{"id":44804,"date":"2026-08-14T17:30:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44804"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T12:30:34","slug":"documents-show-federal-surveillance-operation-in-minnesota-targeted-progressive-groups-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=44804","title":{"rendered":"Documents show federal surveillance operation in Minnesota targeted progressive groups, unions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">MINNEAPOLIS &#8212; <\/span>Federal agents launched a sweeping undercover surveillance operation earlier this year targeting progressive organizations, labor unions and other groups protesting the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/minnesota-senate-democrats-primary-flanagan-craig-8ad278c07720b34d1f3a863598230aaa\">immigration<\/a> crackdown then raging through <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/minneapolis\">Minneapolis<\/a>, according to court documents filed Thursday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The program, dubbed Operation Puppet Master, was aimed at what officials called a network of conspirators helping \u201cviolent opportunists and agitators.\u201d The documents were filed in a case involving 15 people charged by federal prosecutors in June with impeding the crackdown, accusing them of conspiring against the federal government through a range of actions, from throwing ice chunks to setting up blockades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The government documents were released Thursday in connection with a motion from a defense lawyer in the case, Kevin Riach, who requested that officials disclose more material collected during the investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The reality, according to government documents revealed in court motions, was <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/us-department-of-homeland-security\">Department of Homeland Security<\/a> officers infiltrating meetings in churches, schools and parks that were often simply discussions of constitutionally protected protests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A statement from the department said Homeland Security Investigations doesn\u2019t comment on the existence or status of on-going investigations or investigative methods. The statement referred questions to the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Minnesota, which didn\u2019t immediately respond to an after-hours email from The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Puppet Master, and a later operation called Project Whipple Shield, were a \u201cbroad and irrational investigation\u201d driven by politics and not criminal conduct, Riach said in a motion filed Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Take, for example, a Jan. 31 meeting in a Minneapolis library, when a Homeland Security report says an undercover officer identified as \u201cUCA 9833\u201d listened as supporters of a progressive climate group, the Sunrise Movement, discussed sit-ins, de-escalation tactics and \u201chaving a police liaison and safety marshal present during events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cDuring the Action meeting, it was made clear that the Sunrise Movement organization focused on \u2018peaceful\u2019 protests,\u201d the agent reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Dozens of pages of documents describe agents secretly infiltrating meetings, monitoring activist chat groups and using license plate numbers to compile names of people who attended gatherings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A slide created by Homeland Security\u2019s investigative branch titled \u201cThe Conspiracy\u201d shows 18 organizations, from a small Minneapolis bicycle repair collective to the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor groups in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The government also obtained years of certain financial records for groups ranging from the Sunrise Movement to major unions, including the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cYou are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time,\u201d warned a DHS request to FedWire, a money transfer system operated by the U.S. Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIt&#8217;s very disturbing,\u201d said Ahilan Arulanantham, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. Over time, it could deter people from expressing their beliefs, he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Many people don\u2019t want to live in a world where expressing their beliefs gives federal agencies the right to investigate them, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIt\u2019s that fear of that creeping police state,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Groups that the government investigated were furious at the news.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cOur union has become the latest target of a corrupt administration that weaponizes the legal process against law-abiding Americans exercising our Constitutional rights,\u201d CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said in a statement. \u201cWe will not be intimidated, and we will not be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The AP News Guild, the union that represents many Associated Press employees, is part of the CWA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">On Thursday, a coalition of Minneapolis-area civil society groups defended the protests and criticized the investigations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The government is \u201clashing out desperately in hopes of intimidating people and organizations that have shown the power of communities acting together,&#8221; said a statement distributed by Unidos MN, a local human rights group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">DHS deployed about 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for roughly three months starting late last year in what the department called its \u201c <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/immigration-enforcement-ice-noem-minnesota-somali-db661df6de1131a034da2bda4bb3d817\">largest immigration enforcement operation ever<\/a>.\u201d It led to thousands of arrests, angry mass protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said the 15 were part of two groups that he characterized as \u201cantifa,\u201d an umbrella term for a diffuse movement of militant left-wing activists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Defense attorney Riach said at the time that his client, Isaac Sant, had no affiliation with antifa, which he called \u201ca boogeyman invented by the far-right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Kelleher reported from Honolulu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MINNEAPOLIS &#8212; Federal agents launched a sweeping undercover surveillance operation earlier this year targeting progressive organizations, labor unions and other groups protesting the immigration crackdown then raging through Minneapolis, according to court documents filed Thursday. The program, dubbed Operation Puppet Master, was aimed at what officials called a network of conspirators helping \u201cviolent opportunists and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/594f433e-5921-41d9-8811-05ce88a3f6cb\/wirestory_5e6e554e79980553c3a02ca199593a7d_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}