Big Fascist Brother is Surveilling You

Never underestimate how despicable the Trump47 fascist regime is.

After federal Trump fascist Department of Homeland Security (TFDHS) “immigration enforcement” agents savagely murdered the immigrant rights protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both US citizens, in Minneapolis last winter, the TFDHS refused to cooperate meaningfully with local and state investigators seeking evidence related to the homicides.

By sharp and telling contrast, government documents released days ago in connection with the Trump fascist Department of Justice’s (TFDOJ)’s ongoing fascist prosecution of fifteen Minnesota immigrant rights activists show that the TFDHS conduced a broad undercover surveillance and spying program targeting a wide array of progressive groups in the wake of the extrajudicial executions and the protests those killings set off. As Business Times reports:

‘Federal agents carried out a sweeping undercover surveillance operation targeting progressive organizations, labor unions and groups protesting the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, according to court documents released Thursday. The TFDHS operation, dubbed ‘Operation Puppet Master,’ sought what officials described as a network assisting ‘violent opportunists and agitators.’ But newly disclosed records show undercover agents also infiltrated meetings at churches, schools, libraries and parks, including gatherings discussing peaceful protests…At one Sunrise Movement meeting, an undercover agent specifically reported that organizers emphasized ‘peaceful’ protests, de-escalation and having safety marshals present…Documents also show agents monitored activist chats, used license plates to identify meeting attendees and obtained years of certain financial records involving organizations including the Sunrise Movement, SEIU and Communications Workers of America. One TFDHS slide titled “The Conspiracy” identified 18 organizations, ranging from a small bicycle collective to the AFL-CIO.’

Oher groups targeted include the milquetoast AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, the mildly social demcoratish Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ).

The Guardian notes that:

“‘Operation Puppet Master’ …followed the directive of [their puppeteer Herr] Trump’s executive order last year that designated ‘antifa’ a ‘domestic terrorist organization’ responsible for ‘riots’ against ICE. The investigations led to the criminal case filed in June against 15 protesters, which focused on Direct Action Minnesota, a loose coalition of organizers that the government says was part of a ‘conspiracy’ opposing ICE’s surge in the region.”

Among the “terrorists” indicted is a Buddhist religious studies professor who merely participated in online and in-person discussion of protest tactics.

So, while tens of thousands of Minnesotans rose up against the fascist state’s terroristic murder of two righteous citizens who dared to resist the Trump’s regime’s fascist ethnic cleansing program last winter, the TFDHS and TFDOJ were:

· Refusing to cooperate with local and state officials investigating the murders.

· Building an “anti-terrorism” case against the domestic opponents of Trump fascist “remigration.”

· Using the unrest the TFDHS created as a pretext for a government spying and surveillance operation targeting the broad Twin Cities progressive community.

The Guardian is right to contextualize “Operation Puppet Master” around Trump directives handed down last year – last September, to be more precise. As my comrades and I at Refuse Fascism note in our most recent “This Week in Fascism” round-up, the mass surveillance in Minnesota (and elsewhere):

“follows the directive of Trump’s [September 22, 2025] executive order [absurdly] designating ‘Antifa’ as a domestic terrorist organization, and National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7, issued last September 30) directing the machinery of the federal government to carry out the criminalization of people and groups organizing against the actions of the Trump regime or even holding certain progressive beliefs. These directives, to turn anti-fascist beliefs into thought crimes and non-violent protest into ‘terrorism,’ were quickly operationalized into campaigns of surveillance and political prosecutions of activists.”

Agents of fascist state terror calling peaceful opponents of that terror terrorists is of course classic authoritarian reality inversion and truth collapse, under whose dark shadow might is right, hate is love, peace is war, and 2 plus 2 equals 5 because Big Brother Simon Says.