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ken klippenstein
'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...
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— 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.”
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'Part of a Larger War': Whistleblower Exposes ICE Effort to Spy on Immigrants—and Americans
"The ICE crackdown isn’t just about immigration; it’s about gathering intelligence... on antifa, on the radical left... and anyone else they consider terrorists," said journalist Ken Klippenstein.
Jan 14, 2026
An "outraged" Border Patrol official has leaked files exposing numerous secret Trump administration efforts to spy on both migrants and American citizens, and to falsely portray every single person who enters the United States without authorization as a terrorist or drug trafficker, a US investigative journalist revealed Wednesday.
The disaffected Border Patrol official gave journalist Ken Klippenstein documents showing "the dizzying scope" of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. These range from previously undisclosed code names of secret ICE missions to an explanation that a key objective of a nationwide campaign called Operation Abracadabra is "tying every individual who crosses the border illegally to a foreign terrorist organization [or a] transnational criminal organization."
A document on another operation—code-named Benchwarmer—reveals that, in an effort aimeda at "collecting information not normally gained" during standard interrogations, “plainclothes agents have been embedded in transport vans, sally ports, processing areas, and detention cells to gather important tactical intelligence and or information."
🚨Border Patrol whistleblower outraged by ICE's conduct exposes over a dozen secret ICE programs in documents leaked to me:www.kenklippenstein.com/p/21-secret-...
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— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Klippenstein wrote that opposition to ICE's actions "has spread throughout the Department of Homeland Security" in the wake of last week's killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. Articles of impeachment filed Wednesday by Democratic members of Congress against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem note how she falsely accused Good of "domestic terrorism."
The discontent with ICE "is also affecting the Justice Department," said Klippenstein, who noted the resignation of half a dozen federal prosecutors "over pressure to investigate Renee Good’s widow," and that FBI officials are "increasingly split" over the White House's effort to link Good with extremists.
"The media is telling a certain story about ICE, giving the blow by blow on the most public horrors but never quite seeing the bigger picture that it’s part of a larger war," Klippenstein asserted. "As a military intelligence source told me, the ICE crackdown isn’t just about immigration; it’s about gathering intelligence in support of [President Donald] Trump’s war on cartels—as well as on antifa, on the radical left, those who are 'anti-American,' and anyone else they consider terrorists."
ICE has also come under fire during Trump's second administration for its surveillance of people who criticize the agency on social media, using facial recognition technology to identify US citizens without their consent, and other policies and practices.
Time's Philip Wang reported Wednesday on dissent among ICE's ranks over Good's killing and the Trump administration's response, which includes legally dubious claims of "absolute immunity" for Ross.
“I’m embarrassed,” one former ICE agent of over 25 years told Wang. “The majority of my colleagues feel the same way. It’s an insult to us... to see what they’re doing now.”
Insiders have pointed to the Trump administration's rush to hire and rapidly deploy more than 10,000 new ICE agents to carry out the president's plan for the "largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants” in US history as a major cause for concern. Critics say that ICE's ramped-up recruitment—which includes $50,000 signing bonuses and the use of racist messaging to lure applicants—is producing inadequately trained ICE officers who, confident of their impunity, are terrorizing communities.
"When thousands of over-militarized immigration agents descend on American communities akin to an invading military force, it seeks to terrorize us, actively harms public safety, and raises the likelihood of violence," Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the advocacy group America's Voice, said in a statement Wednesday.
"Meanwhile, the mass deportation agenda is diverting money, manpower, investigative attention, and resources away from real threats—like child exploitation, drug trafficking investigations, and... disaster preparedness funding—all for the purpose of becoming foot soldiers in Stephen Miller's anti-immigrant crusade," Cárdenas added, referring to the white nationalist White House deputy chief of staff.
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Threat of NSPM-7 Made Clear as Kristi Noem Doubles Down on Blaming Renee Good for Fatal Shooting
"The good news is that the global war on terror is finally over," said journalist Ken Klippenstein. "The bad news is that it came home."
Jan 08, 2026
As US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday doubled down on claims that Renee Nicole Good had committed "an act of domestic terrorism" before being killed by a federal immigration agent, one journalist warned that the killing appeared to be the direct result of an underreported memo signed by President Donald Trump several months ago—a sign that the administration is entering a new phase in what it views as a war with the so-called "enemy within."
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "killing of unarmed American citizen Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis has NSPM-7 written all over it," said independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who has reported extensively on National Security Presidential Memorandum 7.
The memo was signed soon after Trump announced that Antifa—which is not an organization—had been designated a domestic terrorist group, and weeks after the White House blamed the "radical left" for the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
NSPM-7 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," and has an exclusive focus on "anti-fascist" or left-wing activities.
Klippenstein noted on Wednesday that NSPM-7 was followed by an order signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, which directs federal law enforcement agents to crack down on "threats" to ICE officers, including actions that impede enforcement operations.
"The directive goes on to direct prosecutors to target those interfering with or impeding ICE actions," Klippenstein wrote. "'The U.S. Attorney’s Office for each district shall prosecute any individual who assaults or forcibly impedes or intimidates these officers, who interferes with the performance of these officers’ official duties, or who attempts to do so, consistent with 18 U.S.C.§ 111 and other applicable federal laws,' the document says."
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Noem highlighted the administration's claim—one that has not been made clear by evidence that's been released—that Good was impeding ICE officers on Wednesday before she was killed.
A reporter asked if Noem still believed the officer accused of killing Good, Jonathan Ross, had acted in self-defense and according to ICE procedures.
"This is an experienced officer who followed his training," said Noem. "These individuals had followed our officers all day, had harassed them, had blocked them in. They were impeding our law enforcement operations, which is against the law. And when they demanded and commanded her to get out of her vehicle several times, she did not."
Noem: "What happened was our officers were out trying to get a car stuck out of the snow when they were surrounded and assaulted and blocked in by protesters ... this was an act of domestic terrorism" (It was 40 degrees in Minneapolis yesterday and snow was melting ... ) pic.twitter.com/eGDsBnGcJE
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 8, 2026
The reporter on Thursday also questioned how the administration could declare Good a domestic terrorist despite the fact that no investigation has been completed into the case.
"This was an act of domestic terrorism," she said simply.
The Trump administration's continued smearing of Good as a terrorist is a sign, said Klippenstein, that while the "global War on Terror is finally over... It came home."
Podcast host Wajahat Ali wrote that "if Renee Good is 'a domestic terrorist' according to Kristi Noem, it means the label is meaningless and will be used by the Trump administration to murder anyone it wants. From Venezuelan fishermen to anti-Trump protestors. Eyes wide open, friends."
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