First Thing: Court files show how federal agents spied on anti-ICE protesters | Martin Belam

Undercover agents infiltrated meetings, private chats and local events.

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The extent to which federal law enforcement targeted political opponents and peaceful organizers has been laid bare in newly disclosed court documents .

Internal investigative files reveal that the Department of Homeland Security launched a sweeping surveillance operation against anti-ICE protesters, major labor unions and left-leaning advocacy groups – sending undercover agents to infiltrate community meetings and issuing administrative subpoenas to seize financial records.

The documents show that DHS investigators obtained financial records of unions and non-profits, as part of an inquiry into “domestic terrorist financing”.

What did undercover government agents do? They infiltrated community meetings, joined private activist Signal chats and surreptitiously recorded audio at local events – including a “resistance skills training” at a public library and a sparring session at a church gym, where an agent accidentally dropped his recording device.

Agents posed as activists and actively engaged participants by offering to help with “direct-action” protests.

How have activists responded? Emilia González Avalos, the executive director of Unidos MN, a Minneapolis social justice non-profit group, said: “I believe that this is a clear attempt to intimidate us, to punish and politically repress disagreement and difference.

And that is not the America that we have built through hundreds of years.

And it’s definitely not the America that we are organizing for.” Where did the attack take place? The attack took place in Sevastopol, the biggest city in Russian-annexed Crimea. ​The regional governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said a woman had been arrested on suspicion of ⁠assassinating Shageyev on behalf of Ukrainian special services.

What has Poland said about Russian activity there? A Russian plan to kill a Ukrainian American citizen in Warsaw was thwarted by Poland before it could be carried out, the Polish prime minister has said .

Donald Tusk said it was the first time that “someone on the order of Russia” had sought to attack a US citizen on the territory of another Nato country.

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