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patriot act
Digital Surveillance, ICE, and the Trumped-Up Charge of Domestic Terrorism
From the web to the streets, the president of the United States is weaponizing the federal government to hunt, prosecute, and punish his enemies.
Feb 19, 2026
In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has issued hundreds of administrative subpoenas to tech companies demanding the personal information of social media accounts that track, criticize, or oppose Immigration Customs and Enforcement. This includes Google, Reddit, Meta, and Discord, which—in a move that makes far more sense now—recently announced it will require users to submit a face scan or upload an ID to access full content.
While alarming, this is only the latest step in a year-long effort by President Donald Trump’s DHS to expand its online surveillance apparatus under the guise of combating left-wing “political violence” and “domestic terrorism.” In February 2025, The Intercept revealed that ICE was soliciting pitches for an automated system that would scan social media and other sites for anti-ICE sentiment and threats. If anything "suspicious" were detected, a contractor would conduct a detailed review of the user’s background, including:
Previous social media activity which would indicate any additional threats to ICE; 2). Information which would indicate the individual(s) and/or the organization(s) making threats have a proclivity for violence; and 3). Information indicating a potential for carrying out a threat (such as postings depicting weapons, acts of violence, refences [sic] to acts of violence, to include empathy or affiliation with a group which has violent tendencies; references to violent acts; affections with violent acts; eluding [sic] to violent acts.
To estimate one’s “potential for carrying out a threat” or “proclivity for violence,” contractors would draw on “social and behavioral sciences” and “psychological profiles.” Sentiment analysis would likely be carried out by machine-learning algorithms. While details here are sparse, the important point for now is that this review would attempt to assess one’s present and future threat to ICE based on the agency’s own internal (and politically biased) criteria.
Once flagged, the system would scour a target’s internet history and attempt to reveal their real-world location and offline identity. Contractors would provide ICE with a slew of personal information including: “photograph, partial legal name, partial date of birth, possible city, possible work affiliations, possible school or university affiliation, and any identified possible family members or associates.”
All of this meant to invoke fear, silence dissent, and consolidate power for Trump and his allies. Yet, despite the dangers, we must resist.
In October 2025, Wired reported that ICE plans to drastically expand their surveillance capabilities by hiring nearly 30 private contractors to scan social media sites and convert posts, photos, and messages into new leads for enforcement raids.
In January 2026, investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein revealed that DHS and the FBI have over a dozen “secret and obscure” watch lists they use to track “protesters (both anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian), ‘Antifa,’ and those who are promiscuously labelled ‘domestic terrorists.’” These watch lists include a classified social media repository code named Slipstream, as well as others “used to link people on the streets together, including collecting on friends and families who have nothing to do with any purported lawbreaking.” This reporting came a few days after a video was released online of an ICE agent telling a protester that they have a “nice little database” and “now you’re considered a domestic terrorist.”
These watch lists are an extension of Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7). That memo 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.” Per the memo, domestic terrorism is fomented by the spread of “‘anti-fascist’ rhetoric” including, “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” as well as “extremism on migration, race, and gender.”
The labeling of any view Trump disagrees with as “domestic terrorism” is dangerous and strategic. As Rachel Levinson-Waldman, the director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, notes, under the Patriot Act, “Any federal or state crime can be used as the basis for a domestic terrorism investigation if it is ‘dangerous to human life’” and “appear[s] to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or the government. This broad basis allows DHS to use its vast policing and surveillance powers to investigate civil rights organizations, activists, and donors to progressive causes as well as online critics. Regardless of the outcome of their investigation, being suspected of domestic terrorism—regardless of how unconstitutional, frivolous, and politically motivated the charge—can have lasting impacts, including loss of employment and housing, inability to conduct financial transactions, as well as public stigma.
Importantly, the image of the “domestic terrorist” is quite different from the ordinary criminal. The “domestic terrorist” does not simply violate the law, they commit “ideologically driven crimes” aimed to destroy the nation and its people. They represent a far greater threat. This is why the State Department has been revoking the visas of hundreds of students who express “pro-Hamas” views, whether in protest, newsletters, or on social media. For Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the presence of “these lunatics” is contrary to the national security and interests of the United States. The State Department has also denied visas to people “celebrating” the death of Charlie Kirk for similar reasons.
National security is also the basis for imposing denaturalization quotas for foreign-born citizens as well as the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. In each case, “national security,” “left-wing political violence,” and “domestic terrorism” are used to justify the denial of rights and the abuse of federal powers.
For US-born citizens like Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Marimar Martinez, or those subjected to ICE’s mass digital surveillance, those punitive measures are unavailable. Instead, the designation of “domestic terrorist” is meant to mark them as traitors—as people who, like “pro-Hamas” visa holders or “dangerous illegal criminal aliens more broadly,” do not belong in this country. For this administration, they are essentially citizens in name only—they do not “share our values, contribute to our economy, and assimilate in our society.” Thus, they too must be subjected to the full arsenal of policing and surveillance powers at DHS’ disposal.
In fact, for Trump, these "faux" citizens are a greater threat than undocumented immigrants. As then-presidential candidate Trump put it, “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country. […] I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics.” But the reality is that far from sick, bad, or radical, these are ordinary law-abiding people whose only crime is defying the rising piss-stained tide of Trump’s authoritarianism.
The dangers here are real and serious: The blatant First Amendment violations; the widening of DHS’ mass surveillance capabilities; the policing of dissent, both actual and possible; the coordinated effort to undermine digital activism; the complicity of tech companies in furthering the fascist ambitions of the Trump administration; the malicious smearing of those who oppose this administration as “domestic terrorists”; as well as the reality—unnerving, though far from unprecedented—that from the web to the streets the president of the United States is weaponizing the federal government to hunt, prosecute, and punish his enemies.
All of this meant to invoke fear, silence dissent, and consolidate power for Trump and his allies. Yet, despite the dangers, we must resist. We must continue calling out ICE’s abuses, championing Palestinian sovereignty, denouncing Trump’s vile imperial and colonial ambitions, and protecting our rights and freedoms from the real domestic terrorist threat: the Trump administration.
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Warnings of 'Patriot Act 2.0' as House Prepares to Vote on Mass Spying Authority
An amendment headed for a vote Friday "would put in place the largest expansion of domestic surveillance since the Patriot Act," one privacy advocate warned.
Apr 12, 2024
The U.S. House is expected to vote Friday on legislation to reauthorize a surveillance authority that intelligence agencies have heavily abused to collect the communications of American activists, journalists, and lawmakers without a warrant.
Friday's vote will come after House Republicans earlier this week blocked Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) attempt to advance legislation reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country.
The FBI and NSA have regularly used the spying authority, which is set to expire next week, to obtain the communications of U.S. citizens, sparking a bipartisan reform push.
The legislation the House is set to consider Friday would reauthorize Section 702 for two years instead of five. Lawmakers will also vote on several amendments, including three from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) that would expand the spying authority.
"The first amendment would put in place the largest expansion of domestic surveillance since the Patriot Act… and I don't say that lightly," Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote on social media late Thursday. "It would hugely inflate the universe of companies required to assist the government in conducting surveillance."
Another amendment, she noted, would permit "suspicionless searches for the communications of non-U.S. persons seeking permission to travel to the U.S., even if the multiple vetting mechanisms already in place have revealed no cause for concern."
The underlying legislation, titled the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, "would do nothing to prevent abuses of Section 702, and it would actually weaken the FISA Court's oversight of surveillance," Goitein wrote.
The House will vote on Section 702 TOMORROW MORNING. If you think warrantless surveillance should be reined in rather than massively expanded, PLEASE USE THIS CALL TOOL ASAP (click below or call 202-899-8938) & leave a message if you get VM. 1/21 https://t.co/HAOHURZoJQ
— Elizabeth Goitein (@LizaGoitein) April 12, 2024
Members of the House Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, will offer an amendment that would require U.S. intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant before surveilling American citizens' communications under Section 702—a change opposed by the Biden White House.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), formally endorsed the amendment on Thursday after a membership vote. More than two-thirds of the CPC's membership voted in favor of endorsing the amendment.
"In 2022 alone, the FBI exploited Section 702 more than 200,000 times to search for Americans' data, circumventing the Fourth Amendment and betraying public trust," the caucus said in a statement. "These searches unjustly targeted individuals, including Members of Congress, 141 Black Lives Matter protesters, 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign, a local political party, tens of thousands of people involved in 'civil unrest,' visitors to FBI offices, and individuals based solely on their race. The House has voted multiple times to end this practice of performing backdoor searches on Americans with strong bipartisan support."
Jayapal wrote earlier this week that Congress "must reform Section 702 to include a warrant requirement if the intel community wants to spy on Americans. Period."
The House's latest attempt to extend Section 702 comes after Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the chair of the HPSCI, attempted to tip the scales in favor of continued warrantless spying by warning of a "serious national security threat" in an ominous February statement.
It quickly became clear that the Ohio Republican's statement referred to U.S. intelligence—gathered with Section 702 authority—indicating that Russia has made significant progress on a space-based nuclear weapon purportedly designed to target American satellites, which lawmakers have known about for years.
"Unfortunately, the House Intelligence Committee has tripled down on misleading their colleagues and pushing forward Patriot Act 2.0, all while fighting to expand suspicionless digital strip searches of immigrants and the already extremely broad definition of foreign intelligence information," Sean Vitka, policy director of the advocacy group Demand Progress, said in a statement ahead of Friday's vote.
Vitka expressed support for the House Judiciary Committee amendment, saying it would "create the first meaningful privacy protection against Section 702 spying since its enactment."
"We will continue to ensure that everyone in Congress knows that their constituents demand it," Vitka added.
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It's Been Two-Hundred Years, Not Twenty: Targeted Repression in the US Started Long Before 9/11
There is a terrible theme that runs throughout the story of the United States: when a group of people are seen as a threat, state power has been used to oppress them.
Sep 24, 2021
What comes after the anniversary of a tragedy? Earlier this month, many of us participated in memorials and retrospectives on the changes to American society in the two decades since the attacks of 9/11. We were among the many American Muslims who wrote about the impact of 9/11 on civil rights. As co-executive directors of Muslim Advocates, we were asked to document how the Patriot Act enabled mass surveillance and profiling of Muslims by local and national government, how a Bush-era immigrant registration program (NSEERS) effectively created a Muslim registry, and the many ways that the stereotype of Muslims as terrorists has fueled decades of anti-Muslim hate crimes and bullying. So what comes next?
Profiling, surveillance and over-prosecution of marginalized populations in this country are nothing new.
After 9/11, we were part of a group of Muslim lawyers who helped create a Muslim legal advocacy organization because we knew that things could get much worse for American Muslims. We knew and took seriously the way this country has discriminated against Black Muslims and other marginalized communities.
Simply put, profiling, surveillance and over-prosecution of marginalized populations in this country are nothing new. Trump's frenzy about an "invasion" of gangs across our southern border was not all that different from Democratic politicians' warnings about "super predators" during the passage of the 1994 crime bill. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were just two of many civil rights leaders under constant FBI surveillance, and the Black Panthers were targeted with the blunter, more violent end of that stick. Many in our families were alive when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps upon zero evidence of wrongdoing. Anti-German sentiment led to bans against teaching the German language and COINTELPRO and the McCarthy hearings painted anyone with communist beliefs as an enemy of the state. Even further back in our history, the Chinese Exclusion Act explicitly banned an entire race from emigrating to this country, and Jim Crow laws did everything short of slavery to control non-whites. And of course, all of this took place on the land of the many Native peoples who were killed or forcibly removed from their homes over centuries of repeated falsehoods and betrayal by the United States government.
So, yes, it has been twenty years since 9/11. But it has also been 77 years since Korematsu, 100 years since the Tulsa massacre, 131 years since the massacre at Wounded Knee, 139 years since the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and 199 years since the Denmark Vesey rebellion. In other words, we need to see the bigger picture. We believe something much more transformative is possible if we demand that post-9/11 reflections are connected to the rest of American history and that we learn from all of it.
There is a terrible theme that runs throughout the story of the United States: when a group of people are seen as a threat, state power has been used to oppress them. More specifically, political interests have built and solidified their power by ramping up fear--not just stoking a fire, but creating it. American communities are thus pitted against each other, and eventually there is public support for government overreach that is outrageously outsized to the supposed threat.
Monuments and memorials should help us learn about our history and grow from it. When we were asked to opine about all the ways American Muslims suffered in the aftermath of 9/11, we knew it wasn't enough. We want to also talk about what this means for today. What does this mean for oppression in all its forms right now? And then the really difficult question: are we complicit in any of it?
Abuse of power hurts not just the abused, but also the abuser. Everyone needs to heal from these past harms, so we all must ask these questions. We could start on anniversaries. What if every commemoration of every atrocity was a step on a path toward truth and reconciliation? Maybe, then, we could see our way out of this dangerous cycle, heal the fractures in our society, and finally write a new American story.
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