Fifteen Minnesota residents face a federal conspiracy charge amid allegations that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted widespread, potentially unconstitutional surveillance of left-wing social movements in Minnesota and elsewhere. Records obtained during discovery reportedly include intelligence reports, audio transcripts, emails, intercepted Signal chats, photographs and database queries.
Surveillance allegations tied to DHS
The high-profile indictment portrays the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), supported by federal funding and newly hired employees, as President Donald Trump’s primary instrument against political opponents. The allegations involve powerful law-enforcement agencies created after the September 11 attacks being used against people organizing in their communities.
Experts say an operation of this magnitude has not been seen in the United States since federal counterinsurgency efforts against the New Left and anti-war protests during the 1960s and 1970s.
According to records uncovered during the cases, the investigations were conducted under Project Whipple Shield and Operation Puppet Master. Both operations were authorized by National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM 7.
NSPM 7 was issued after Charlie Kirk’s assassination last September. It directs federal law-enforcement agencies to use all available means against organizations and people who criticize the administration’s policies or promote what the memorandum describes as “anti-Christian” ideas. The full scope of the investigation authorized under the memorandum remains unclear.
Attorneys compare operation with COINTELPRO
Attorneys representing the Minnesota 15 say the charges are part of a broader national surveillance effort targeting opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. One lawyer directly compared the DHS campaign with the FBI’s Counterintelligence Operations Program, known as COINTELPRO.
COINTELPRO unlawfully surveilled, infiltrated and intimidated racial-justice, civil-rights and anti-war movements from the 1950s through the early 1970s.
Three former law-enforcement officials who reviewed the filings told WIRED that the case was almost certainly part of a wider intelligence-gathering operation that began well before the administration’s December 2025 intervention in Minnesota.
HSI resources and surveillance tools
Competing motions in lawsuits over access to DHS surveillance records allege that officials with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), one of ICE’s two components, repurposed funding mechanisms and investigative tools intended for serious-crime investigations to target domestic political opponents.
Operation Keyhole, the HSI sting program that funded the prosecution of the Minnesota 15, dates to 2008. As of June 2026, the organization had six active sting operations in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area.
More than 120 HSI officers were assigned to the case, including personnel from specialized units across the country involved in the government’s militarized immigration-enforcement efforts. Eleven of the officers were undercover investigators.
Investigators allegedly used highly invasive surveillance methods, including Reaper drones and tools authorized under the Patriot Act that are normally reserved for money-laundering and terrorism investigations. One undercover investigator entered a church, an action described in the source material as a clear violation of a court order.
Source: www.wired.com