Leaked Memo Exposes How DHS Is Building a Database on Protesters

The Department of Homeland Security is collecting information on Minnesotans protesting ICE.

Federal agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations assigned to Minneapolis received a memo earlier this month asking them to collect identifying information on protesters and so-called agitators, CNN reported Tuesday.

Federal agents from the agencies were asked to fill out a form titled “intel collection non-arrests,” and “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to communications obtained by CNN.

Among the likely subjects of this massive surveillance scheme was Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse who was killed by Customs and Border Protection agents in broad daylight. A few days before he was killed, Pretti was beaten by a group of federal agents he was monitoring, and suffered a broken rib. A source told CNN that federal agents knew Pretti’s name, but did not clarify if he was in this database.

Last week, a masked ICE agent warned a woman filming their activities in Portland, Maine, that her information would be entered into a “nice little database” that would label her a domestic terrorist. This week, federal agents have reportedly started making house calls on volunteer ICE watchers they hope to intimidate.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, a well-documented liar, claimed that her agency was not compiling a database of so-called “domestic terrorists,” but that it was “standard protocol” to collect information on law-breaking “violent agitators” in order to “advance prosecution.”

“We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement,” McLaughlin said. “Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.”

It seems that federal agents have lost the plot on what obstruction actually entails. Federal agents have aggressively approached citizen ICE watchers simply monitoring their operations, threatening to arrest them—or worse. And DHS’s claims of assault against federal officers have continued to crumble under the slightest scrutiny.