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Free speech groups across the country are sounding the alarm over the Trump administration’s surveillance of social movements in Minnesota and the prosecution of the Minnesota 15, a group of activists from Minneapolis-St. Paul who face federal conspiracy charges after organizing protests against brutal immigration sweeps earlier this year.

President Donald Trump and his allies in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice Department have targeted the First Amendment-protected expression of protesters, civil society groups, journalists, universities, and the lawyers representing them at a scale that has “not been seen since the Second Red Scare,” according to an amicus brief filed with a federal court in Minnesota on August 25 by Protect Democracy and other groups.

Documents recently released in court filings show that DHS agents spied on churches, schools, and libraries to gather information on labor unions, nonprofits, and community groups large and small. In June, the Minnesota 15 were arrested and charged with conspiracy to stalk, impede, and assault immigration officers under a section of federal law the Trump administration has used to arrest anti-ICE protesters across the country.

Instead of attempting to tie the Minnesota 15 to one specific incident, prosecutors filed conspiracy charges linking the defendants to rapid response groups that coordinated to alert people about ICE raids and send volunteers into the streets in response — a loose set of tactics that became a model for anti-ICE organizers elsewhere.

Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan group that defends speech across the political spectrum, compared Trump’s crackdown on Minnesota to the worst civil liberties abuses during the McCarthy era and COINTELPRO in the mid-20th century. At the time, paranoia about communism ran high on the right, and civil rights organizers, gay federal employees, and anti-war activists were targeted for surveillance, arrest, and interrogation due to perceived disloyalty to the United States or for holding pro-peace, anti-racist, and left-wing political beliefs.

Authoritarians Will Target Effective Legal Organizing, Minnesota Defendant Warns

“The idea is to stoke a culture of fear and have folks keep quiet rather than disagree with those in power,” Creeley told Truthout. “But the First Amendment is designed to protect just that kind of disagreement.”

However, by prosecuting the Minnesota 15 for political activism, the Trump administration has been forced through the legal discovery process to reveal details about the federal surveillance of protests against Operation Metro Surge, the immigration crackdown in Minnesota announced by Trump in December.

Documents released by a defense attorney earlier this month show that undercover agents with ICE’s investigative unit infiltrated multiple left-leaning groups in Minneapolis as part of an........

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