If you gathered in a public library or a church basement in Minneapolis this winter to talk about de-escalation tactics, community organizing, or finding a police liaison, court records unsealed this week suggest you may have been logged as intelligence in a federal database.
On Thursday, nearly 30 declassified Department of Homeland Security investigative reports were filed in federal court in Minnesota, part of a defense motion for 15 people charged in June with conspiring to impede federal immigration officers during that city’s immigration crackdown. The documents describe an undercover operation code-named “Operation Puppet Master,” and a later phase called “Project Whipple Shield,” that targeted progressive organizations, labor unions and other groups protesting the crackdown.
According to the filings, DHS officers didn’t limit themselves to monitoring public protests. Undercover agents attended meetings held in churches, schools and parks, many of which were, according to the defense motion, simply discussions of constitutionally protected activity. Investigators also monitored private group chats and gathered information on people connected to the demonstrations. One report describes an undercover officer, identified only as “UCA 9833,” sitting in on a gathering of young Sunrise Movement supporters inside a Minneapolis public library discussing sit-ins and de-escalation tactics.
Federal prosecutors have described the underlying case as targeting a “network of conspirators” behind acts including throwing ice chunks during demonstrations and setting up street blockades. A defense attorney’s motion filed Thursday called the broader surveillance effort a “broad and irrational investigation” driven by politics rather than criminal conduct.
The episode has drawn a response beyond Minnesota. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner this week launched a “Fight Against Federal Overreach” project with a coalition of local prosecutors to coordinate legal responses to what they describe as unconstitutional conduct by federal officers. “It used to be you could rely on the federal government to rein in rogue sheriffs,” Krasner said. “But now the federal government are the rogue sheriffs.”
DHS has not publicly detailed the full evidentiary basis for the surveillance program, and the case against the 15 defendants remains pending.
