Federal agents launched a sweeping undercover surveillance operation earlier this year targeting conservative organizations, labor unions, and other groups protesting the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, according to court documents filed Thursday.
Operation Puppet Master
The program, dubbed Operation Puppet Master, was aimed at what officials called a network of conspirators helping ‘violent opportunists and agitators.’ 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.
The government documents revealed that Department of Homeland Security officers infiltrated meetings in churches, schools, and parks that were often simply discussions of constitutionally protected protests. A statement from the department said Homeland Security Investigations doesn’t comment on the existence or status of ongoing investigations or investigative methods.
Investigations and Reactions
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. A slide created by Homeland Security’s investigative branch titled ‘The Conspiracy’ shows 18 organizations, from a small Minneapolis bicycle repair collective to the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor groups in the U.S.
Groups that the government investigated were furious at the news. ‘Our union has become the latest target of a corrupt administration that weaponizes the legal process against law-abiding Americans exercising our Constitutional rights,’ CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. said in a statement.
The government is ‘lashing out desperately in hopes of intimidating people and organizations that have shown the power of communities acting together,’ said a statement distributed by Unidos MN, a local human rights group.
Original reporting: KTVZ (Central Oregon) — read the source article.
