US Domestic — 2026-08-16

DHS Carried Out Expansive Surveillance Targeting Left-Leaning Groups in Minnesota Under Operation Puppet Master

BLUFPuppet Master's sweep of unions, congregations, and advocacy groups with no nexus to the indicted defendants confirms the September domestic-terrorism directive operates as blanket collection authority against lawful protest infrastructure.

A discovery motion filed Thursday by defense attorney Kevin Riach, in the case against 15 people charged in June with impeding immigration agents in the Twin Cities, describes two undercover DHS operations: Operation Puppet Master and Project Whipple Shield 123. Puppet Master opened four days after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis 13; documents show agents infiltrated meetings at churches, libraries and schools and obtained financial records from groups including SEIU and the Sunrise Movement 1. An HSI slide titled "The Conspiracy" named 18 organizations, from the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America to the AFL-CIO, as an alleged network aiding "violent opportunists and agitators" 124. Democracy Docket reported the surveillance continued into May, months after the operation's February end, and that Clearview AI misidentified defendant Isaac Sant 3.

Analysis
DHS surveillance under Puppet Master and Whipple Shield swept in mainstream unions, congregations and advocacy groups with no operational link to the 15 indicted defendants, indicating the September domestic-terrorism directive functions as a standing surveillance authority rather than a predicate-driven investigative tool, though the government's account frames the effort as tracing funding and coordination behind the charged network rather than viewpoint-based targeting of dissent. Collection continued into May, three months past the operation's stated February closure, with no internal checkpoint forcing termination once a case opens. NOTUS broke the story from the discovery motion with original reporting, corroborated by three secondary outlets including CBS via AP wire. The Clearview AI misidentification of one defendant exposes evidentiary reliability gaps the pending discovery motion will test, and judicial and congressional scrutiny of the underlying domestic-terrorism memo, not this case's outcome, will determine whether similar operations recur against protest movements elsewhere.

4 sources