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civil liberties
Whistleblower Says Trump White House Pushed FBI to Violate ICE Protesters’ Constitutional Rights
“How many more of these investigations have been opened up because of political pressure coming from the White House, despite the questions and concerns about legality and constitutionality?” said US Sen. Alex Padilla.
Oct 06, 2026
A whistleblower report filed by a former FBI intelligence analyst alleges that the Trump administration pushed the law enforcement agency to violate the constitutional rights of US citizens demonstrating against federal immigration enforcement operations.
According to a Tuesday report from NBC News, Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, has filed a formal complaint with leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee alleging violations of Americans' rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.
The complaint alleges that Emil Bove, a loyalist to President Donald Trump who served as acting deputy attorney general before being confirmed to the federal judiciary, told the head of the field office to open an investigation into protesters holding events outside federal buildings, even though such demonstrations are explicitly protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment.
The administration also ordered FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate demonstrators who were using megaphones to warn their immigrant neighbors about the presence of US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operations in the area.
Additionally, the complaint claims that Fields was removed from supervising three programs at the office after she raised internal concerns about violating civil liberties, which "created a chilling effect within the workforce" and "signaled to other employees that raising constitutional or legal concerns could carry professional consequences."
Fields would subsequently resign from her position.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, and border safety, told NBC that whistleblower complaints will be crucial to investigating administration activities given how the president has gutted inspectors general within the federal bureaucracy.
“That’s going to be a significant challenge," Padilla said of gathering information on the administration, "but it begins with good, honorable professionals being willing to come forward and tell us what’s going on and what’s wrong with what’s going on. We're hoping others may be inspired, as well."
Padilla also speculated that Fields' whistleblower complaint was just the tip of the iceberg.
"How many more of these investigations have been opened up," he wondered, "because of political pressure coming from the White House, despite the questions and concerns about legality and constitutionality?"
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While America Is Blanketed in Flock Surveillance, Factory Farms Get a Free Pass
Federal agencies are protecting abusive industries while monitoring decent members of the public, hoping that we turn a blind eye to their assault on democracy and civil liberties.
Oct 04, 2026
The US government is rapidly installing Flock cameras and expanding the use of drones to follow the movements of ordinary people. A recent YouGov survey reveals that more Americans oppose such surveillance than support it, and yet, the government continues to track its citizens—while simultaneously bowing to Big Ag’s demands to ban drone footage and undercover investigations on factory farms.
Federal agencies are protecting abusive industries while monitoring decent members of the public, hoping that we turn a blind eye to their assault on democracy and civil liberties.
We have a right to personal privacy and to information that directly impacts our daily lives, including the truth about the food on our tables. In addition to animal agriculture’s irresponsible use of antibiotics, which contributes to the development of more virulent strains of pathogens, diet-related diseases cost our nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year. We could alleviate immense suffering by holding agribusiness accountable for the harm it causes and making needed reforms.
Instead of surveilling the everyday lives of Americans, our government should focus its cameras on industries that cause harm.
Americans are told that Flock cameras can be used to apprehend animal abusers, yet the industries responsible for the suffering of billions of animals are granted immunity. The majority of Americans are opposed to many of the cruel and painful practices routinely inflicted upon animals in our food system, and yet these practices are allowed to continue behind the closed doors of factory farms. We are told that constant monitoring is necessary for “public safety,” and yet the companies responsible for environmental destruction, worker exploitation, and threats to public health remain shielded from scrutiny. These double standards undermine transparency and erode trust, and it’s especially concerning when powerful individuals and institutions whose conduct is an affront to societal values are allowed to weaponize surveillance against their critics.
Flock cameras and emerging technologies could be used to manipulate narratives, confuse citizens, and silence critics, but factory farm operatives have been doing this for decades. It’s revealing to consider how much time and effort they’ve invested in concealing their misdeeds. They’ve passed “Ag-Gag” laws to criminalize whistleblowing and investigations that have exposed their cruelty. They’ve sued individuals, including Oprah Winfrey, for expressing concerns about irresponsible agricultural practices. And, they’ve labeled well-meaning animal rights and environmental advocates as “terrorists,” including in federal legislation entitled “The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.”
Powerful interests wield immense influence in the government and through technology and media platforms. These can be used to distract our attention and also to manipulate public opinion. They make it difficult to obtain factual information, and actively work to marginalize, scapegoat, and punish those who ask questions. This is not how civil society should work. Democratic institutions are supposed to value transparency and accountability and uphold basic standards that prevent abuses of power.
As digital tools become more central in daily life, we’re seeing shifts in how people connect, with stories shared through our phones increasingly shaping our beliefs and behavior. The recent interest in ever-increasing protein consumption, coupled with negative impressions people have of “fake” meat, is not a coincidence. The truth is that real meat comes from real animals who experience real suffering in intolerable conditions that are kept hidden from us.
Instead of surveilling the everyday lives of Americans, our government should focus its cameras on industries that cause harm, so at the very least, we can make informed decisions.
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'Not Just Another Tech Company': Unions, Rights Groups Across EU Demand Governments Ditch Palantir
"A company whose technologies are implicated in serious human rights abuses should not be allowed to become an integral part of Europe’s public infrastructure."
Sep 28, 2026
A large coalition of labor unions and rights groups across Europe on Sunday demanded governments end their relationships with US tech company Palantir, which they described as a threat to democracy and civil liberties.
A joint statement from over 120 groups—including Corporate Europe Observatory, Global Justice Now, and the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU)—says Palantir's actions should "disqualify it from involvement in the operations and functioning of democratic governments."
Among other things, the statement cites Palantir's technical support for "predictive policing" in US cities, its supply of data mining tools to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and its work with the Israeli military, whose brutal years-long assault on Gaza has killed at least 74,000 Palestinians.
The statement also highlights the danger of governments relying on "a class of tech billionaires" to deliver public safety services, which they argue could lead to corporate capture of sovereign nations.
The groups are demanding that European governments cancel all current contracts with Palantir while permanently barring the firm from receiving future public contracts.
Scholars of authoritarianism earlier this year expressed alarm after Palantir posted a 22-point manifesto that they said espouses a “technofascist” doctrine.
Among other things, the manifesto hails the creation of artificial intelligence-powered weapons as tools to enforce American “hard power” around the world; declares that “national service should be a universal duty,” while suggesting the US should “seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force”; and denounces the embrace of “a vacant and hollow pluralism” on the grounds that some cultures “remain dysfunctional and regressive.”
Tim Bierley, campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said that Palantir's leadership has shown "apparent disdain... for democracy," but has still "been allowed to embed dubious technologies across our public services, giving it access to sensitive data and creating worrying new technical dependencies."
"The UK must work with other countries to end dependence on companies involved in human rights abuses," Bierley added, "and end the outsourcing of the public sphere to a dangerous class of big tech oligarchs."
Olivier Hoedeman, research and campaign coordinator at Corporate Europe Observatory, warned that "Palantir is not just another tech company selling governments a piece of software," but is rather being woven "into the machinery of the state, creating deep dependencies while giving a private company a far too powerful role in how governments process sensitive information and make decisions."
"This is a recipe for corporate capture of public infrastructure and decision-making," Hoedeman emphasized. "A company whose technologies are implicated in serious human rights abuses should not be allowed to become an integral part of Europe’s public infrastructure."
Jan Willem Goudriaan, general secretary of EPSU, singled out Palantir's tax avoidance schemes as a reason for European nations to scrap all ties with the company.
"Europe must stop rewarding public contracts to corporations that do not share public service values," said Goudriaan. "The European Parliament must fix this. It is unacceptable to keep feeding corporations with public money while they minimize their tax bills in the middle of a public services emergency. Every euro shifted offshore means fewer nurses, teachers or firefighters."
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Opening the Book of Life on the Day the Towers Fell
The convergence of September 11 and Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity to look back at what we did and did not do in the aftermath.
Sep 11, 2026
I am such a caricature of a native New Yorker that my first date, at age of 12, was at the observation deck of the World Trade Center. I thought there was nothing more romantic than showing someone a full view of the place that was simultaneously my shtetl and the greatest city in the world. I said a shechechiyanu when we walked up to the glass, because the beauty of the moment called for a blessing.
Years later I was a freshman in college in September of 2001, and when I came home for a long weekend that October, the air across Manhattan still smelled unholy, like burning wires, melted concrete, and mass organic decay. There were an unspeakable number of lives, whole universes unto themselves, lost that day, and their memories being a blessing remains a cold comfort. For many of us in the aftermath of that terrible day, we watched the national conversation shift to be entirely about who we should be afraid of—and too often, the answer was some of our fellow Americans.
This year, Rosh Hashanah begins on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The convergence is an opportunity and a gift. Together, Jews in New York and around the country will experience several hours of extraordinary potency: one part of our hearts focused on the opening of the book of life, and the other on the day the towers fell, and everything that came after.
This is an opportunity to understand what Jewish tradition offers us, as well as what it demands.
The legal frameworks this regime is currently using to terrorize immigrant communities were born in the fall of 2001 in New York City. And just like 25 years ago, these attempts to terrorize and target immigrant communities rely on fear.
Judaism teaches us that there is no pathway to atonement with God until you have first atoned with the people you harmed; the gateway to divine repair is closed until interpersonal repair is complete. Crucially, Jewish theology holds it as an impossibility rather than a preference: You cannot approach God while your neighbor still bears the wound you gave them.
There is no such thing as atonement without honest accounting. There is no repair without looking the harm in the eye.
This is the fundamental spiritual nature of the High Holidays. The convergence of September 11 and Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity to look back at what we did in the aftermath. But we must also simultaneously account for the acute political crisis unfolding around us. The multiracial democracy that has kept Jews safer in this country than anywhere else in the history of the world is under attack.
A legal fact that must be part of our accounting: It was in the increased pressure to target American Muslim and American Arab communities that Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) was formed post-9/11. There is a direct line from that targeting in the early 2000s to ICE’s attacks these past years in places like Portland, Washington, DC and Minneapolis. Immigrants have been terrorized—surveilled and made to fear their own government when leaving their homes. Immigrants and innocent bystanders alike have been shot and killed, and families have yet again lost loved ones to both violence and detention. The legal frameworks this regime is currently using to terrorize immigrant communities were born in the fall of 2001 in New York City. And just like 25 years ago, these attempts to terrorize and target immigrant communities rely on fear.
Twenty-five years ago we decided it was an acceptable trade-off for our safety to treat Muslim- and Arab-American men as suspects first and neighbors second. Indefinite detention, the erosion of due process, and the normalization of disappearing people were tested on them. Now, twenty-five years later, we are watching those same frameworks on steroids
If Jews, of all people, cannot recognize the peril here, then we are truly lost.
To be clear, some Jews spoke up in the fall of 2001. They joined the Jewish prophetic tradition of decrying injustice and protested the attack on civil liberties for Muslim- and Arab Americans. But most of us did not.
As Jews, we understand what it means to feel afraid. Antisemitism is a real threat to our safety, bigotry that manifests as real violence—in our places of worship, our neighborhoods, and in halls of power. Our immigrant neighbors, our American Muslim and American Arab neighbors, are not our enemy and we must not be silent when they are targeted in the name of our safety as Jews or Americans.
Those in power right now who are using their power to target so-called outsiders need our support to enact their agenda—to create a country only of people who look and think exactly like them. An agenda where white Christian nationalism is the norm, and where it’s become acceptable to use violence and force to keep the rest of us in line.
This is where our tradition meets us with exquisite moral clarity. Where we must account for what we did—or in this case did not—do. The Talmud teaches that someone who can protest the wrongs of their household, their city, their country, their world and does not is held responsible for those wrongs. English unhelpfully softens the words that matter here. What we translate as "protest"—limchot—really means rebuke or forceful confrontation; the Talmud is not asking for polite dissent. And what we translate as "held responsible"—nitpas—comes from a root meaning to physically grab, to catch, to seize. The sin snags you. It wraps itself around you until the injustice is indisputably as much yours as anyone else's.
This is the warning, and this is the theology of the season. We cannot atone for what we refuse to name. You cannot get right with God while you are still refusing to get right with your neighbor. And you cannot get right with your neighbor while you are still pretending you did not participate in the harm.
We must not treat the 25th anniversary of September 11 and the beginning of Rosh Hashanah as separate events. Instead, we should welcome this invitation to stand in our fear, and our pain, and our integrity, and face what we did. Only then can we truly move into a different world. Our spiritual health and the health of our democracy are both depending on it.
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'Criminalizing Dissent': Alarm Grows Over Extreme Prison Terms for Texas ICE Protesters
“Now anyone engaged in basic protests with the wrong political beliefs can be labeled a domestic terrorist, when they have no intention of violence," said one attorney.
Jun 26, 2026
Alarm and outrage mounted this week following a federal judge's lengthy prison sentences for a group of activists falsely accused by the Trump administration of being members of a nonexistent "North Texas Antifa Cell," with some observers calling the extreme punishments—including 30 years for moving a box of constitutionally protected pamphlets—a test case for criminalizing dissent.
Eight members of the "Prairieview Nine"—part of a larger group of activists who staged a July 4, 2025 protest outside a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Alvarado, Texas—were sentenced Tuesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth to between 30-100 years imprisonment.
Benjamin Song, who was convicted of shooting Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, was sentenced to 100 years for attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and lesser offenses, including discharging a firearm during a violent crime, conspiracy to use and using an explosive, and rioting. Song, a former US Marine, contends that he shot Gross in self-defense after the officer drew his gun first.
The “explosives” in question were fireworks brought to the July 4 protest to show solidarity with people detained by ICE.
Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Bradford Morris, and Elizabeth Soto got 50 years each for rioting, providing material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to use and using an explosive.
Maricela Rueda was sentenced to 70 years for rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and using an explosive, and conspiracy to conceal documents. Those documents were leftist pamphlets protected by the First Amendment.
Rueda's husband, Daniel “Des” Rolando Sanchez Estrada, was hit with a 30-year prison sentence for conspiracy to conceal documents for moving a box full of the pamphlets after speaking with his wife. He did not attend the protest.
Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush and a favorite of right-wing judge shoppers, told the court that the lengthy sentences are meant to “send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology” with the defendants, according to one observer of Tuesday’s proceedings.
The Prairieland sentences were more severe than the longest prison term for the average US murderer or rapist, as well as for the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrectionists—all of whom were later pardoned by President Donald Trump—as well as for convicted child sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
"What happened on Tuesday, it’s shocking to all of us, devastating to the families, 50- to 100-year sentences," Sufia Khalid, deputy director of the National Security Criminal Defense Center at the Muslim Legal Fund of America and lawyer to one of the Prairieland defendants, told Democracy Now! on Thursday. "Those are essentially life sentences for all of the young people in this case, largely of whom were engaged in nonviolent protest at an ICE detention facility."
A group of anti-ICE protesters in Texas were sentenced to 30 to 100 years in jail on Tuesday, after federal prosecutors accused them of being an "antifa terror cell."
The activists attended a protest and noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE jail in Alvarado, Texas.… pic.twitter.com/QxFMPaGsvj
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) June 25, 2026
Khalid noted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) invoked a rarely used "material support for terrorism" statute that "does not require any connection to a domestic terrorist organization or any kind."
"Any American can be targeted that way now. It does not require ties to antifa or to any domestic terrorist organization," she said. "That’s a dangerous precedent, and what allowed them to stack these charges so high on Tuesday."
The DOJ hailed “the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with antifa following... Trump’s executive order designating the group as a domestic terrorist organization in September 2025" in the wake of the assassination of white supremacist influencer Charlie Kirk—which had nothing to do with antifa, a decentralized and leaderless international ideology opposing fascism that's more of a mindset than a movement.
Later that month, Trump also signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), a directive titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” that focuses exclusively on left-wing activities and 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.”
Khalid pointed to the pardoned January 6 insurrectionists, who "were involved in rioting, carrying massive arsenals of weapons, lots of discussions ahead of time—that didn’t exist in this case—about targeting law enforcement, wanting to kill members of Congress, [and] actually storming the Capitol."
"So, we have a massive, unwarranted sentencing disparity here," she said. "What happened in the court in Fort Worth was unconstitutional and should concern everybody in this country in the direction that it is taking us."
Mark Osler, a law professor and sentencing expert at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, told The Guardian on Friday that "the 30-year sentence for Estrada is probably the one that for most people will come closest to shocking the conscience, simply because this is an activity that took place after the harm occurred."
"What happened in the court in Fort Worth was unconstitutional and should concern everybody in this country in the direction that it is taking us."
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, underscored during a Friday interview in an episode of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Counterspin podcast titled "Criminalizing Dissent" that Estrada "wasn't even at the protest."
"He's somebody who allegedly transported a box of pamphlets because his wife was at the protest," Stern said. "And he believed, according to prosecutors, that the box of pamphlets might implicate his wife... so he was concealing evidence."
"Evidence of what?" he continued. "This wasn't a how-to manual... They were zines. They said nothing about this protest, about the Prairieland detention facility, about shooting this police officer... So when they say that he concealed evidence by moving these zines, evidence of what? It's evidence of an ideology. It's evidence of somebody's reading habits."
"And now they're on the same plane as terrorists, as [Islamic State], according to this administration," Stern added. "It's all pretty absurd. But at the end of the day, we have a Constitution that prohibits people from being locked up for what they think, write, or read, as long as they are not inciting imminent violence. So hopefully the appellate courts will reverse these convictions. But the law is only as good as the people who enforce it."
Jeremy Busby, an incarcerated journalist, wrote on the eve of Estrada's trial that the "homespun zines at issue contain no plans for any shooting, and under normal circumstances, they would clearly be deemed constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment."
"But the government’s concealment theory only makes sense if it views merely having the literature as criminal," he argued. “Criminalizing possession of literature is a miscarriage of justice, whether in prison or at a protester’s husband’s parents’ house. If the Trump administration is allowed to send Estrada to prison for the crime of possessing literature, members of society at large can be subjected to the same pernicious rules as the incarcerated.”
Amber Lowrey, the sister of Prairieland defendant Savanna Batten—who was sentenced to 50 years behind bars for material support for terrorism and conspiracy to use and using "explosives" (fireworks)—told The Guardian before Batten's trial that the Trump administration just wants "to make an example of people and silence anyone who... opposes the government."
"They want to silence dissent, criminalize dissent," she added.
Trump administration prosecutors have also invoked NSPM-7 in the case of 15 organizers with the groups Direct Action Minnesota and Black Cat Workers, who are accused of impeding the Department of Homeland Security’s anti-immigrant crackdown in Minneapolis, where US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were separately killed earlier this year by ICE and Border Patrol officers.
"We live under a fascist state where ICE agents can murder us with impunity, yet we can go to prison for 50 years for protesting," socialist commentator and journalist Ryan Knight said Thursday on X. "The unjust sentences of the Prairieland protesters violate the First Amendment and infringe on our rights to fight back against a tyrannical government."
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'New Red Scare': ICE Protester Gets 30 Years for Leftist Zines Under Trump Antifa Decree
"The Prairieland model is in motion: inflate anti-ICE protest into a terrorism narrative, then use the courts to punish people for being part of a movement," said one observer.
Jun 23, 2026
Civil liberties defenders sounded the alarm Tuesday over the draconian prison sentences imposed on a group of activists falsely accused by the Trump administration of being members of a non-existent "North Texas Antifa Cell"—including a 30-year term for a man convicted of moving a box containing leftist literature.
In what the US Department of Justice (DOJ) called "the first sentencing of defendants affiliated with Antifa following President Donald J. Trump’s executive order designating the group as a Domestic Terrorist Organization in September 2025," the defendants were sentenced in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth to between 30-100 years imprisonment for actions in connection with a July 4, 2025 protest at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, an ICE lockup run by prison profiteer LaSalle Corrections.
Despite DOJ documents showing that none of the defendants identified as Antifa—which does not exist as an organization, but is rather mostly an anti-fascist ideology and, to a lesser extent, a decentralized international movement—the targeted individuals were called "members of a North Texas Antifa Cell."
Prosecutors speciously called them "part of a larger militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to an ideology that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law."
The group Support the Prairieland Defendants said that relatives and supporters of the defendants "sat stunned as US District Judges Mark Pittman and Reed O’Connor delivered sentences ranging from 30-100 years in prison." They called the punishment "cruel, callous, and starkly disproportionate to the defendants’ actions."
On the night of the Prairieland protest, the group of convicted activists gathered outside what critics have called a concentration camp for what was meant to be a noise demonstration in solidarity with detainees. The group set off fireworks, and some participants vandalized property by spray-painting slogans, damaging a guard station, and damaging vehicles.
When law enforcement responded, a gunman fired from a wooded area and wounded Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross in the neck. Prosecutors characterized the event as a coordinated attack, while defense attorneys argued that most participants intended only to protest and did not plan or expect violence.
Former US Marine Corps reservist Benjamin Song, who was convicted of shooting Gross, was sentenced to 100 years, officially for attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and lesser offenses including discharging a firearm during a violent crime, conspiracy to use and using an explosive, and rioting.
The "explosives" in question were fireworks brought to the Fourth of July protest to show solidarity with people detained by ICE.
Song said he acted in defense of his comrades.
"When I saw... Gross stop pursuing and point his gun at the back of a running, unarmed protester, like he testified, I was terrified," he said on Tuesday. "As a firearms instructor and a United States Marine Corps veteran, I understood what I was seeing. I knew what it meant for someone to lean forward into a gun, like he testified, to prepare for recoil."
Maricela Rueda was sentenced to 70 years, officially for rioting, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use and using an explosive, and conspiracy to conceal documents. Critics said her "crime" was protesting ICE oppression and asking her husband to move a box.
Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Bradford Morris, and Elizabeth Soto got 50 years each, officially for rioting, providing material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to use and using an explosive. Critics said their "crime" was attending a protest.
Seven others—Seth Sikes, Nathan Baumann, Joy Gibson, Susan Kent, Rebecca Morgan, Lynette Sharp, and John Thomas—have already pleaded guilty to one count each of providing material support to terrorists and are set to be sentenced on July 1. Ines Soto, who is married to Elizabeth Soto, was convicted of the same offenses as her spouse and was granted a continuance. She is also set to be sentenced on July 1.
Most disturbingly, say free speech defenders, is the 30-year prison sentence imposed on Daniel "Des" Rolando Sanchez Estrada for conspiracy to conceal documents.
Under the auspices of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7)—signed by Trump following last year's assassination of racist influencer Charlie Kirk in an effort to target leftists—Sanchez was accused of “corruptly concealing a document or record” after he moved a box containing leftist literature, including zines titled "Another Critique of Insurrectionalism," "It's Vacant, Take It!," and "War In the Streets: Tactical Lessons From the Global Civil War Vol. I."
Prosecutors alleged that Sanchez moved the box in a bid to avoid incriminating Rueda, who is his wife.
Prior to his sentencing, Sanchez—who is a green card holder—told the court that "I worked really hard every day in this country, and I believe in human rights and helping others in need. I donate money and art to help animals and other people."
"I’m a father, a husband, and a teacher," he added. "But I’m not a terrorist.”
Judge O'Connor was not moved, telling the court that the lengthy sentences are meant to "send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology" with the defendants, according to one observer of Tuesday's proceedings.
"These sentences are a travesty and totally unjustified, but that's the point," Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on social media. "Americans hate the fascist Trump regime, so the only way they can try to cling to power is brute force. NSPM-7 is a grave threat to all of us, and more bullshit 'terrorism' charges like these are coming."
The Freedom of the Press Foundation said in response to Tuesday's sentencing, "The zines at issue may have discussed controversial political views, but they said nothing about the shooting or the Prairieland protest, and prosecutors did not allege that Sanchez’s wife... fired any shots or had anything to do with the shooting."
Seth Stern, Freedom of the Press Foundation's advocacy chief, said in a statement that "if prosecutors are correct that Sanchez moved zines because he feared they’d try to use them against his wife, that’s a commentary on prosecutors’ lawlessness, not Sanchez’s."
"Under the First Amendment, possessing literature cannot be criminal, so what legitimate evidence could he possibly have been concealing?" he continued. "Political zines like those Sanchez possessed are no different from the pro-Revolution pamphlets this country’s founders had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment’s press clause."
“Sanchez’s case is the latest example of the Trump administration grasping at any legal straws it can to criminalize disfavored ideologies and writings, from conflating dissent with terrorism to deporting immigrants who report on protests or criticize wars the US bankrolls," Stern said.
"Americans should not make the mistake of believing Sanchez’s sentence only threatens immigrants, leftists, or so-called Antifa members—they’re just the low-hanging fruit, not the endgame," he added.
The prison terms for the Prairieland defendants were more severe than the longest sentences for the average US murderer or rapist, as well as for the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrectionists—all of whom were later pardoned by Trump.
Arjun Sethi, a professor at Georgetown Law and Vanderbilt Law School, said on social media that "if you care about free speech and protest one iota, you should be aghast at the sentences just handed down in the Prairieland case."
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Fort Worth secretary Moishe Dovgolevsky called the sentences "the face of the new Red Scare."
Ana Marie Thorne, chair of the Social Justice Committee at All People’s Church Unitarian Universalist in Fort Worth, said that “as a congregation, we decided that this case was a fundamental test of our right to dissent against authoritarian regimes."
“These defendants are not militant monsters out to kill,” she added. “They are everyday people who saw our country literally interning people in concentration camps and decided to show up at Prairieland Detention Center to let those incarcerated there know that they mattered. We leave here today knowing that the outcome of this trial is not the end. It is the beginning.”
Moira Meltzer-Cohen, an attorney representing defendants in the case, said following Tuesday's sentencing that "this entire prosecution has been calculated to test the state's ability to quell dissent."
"But the way forward is not silence, it is courageous solidarity with those who are being punished on the basis of their protected beliefs, associations, and activities," she added. "And as devastating as this has been for those affected, I do believe their rights will be vindicated in the post-conviction process."
"This entire prosecution has been calculated to test the state's ability to quell dissent."
Song warned the American people Tuesday that while "strangers" may be targeted today, "it will be you tomorrow."
"There is no group called Antifa. Everyone knows that, but this government is so blinded by hate... they want to bury me with an idea," he said. "This idea that they hate is the very idea of being against fascism."
"What kind of people are not against fascism?" he continued. "What kind of people are not against the hate and war and genocide and concentration camps that the Nazis brought upon the world?"
"The hate has migrated into the government," Song warned. "Now that hate is taking power over me. It is taking power over you, over your words and your ideas. When will you be called a domestic terrorist, too?"
In Minneapolis, US Attorney Daniel Rosen—who was appointed by Trump last year—last week invoked NSPM-7 in the prosecution of 15 organizers with the groups Direct Action Minnesota and Black Cat Workers Collective who Rosen claims are linked to Antifa and who are accused of impeding the Department of Homeland Security's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown.
"When they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, they went on TV, and they called them domestic terrorists, the same day, within the hour," Song said, referring to two US citizens shot dead by Trump administration immigration enforcers in Minneapolis. "When will that happen to you?"
"I don’t fear for myself," he added. "I fear for all of you."
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Trump’s New 'Counterterrorism' Strategy Is a Sweeping Attack on Domestic Dissent
The administration is using national security as a pretext to target protesters, civil rights groups, and vulnerable communities. Here is how we fight back.
May 15, 2026
On May 6, 2026, the Trump administration released its latest conspiracy-laden attack on “the left,” this time in the form of a “counterterrorism strategy". While laughably lacking in evidence or regard for laws, the “strategy” will have serious, deadly consequences. It sets our country’s counterterror apparatus and racist, anti-Muslim goals against the Global South, Europe, and all those here at home who have the nerve to demand their rights and oppose full-fledged autocracy.
In this post, I will focus on the domestic implications, although the global impacts are both frightening and impossible to fully separate, as the strategy conflates everything from domestic resistance movements to people with disfavored ideologies to drug trafficking with international terrorism.
The strategy is authored by Sebastian Gorka, a known anti-Muslim bigot whom former counterterrorism officials pan as “ill-informed” and a “huckster.” It should come as no surprise, therefore, that this so-called “strategy” is basically a cocktail of fearmongering and post-9/11 playbook, but on steroids. It incorporates and expands on the president’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, which casts a sweeping set of dissenting views as (domestic) terrorism, plays up fears of a “new alliance” between leftists and “Islamists,” and completely ignores the documented threats of right-wing and white supremacist extremists.
This is all hauntingly familiar. For generations, federal agencies have surveilled, monitored, and targeted Black, immigrant, Muslim, Middle Eastern, Asian, Indigenous, and other people of color, using surveillance as a tool of intimidation and enforcement that deepens racial inequities instead of making people safer.
Communities that have historically borne the brunt of government overreach will once again suffer the greatest harm. But this sweeping attack on dissent affects everyone, threatening the foundations of our free society.
For example, the strategy promises to wield massive law enforcement, surveillance, and other counterterror powers to “map” and "neutralize" groups it describes as "anti‑American, radically pro‑transgender, and anarchist." In the post-9/11 era, the New York Police Department attempted to map all Muslims and their institutions in the Tri-State Area, for which Muslim Advocates, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Gibbons P.C. successfully sued in 2012. We have long seen our community and sacred spaces violated by informants and oppressive surveillance.
The document also states that the US government will "[i]dentify terror actors and plots before they happen,” (emphasis added) which sounds dystopian, but is the same false logic underlying the notorious Countering Violent Extremism program that targeted American Muslims in the post-9/11 era.
In Gorka's reported comments to the press, he doubled down on targeting "ideology” and preventive policing: “We see a threat… we will crush it, whether it is the cartels, the jihadists, or violent left-wing extremists like antifa and like the transgender killers, the non-binary, the left-wing radicals.”
These practices have caused lasting trauma and generational impact for Muslims, stifling our religious and political expression and wrecking intra-community trust. Now the government is wolfishly expanding while few seem to notice. Gorka himself said, “We are moving so fast, they just can’t keep up with us, which is delicious.”
A Sweeping Attack on Dissent
Indeed, the breadth of attacks on protesters, dissenters, and civil rights organizations is overwhelming. A few examples:
- This administration slandered Renee Good and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists after its own officers shot each of them dead in broad daylight, contravening overwhelming bystander and video evidence.
- Prairieland case: Eight anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protesters were convicted of material support for terrorism; raided; and had their flyers, zines, and use of encrypted chats cited in the indictment as evidence of their connection to terrorism.
- “Domestic terrorist” database: In January, an ICE officer told a legal observer, “[W]e have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic terrorist." When pressed at a congressional hearing, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons denied that a database of American “domestic terrorists” exists, but in a subsequent hearing, former Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to deny it.
- In late April, federal prosecutors indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has documented violent white supremacists for decades.
Communities that have historically borne the brunt of government overreach will once again suffer the greatest harm. But this sweeping attack on dissent affects everyone, threatening the foundations of our free society.
What can we do?
Make noise: Call attention to the harms of this counterterror “strategy.” Its release during congressional recess let it fly under the radar, although Ranking Member of House Homeland Security Committee Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) noted its lack of strategy and called again for a hearing with officials. Other elected officials should likewise take action to condemn this latest attack on dissent, demand transparency about its implementation and adherence to the Constitution, and protect our rights.
Congress also has an immediate opportunity to curb vast surveillance powers enabled by Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702. Congressional leadership has so far blocked bipartisan efforts to pass a warrant requirement for searches of people in the US, and before accessing our intimate details through data-broker purchases. Lawmakers have until June 12 to enact basic protections for people in the US. This counterterror strategy—along with the recent whispers of its potential use against right-wing dissenters from Trumpism—shows exactly why we must urgently rein in the government's massive counterterror arsenal, starting with 702’s warrantless spy power.
Demand that local governments refuse to cooperate with the federal government, divest and remove surveillance technology, and withdraw from Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF’s), which deputize local law enforcement to do the feds’ bidding and share information pursuant to its permissive interpretations of federal law.
Collectively, we must continue to demand our rights: to protest, to speak, to commune, and to live free from Big Brother—especially Big Brother with a gun. Remember: The overwhelm we feel isn’t an accident; it’s tactical. Refuse to allow the administration’s intimidation tactics to succeed. Our mass, unapologetic refusal to comply, is what’s truly “delicious.”
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Replacing Bovino With Homan Won't Change ICE's Tactics in Minneapolis
Bovino’s departure changes nothing about ICE’s lawless behavior on the ground. If anything, the situation has become more volatile.
Jan 31, 2026
The recent firing of Greg Bovino, the face of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, was clearly intended to serve as a pressure-release valve for a city at its breaking point. For weeks, we have watched federal agents transform our neighborhoods into a theater of intimidation, characterized by warrantless stops, the brutalization of peaceful protestors, and the killings of two constitutional observers, captured on video and now seen by the majority of Americans.
By replacing Bovino with Border Czar Tom Homan, the administration likely hopes to signal a new direction or a cooling of tensions. But no one should be fooled. Firing a commander is an empty act of appeasement when the machinery of the operation itself remains fully fueled and operational. Bovino’s departure changes nothing about ICE’s lawless behavior on the ground. If anything, the situation has become more volatile.
The timing of this leadership shuffle is particularly cynical when viewed alongside the latest developments in the federal judiciary. On Monday night, the Eighth Circuit granted the Department of Justice (DOJ) a full stay on the injunction previously secured by Judge Katherine Menendez. That injunction was the only thin line of defense protecting protesters from ICE violence and retaliation. With that stay in place, federal agents have been handed a blank check to target activists and constitutional observers in ways that Menendez had previously found unconstitutional.
Operation Metro Surge was never about public safety in the way most Minnesotans understand it. It is a display of federal power, designed to bypass local oversight and treat our state as an occupied zone because the current administration doesn’t like our social welfare policies. Bovino was a symptom of this strategy, not its sole architect.
Minneapolis does not need a new commander, it needs Operation Metro Surge to end.
The tactics of intimidation, unmarked vehicles, lack of clear identification, and the racial profiling of community members is baked into the Operation Metro Surge’s DNA. Changing a public-facing figure while maintaining the underlying tactics only creates a more dangerous environment. It allows the operation to continue under a veil of "reform" while ICE’s mandate continues to broaden, and the reality on the street remains one of fear and violence.
I believe we are now entering the most dangerous phase of ICE’s enforcement operations in Minnesota. The combination of a leadership changeup and a legal victory for the DOJ has created a perfect storm. History shows us that when law enforcement agencies feel vindicated by the courts and pressured by optics, they do not retreat, they push forward, and citizen vigilantes come to their defense.
The attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Tuesday was primed by years of dehumanizing rhetoric against her, prompted by ICE’s illegal actions in Minneapolis, and executed by a lone-wolf reactionary in an attempt to silence calls for abolition. When the administration labels “disrespect” as a capital offense, and has pushed the rule of law to its breaking point, we should not be surprised when citizens take it in their hands to “enforce” the new law.
Minneapolis does not need a new commander, it needs Operation Metro Surge to end. The replacement of Bovino is a tactical retreat, a cosmetic change meant to buy time. If we accept Homan’s takeover as "progress," we are consenting to the continued erosion of our civil liberties and political culture. A leadership shakeup doesn’t change anything; it’s just a convenient news cycle that the Trump administration would prefer for us to focus on. Don’t give them your attention. Keep watching the streets of Minneapolis and the actions of our federal courts.
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Federal Agent Tells Maine ICE Observer She's Going in 'Nice Little Database' for 'Domestic Terrorists'
"Ironically these kinds of threats do more to radicalize opposition to ICE," said one observer.
Jan 23, 2026
A masked federal immigration enforcement agent was caught on camera this week telling a legal observer in Maine that she was being put in a database for purported "domestic terrorists."
At the start of a video that spread across social media on Friday, the masked agent appears to be scanning a license plate number before walking toward the woman recording him.
The woman informs the agent that it's legal for her to record and then asks him why he's trying to gather information on her.
"Because we have a nice little database, and now you're considered a domestic terrorist," the agent responds.
At this point the woman starts laughing incredulously at him.
"For videotaping you?!" she asks him. "Are you crazy?!"
ICE agent in Portland, Maine tells legal observer she is a domestic terrorist for peacefully recording him, adds her to "nice little database" pic.twitter.com/6miHpXUdT7
— Nathan Bernard (@nathanTbernard) January 23, 2026
Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee were quick to denounce the actions of the agent on the video.
"Big government Republicans have unleashed a secret police state on peaceful American citizens," they wrote in a social media post. "This should shake every American to their core."
Other critics, however, noted that it isn't just Republicans who have been supporting the right-wing police state. Seven US House Democrats, including Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), voted with the vast majority of Republicans on Thursday to give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) an additional $10 billion.
"Corporate Democrats are complicit with the full breakdown of our constitutional rights," commented Sunrise Movement.
Greg Krieg, media director at political consulting firm Slingshot Strategies, took particular aim at Golden for shoveling more money to ICE despite documented evidence of agents violating Americans' civil liberties.
"Thank you Jared Golden, special man who understands Maine better than anyone on the planet, for telling us how much people actually like this horseshit," he wrote sarcastically.
Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the agent's behavior crossed a line that should be condemned by Americans of all political persuasions.
"I hope the vast majority of freedom-loving Americans are uncomfortable with the idea," he wrote, "that masked police are now telling people engaged in First Amendment-protected activity that they are 'domestic terrorists' who will be added to a secret government database."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, predicted that federal agents' aggressive taunts against legal observers would backfire politically against the Trump administration.
"Ironically these kinds of threats do more to radicalize opposition to ICE tactics than they do to stop people from recording ICE," he observed.
Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News, also thought the optics of the Maine video were terrible for Republicans.
"It's hard to overstate how unpopular this crap is with normie Americans," Saul wrote. "On top of the gross civil rights violations, that Trump is letting these goons loose in Maine, a state where Democrats could actually pick up a Senate seat in nine months, it's political malpractice."
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You Could Be on Trump's Enemies List, But the Mainstream Media Won't Warn You
A new Department of Justice memo is another giant step towards authoritarianism; however, establishment media didn’t see it that way.
Dec 12, 2025
The Trump FBI is drawing up an enemies list that could encompass well over half the US public: Do you “advance… opposition to law and immigration enforcement”? Do you have “extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders”? Show an “adherence to radical gender ideology,” meaning you think trans people exist? Do you exhibit (what the Trump administration would interpret as) “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” or “anti-Christianity”? Do you display “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality”?
Congratulations—you may be headed for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism.” “Terrorism,” of course, is the magic word that strips you of all sorts of legal protections, especially in the post-9/11 era.
This is from a Justice Department memo obtained by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein (12/6/25)—which goes on to instruct the FBI to set up “a cash reward system” for people who turn in those promoting such thoughtcrime, and “establish cooperators to provide information and eventually testify against other members” of groups with these dangerous ideas.
This is the implementation of the Trump administration’s avowed policy of criminalizing dissent—in the words of the NSPM-7 decree, outlawing “organized campaigns of… radicalization… designed to… change or direct policy outcomes” (FAIR.org, 10/3/25; CounterSpin, 10/17/25)—and as such is another giant step towards authoritarianism. Establishment media didn’t see it that way, however.
To get actual coverage of the threat DOJ is posing to civil liberties and democracy itself, you had to go to independent outlets.
As Klippenstein (12/9/25) pointed out, virtually no corporate media outlets covered this catastrophic memo, and those who did report on it did a generally poor job. The Guardian headline (12/5/25) was “Pam Bondi Tells Law Enforcement Agencies to Investigate Antifa Groups for ‘Tax Crimes,’” and Bloomberg Law (12/5/25) had “Bondi Orders FBI Extremism Intelligence Review with Antifa Focus”—completely misleading framing that suggests that if you’re not “Antifa,” the memo isn’t about you.
Here’s Reuters‘ entirely unhelpful “summary” (12/4/25):
- Bondi orders FBI to prioritize domestic terrorism investigations
- Memo targets antifa and similar groups
- FBI to develop strategies to disrupt criminal networks
- DOJ calls for prosecuting extremist groups for tax crimes
The DOJ is issuing marching orders for a witch hunt, and Reuters presents it with a straight face as an effort to go after “domestic terrorism,” “criminal networks,” and “extremist groups” who commit “tax crimes.” Who could object to that?
Among corporate media outlets, only The Hill (12/5/25), a specialty outlet aimed at congressional staffers and lobbyists, conveyed the enormity of the directive. Its second paragraph read:
Bondi’s memo could be the starting point for charges against a number of left-leaning advocacy groups and nonprofits the Trump administration has accused without evidence of having ties to extremists.
The Hill‘s Rebecca Beitsch quoted Andrew Bataj of the group Whistleblower Aid, “This memo expressly seeks to redefine political dissent against the president as domestic terrorism.”
But beyond that, to get actual coverage of the threat DOJ is posing to civil liberties and democracy itself, you had to go to independent outlets like Democracy Now! (12/8/25) and the Lever (12/8/25). The counterrevolution will not be televised.
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