis last week—was known to Trump officials after a previous encounter in which agents broke his rib raised further questions about government watchlists.
"We came out of 9/11 with the notion that we would have a single ‘terrorist’ watch list to eliminate confusion, duplication, and avoid bad communications, but ever since January 6, not only have we expanded exponentially into purely domestic watchlisting, but we have also created a highly secretive and compartmented superstructure that few even understand," a DHS attorney "intimately familiar" with the matter told Klippenstein on condition of anonymity, referring to the deadly January 2021 Capitol insurrection.
According to Klippenstein:
Prior to 9/11, there were nine federal agencies that maintained 12 separate watchlists. Now, officially there are just three: a watch list of 1.1 million international terrorists, a watch list of more than 10,000 domestic terrorists maintained by the FBI, and a new watch list of transnational criminals, built up to more than 85,000 over the past decade...
Among other functions, the new watchlists process tips, situation reports, and collected photographs and video submitted by both the public and from agents in the field; they create a “common operating picture” in places like Minneapolis; they allow task forces to target individuals for surveillance and arrest; and they create the capacity for intelligence people to link individuals together through geographic proximity or what is labeled “call chaining” by processing telephone numbers, emails, and other contact information.
Asked about how the Trump administration might try to legally justify these watchlists, Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program director, cited President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7), which mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
Levinson-Waldman also noted Attorney General Pam Bondi's December 5 memo directing federal agencies to expand the investigation and prosecution of "domestic terrorism," including groups "aligned" with antifa, an anti-fascist ideology that does not exist as an organization.
One senior intelligence official who confirmed the existence of the watchlists warned Klippenstein: "Lists of this and that—this social media post, that video taken of someone videoing ICE, the mere attendance at a protest—gets pulsed by federal cops on the beat to check for criminality but eventually just becomes a list itself of criminality, with the cops thinking that indeed they are dealing with criminals and terrorists. Watchlists, and the whole watchlisting process, should be as transparent as possible, not the other way around."
"If we don’t explore more why all of these secret lists exist," the official added, there could be "even more of an environment of paranoia on the ground and more tragic killings.”
Keep Reading
Show Less
'Unimaginable Cruelty': ICE Denies Father's Request to Attend Son's Funeral
One family member blames ICE for Wael Tarabishi's death from a degenerative genetic disease. "They killed him when they took his father away," she said.
Jan 28, 2026
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials denied a detained Texas man's request for temporary release to attend this Thursday's planned funeral for his American son, whose death relatives have attributed to ICE's arrest of his father, who was also his primary caregiver.
Ali Elhorr, an attorney for Arlington resident Maher Tarabishi, told People that his client's request for humanitarian release to attend his American son Wael Tarabishi's funeral was denied Tuesday.
Maher Tarabishi, 62, was arrested by ICE enforcers last October 28 amid the Trump administration's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown. Originally from Jordan, he came to the United States on a tourist visa in 1994 and sought political asylum after the visa expired. He is currently being held in Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas.
"He had check-ins with ICE every year," said Elhorr. "Never missed a single one. Was never late to one."
Maher Tarabishi was detained in October during a scheduled check-in at an ICE facility.He was the primary caretaker of his son, who died last week.The family is seeking Maher's release so he can attend his son's funeral.ICE reportedly denied the request.Unimaginable cruelty.
[image or embed]
— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) January 28, 2026 at 10:31 AM
However, the Trump administration accused Maher Tarabishi of being a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories and a recipient of millions of dollars in US assistance.
However, the PLO is also considered a terrorist organization by the US government. Maher Tarabishi, his relatives, and his lawyer say he is not affiliated with any terror group.
Wael Tarabishi was diagnosed with Pompe disease—a rare progressive genetic disorder—when he was 4 years old. At the time of his arrest, Maher Tarabishi was his son's primary caregiver.
On November 20, Wael Tarabishi was hospitalized and diagnosed with sepsis and pneumonia in both lungs, according to Shahd Arnaout, who is Maher Tarabishi's daugther-in-law.
"Maher was his caregiver, his father, his best friend, his everything," Arnaout told People Wednesday.
Wael Tarabishi was in and out of the hospital until his death last Friday.
“I blame ICE,” Arnaout told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Wednesday. “Maybe they did not kill Wael with a bullet, but they killed him when they took his father away.”
Arnaout said her family initially requested that Maher Tarabishi be freed so he could continue caring for his son at their home—which she said is equipped like a mini-hospital—and keep on fighting their insurance company to get critical care.
“Wael is a US citizen, and he was asking for his dad to be next to him while he’s dying,” Arnaout said. “His country failed him.”
Keep Reading
Show Less
Facing Imminent Death, Final Palestine Action Prisoner Ends Hunger Strike in UK
"If David Lammy wishes to see me dead, if Keir Starmer wishes to see me dead, they can come and do it themselves," said 22-year-old activist Umer Khalid.
Jan 28, 2026
After 17 days without food and three without water, the 22-year-old British pro-Palestine activist Umer Khalid ended his hunger strike after being hospitalized on Monday.
Khalid is the last of the eight young activists with the group Palestine Action to remain on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment without trial and the criminalization of pro-Palestine speech in the UK.
“At the hospital… I was given a choice between treatment and likely death within the next 24 hours due to kidney failure, acute liver failure, and potential cardiac arrest,” said Khalid, in a statement shared by the Prisoners for Palestine group, which is supporting the strikers. He said that he decided to end his hunger strike because, “I am too strong, too loud, too powerful… and there is so much we can do to effect change.”
The activists are being held in prison on remand, meaning they were denied bail and have not yet been given a trial for vandalizing military equipment used to support Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.
Earlier this month, several of the strikers, some of whom had refused food since November, ended their strike after the UK rejected a $2.7 billion contract for a subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons maker, Elbit Systems.
Four of them were arrested after allegedly breaking into an Elbit facility and destroying equipment. Khalid is among four others accused of trespassing at a British Royal Air Force base and vandalizing airplanes.
Khalid, who suffers from Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and suffered multiple organ failure during the strike, ended his protest after Amy Frost, the governor of the Wormwood Scrubs prison where he is being held, agreed to meet with him to discuss the conditions of his confinement. After the meeting, he received mail and clothes that the prison had withheld from him, and restrictions on outside visitors that had been in place since July were lifted.
A spokesperson for Prisoners for Palestine said Khalid "absolutely must have compassionate bail in order to heal, all the hunger strikers should."
In addition to protesting the restrictive conditions of their confinement, the strikers were seeking to draw attention to the criminalization of Palestine Action. The UK government, currently led by Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer, added the group to a list of banned "terrorist" organizations in July, meaning that even peaceful support for the group or identification as a member can result in imprisonment.
Since the ban went into effect, more than 2,700 people have been arrested across the UK over support for or involvement with Palestine Action, in many cases for actions like holding a sign or chanting a slogan in support of the group.
The British government has been repeatedly pressed to intervene on behalf of the strikers, who have alleged mistreatment and neglect while in confinement.
Khalid previously went on a 12-day hunger strike, which the Canary reported "made Khalid seriously unwell and unable to walk." According to the outlet, "the prison mismanaged his refeeding by giving him protein shakes and biscuits, dangerously unsuitable."
Other strikers have said recovery from weeks or months without food has been exceedingly difficult. Shahmina Alam, a healthcare worker and the sister of Kamran Ahmed, who refused food for 67 days, said the strike showed that "the prison healthcare system is not fit for purpose" and that "there are systemic failures to provide care which is dignified, timely, or even lifesaving."
"These prisoners are not treated as patients or even humans," she continued. "They are dehumanised, handcuffed in their sleep and in the shower, and are given no privacy, confidentiality, or respect."
Despite calls from medical experts and members of Parliament, David Lammy, the secretary of state for justice, has refused calls to meet with the strikers to discuss their demands, which have included immediate bail, an end to the censorship of their communications, and an end to the ban on Palestine Action.
Khalid said he made his decision to end the strike in part because members of the government "have shown without a doubt that they have no concern for our lives and they do not care if we die in these cells."
He said, "If David Lammy wishes to see me dead, if Keir Starmer wishes to see me dead, they can come and do it themselves."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular