Homeland Security conducts secret domestic spying operations violating the First Amendment

It’s time to familiarize yourselves with the names “Operation Puppet Master” and “Operation Keyhole.” If those nefarious phrases evoke to you the U.S. government’s domestic spying on leftist groups in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s for good reason. The terms are coinages of today’s Department of Homeland Security, and they’re associated with a massive covert surveillance effort that DHS unleashed earlier this year to track anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Minneapolis, where Donald Trump’s violent paramilitary invasion triggered months of intense civil conflict, reported The New Republic.

We just learned about the broad outlines of this domestic surveillance from newly released court papers related to the ongoing prosecution of a handful of protesters. As The New York Times reported, the papers show that DHS began surveilling left-leaning groups—including a union, a climate change group, and others—after ICE killed Alex Pretti in January. This has entailed seeking financial records and infiltrating protest meetings that are protected by the First Amendment.

But you can get a far more vivid picture of these undercover surveillance operations—and how brazenly they were conducted against American citizens—if you read deep into the court papers. The documents—which are attached as exhibits to a motion filed by lawyers for one of the protesters facing prosecution and are available on Pacer—include investigative reports that were transmitted by the undercover agents themselves about meetings they infiltrated.

It’s jarring, revealing stuff. The reports show that covert agents surreptitiously attended well over a dozen protest meetings organized by groups like the Sunrise Movement and various small socialist organizations. In some cases the agents secretly recorded the gatherings.

What’s more, in at least one case, an undercover agent may have tried to influence the conduct of meeting organizers. One report from an agent describes a meeting in late January of the Sunrise Movement at a Minneapolis public library. While spying on the proceedings, the agent seems to have learned that the organization’s intention was nonviolent: As the agent notes in his own investigative report, “it was made clear” at the meeting that the organization is “focused on peaceful protests.”

Yet after this discovery, the agent then approached a meeting organizer and made a surprising proposition. The agent told the organizer “he works in construction” and is willing to build things to assist “with more direct action protests,” the report reads, adding that the agent stressed “that going to jail did not bother him.”

That sounds like the agent may have signaled a willingness to engage in something illegal, to bait the group into moving in that direction, argues Kevin Riach, the lawyer for one of the protesters who is being prosecuted, Isaac Sant.

“This is an effort to entice someone who’s shown no inclination to commit a crime into committing one,” Riach told me. “What this tells us is that there wasn’t actual criminal activity to be investigated. They had to invent it. That’s not how this is supposed to work—not in this country, anyway.”

In other cases, undercover agents infiltrated these meetings only to find that the protesters turned out to be awfully innocuous. One agent covertly attended a meeting in February and found that it “was more of a panel discussion,” where there was “no discussion, or call for, violence toward law enforcement.”

Similarly, another agent’s report described infiltrating a meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, of organizers who said they sympathized with the Minneapolis anti-ICE resistance. (The papers show that DHS’s surveillance reached into other states beyond Minnesota.) This agent reported initiating a conversation with a married churchgoing couple, and the woman told the agent she’d traveled to Uganda to assist “in the construction of a hospital.”

In short, we’re not exactly talking about the Weather Underground bombers here.

Indeed, as Substacker Brian Kaylor notes, a number of these undercover operations were even conducted in churches where protesters had organized. Several of the pastors were kept entirely in the dark about law enforcement’s infiltration of their houses of worship.

The absurdity of all this is overwhelming. In some cases, the Keystone Kops vibe is strong: One agent attended a May meeting in Minneapolis, only to report that his “concealed body-worn audio recorder erroneously fell to the floor of the gymnasium.” The agent left without the device and had to return later to retrieve it.

Interestingly, the investigative reports also offer a glimpse of culture clashes between protesters and the agents who spied on them. One agent attended a Minneapolis meeting in February and reported, perhaps with distaste, on a female protester “with they/them pronouns” and “bright green short hair” and a “nose ring.”

As writer John Ganz has noted, Trump’s secret police force is made up of the MAGA “demimonde” and the “Trumpenproletarian mob.” And indeed, Trump’s political project has long been all about turning loose “his” people—law enforcement, biker gangs, coal miners, Ultimate Fighting enthusiasts—against the leftist enemy that inhabits blue America. The centrality of violence to all this is not disguised in the least. ICE recruitment targets MAGA-adjacent UFC fanbases and people who show an interest in paramilitary tactical equipment or military recruitment. ICE messaging openly glorifies military-style operations in urban areas—that is, in blue America’s diverse, cosmopolitan strongholds. Trump talks about Minneapolis as akin to an enemy country populated with undesirables who must be purged by MAGA patriots.

Now we’re learning that this war on blue America also includes extensive undercover surveillance. Many of these agents appear to have been drawn largely from Homeland Security Investigations, the arm of ICE that’s supposed to be focused on serious, complex, transnational crimes. They’ve now been reduced to standing around in parking lots writing down protesters’ license plate numbers and using sleazy deception tactics to spy on fellow Americans whose only crime is sympathy with immigrants.

Violence is precisely what spawned this undercover spying operation, but the real culprit was the violence of the government, not of the protesters. As Lisa Needham writes at Public Notice, we shouldn’t lose sight of how quickly ICE’s invasion of Minneapolis devolved into lethal state violence against Americans. It was just after ICE’s arrival in the city that an agent gunned down Renee Good in her car, with Pretti’s killing by federal agents following around two weeks later.

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Florida responsible for 13 of the 23 executions nationwide in 2026

The 23rd Execution of 2026

A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law was executed August 18, 2026, continuing the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ′ final term, reported The Associated Press.

William Frances Silvia, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.

Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at 6 p.m. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution, and a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

Asked if he had any final words, Silvia said, “I’m sorry all this happened. It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her.”

A warden shook him and shouted his name several minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing but got no response. A medic declared him dead a short time later.

Silvia is the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September. The state has carried out more than half of the nation’s 23 executions so far in 2026.

Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard.

According to court records, William Frances Silvia purchased a shotgun that year and then went to Woodard’s Orlando-area home, where his wife had been living since their separation two months earlier. The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, authorities said Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women.

Pamela Wyatt, Patricia Silvia’s sister, said William Frances Silvia’s actions not only took her sister’s life but changed the lives of everyone who loved her.

“Nothing that happens today can give us those stolen years. No execution can return Patricia to her children and give her the grandchildren she dreamed of knowing,” Wyatt said after the execution. “But today can be an opportunity to remember that Patricia’s life was bigger than the terrible act that ended it.”

Silvia was first sentenced to death following his 2008 trial. He was briefly granted a new penalty phase, but the Florida Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 2018 because Silvia had previously waived his post-conviction appeals.

A Florida state agency, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, provides legal representation to death row inmates. Silvia’s attorneys have argued that the agency couldn’t provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another death row inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.

Florida leads the way in executions

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with 19, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

Two more executions are planned in Florida next month. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on Sept. 1, followed by Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10.

Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends.

Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man that he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

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Mangino joins On the Case with Chris Stewart on Law and Crime Network

 Watch my interview with Chris Stewart on Law and Crime Network's On the Case.

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Virginia to review the convictions of 8 people executed between 1986 and 1998

The possibility of executing the innocent has gone a long way to change the national conversation about the death penalty, reported Slate. We know that over the past half-century, more than 200 people have been exonerated after having been sentenced to die, and scholars estimate that 4 percent of those sentenced to death are innocent.

And a 2021 Pew poll found that 78 percent of its respondents believe “there is some risk that an innocent person will be put to death.” But death penalty supporters have long contended that abolitionists have sold the public a false bill of goods.

One of them, Judge Morris Hoffman, argues that “To a large and unfortunate extent, the debate about wrongful convictions in a capital context has become a proxy for arguments in favor and against the death penalty. Lost in the crossfire is any reliable data about the actual wrongful conviction rate.“ He contends that no one has yet come up with “a single case of a demonstrably innocent person executed in America in the modern era.”

Hoffman claimed the “label innocent” is “just a way of saying there were errors in the trial, that guilt seemed to them to be a ‘close call,’ and that some of those close calls must surely, as a statistical matter, have involved some factually innocent people.”

Even the abolitionist Death Penalty Information Center concedes that “there is no way to tell how many of the … peo­ple exe­cut­ed since 1976 may … have been inno­cent.”

All of this may soon change. Virginia, which abolished the death penalty in 2021, recently initiated a review of eight cases of people executed there between 1986 and 1998 whose convictions were obtained based on testimony and evidence presented by a now-discredited state forensic scientist, Mary Jane Burton.

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FBI: Violent crime continues downward slide

The homicide rate in the United States dropped to the lowest it’s been in 75 years, according to an FBI report on 2025 crime statistics, which also showed overall violent crime dropped 9.3% last year, reported The Associated Press.

Experts note that national violent crime rates have been declining since 2022, and pinpointing an exact reason is difficult. They say multiple factors contribute to decreases in crime rates seen in the FBI report, which is based on data reported voluntarily by many but not all law enforcement agencies across the country.

“The homicide drop is historic and crystal clear. But right now, what’s driving it is about as clear as a glass of milk,” said Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank based in Washington.

“Rates are falling in cities with very different public safety strategies, economic conditions, and political leadership,” Gelb said. “The consistency across the map should make us cautious about handing credit to any one leader, party, policy, or program before the evidence catches up.”

President Donald Trump announced the decreases in the annual crime numbers during a visit to a New York police academy.

Trump proclaimed his role in lowering violent crime rates, taking a swing at his predecessor and at so-called sanctuary cities, while touting what he said was his overwhelming support of law enforcement and his tough-on-crime moves such as deploying the National Guard in Washington and elsewhere.

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Mangione's enters federal plea to stalking resulting in death, still faces murder charge in state court

Luigi Mangione’s plea in the federal case now turns attention to his state case, where he is charged with second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of 25 years to life, reported The New York Times. He has pleaded not guilty.

The plea in the federal case complicates the state case, which is scheduled to go to trial next month.

While murder cases are typically prosecuted in state courts, federal prosecutors have said that Mr. Mangione crossed state lines to stalk and ultimately kill Mr. Thompson, which gave the federal government jurisdiction to prosecute him.

The impact of the federal plea on the state prosecution remains unclear, and Mr. Mangione’s sentence in federal court could also play a part.

Following the hearing, Mr. Mangione’s lawyers said they had filed a motion in state court to dismiss his case on double jeopardy grounds, which bars someone from being tried twice for the same offense, with exceptions.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, led by Alvin L. Bragg, signaled it would fight that outcome.

A spokesman with the office said that state prosecutors were “encouraged that Mr. Thompson’s family received a measure of accountability.”

“While federal sentencing is pending, we are prepared to litigate the defense motions,” the statement said. “The Manhattan D.A.’s Office remains committed to seeking justice for Mr. Thompson and his family.”

An exception to the U.S. Constitution protections against double jeopardy, according to the Supreme Court, allows federal and state governments to prosecute for the same conduct because they are considered “separate sovereigns” that are independent of each other.

New York provides stronger protections. Under state law, double jeopardy comes into play when a prior prosecution for the same conduct ends in a conviction by guilty plea or a resolution at trial.

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Three executions in a single day and none were in Florida

The 21st and 22nd Executions of 2026

Yesterday I wrote about Anthony Darrell Hines who was executed on August 13, 2026 in Tennessee. Two more Executions followed on the same day for the first time since 2010.

Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was put to death by the state of Oklahoma, in the first of three executions scheduled for Thursday in a rare triple procedure that underlines the renewed appetite in the US for state killings.

Just one hour later, Hines was put to death by the state of Tennessee, and at 6 pm in Alabama, that state executed Jeremy Williams.

Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, was pronounced dead at 10.13am at the Oklahoma state penitentiary in McAlester. He was sentenced to death for murdering his common-law wife, Olimpia Fisher, in 2003. He had unsuccessfully appealed for mercy, saying he was remorseful and had struggled all his life from mental illness.

Cuesta-Rodriguez’s family and friends issued a statement in the wake of his execution, calling his life one of “extraordinary beauty and tenderness within the darkest of conditions”.

“Through small, unglamorous, consistent acts of kindness, he expressed his humanity year after year,” the statement read.

“He was a different man from the one who committed his horrible crime – remorseful every single day, burdened by the weight of what he had done – but defined by decades of living humbly, gently, and with unwavering love and devotion to his family and to inmates far worse off than himself. His legacy will not be measured by his worst moment, but by the countless moments after – the letters that never failed to arrive, the art he created from behind those walls, and the love and light he poured out consistently and unconditionally, proving that even from a place of such darkness, one person’s kindness and redemption can still ripple into the world.”

The third execution of the day was of Williams, 42, who raped and murdered a five-year-old girl in Georgia in 2021. He pleaded guilty to killing Kamarie Holland and instructed his lawyers not to object to anything prosecutors did during trial, waived sentencing by a jury and did not present any mitigating evidence typically provided during a capital sentencing. He declined to appeal, bringing on his execution at a much faster pace than most death row occupants.

During Williams’s last 24 hours of life, his wife, mother, stepmother, brother and father all visited him, according to the Alabama department of corrections, and he spoke on the phone with his grandmother and aunt.

“I want to thank God for forgiving me for my sins so I can meet him in peace,” Williams said in his final words, according to the Associated Press. The agency reported that Williams rocked his head back-and-forth and smiled and appeared to sing or speak before slowing and becoming still on the gurney.

This is the first time in more than 15 years that there have been three judicial killings in the US on a single day. The one-day surge in death chamber activity was a scheduling coincidence, but it is also a sign of renewed energy among death penalty states.

Last year 47 executions were carried out in the US, a dramatic increase on the previous year’s 25. Much of the increase was generated by one state alone, Florida, which conducted 19 killings under its Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

All three scheduled executions were due to take place by lethal injection, the procedure that has been the norm in the US since the early 1980s. Alabama had largely switched to a new experimental method, nitrogen gas, but that was halted by a federal judge in June on grounds that it was unconstitutional.

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