NEW from LCRW: This van used to abduct Portland protestors off the street during 2020's 'Fed Wars.' Now it's being used to hand out mutual aid and zines. @jwcroxton.bsky.social & @alissaazar.bsky.social report

new: government contractors are increasingly invoking trade secrets protections to shield products like gunshot detection, dna analysis, and facial recognition from public scrutiny. via max blaisdell + matt chapman

Personal news: I am excited to join the NAACP Legal Defense Fund as a senior counsel in Justice in Public Safety. At LDF I will work on federal intelligence, police, and counterterrorism targeting of activists and immigrants, racial profiling, surveillance, police tech, local response, and more.

New: cops used Flock AI-enabled cameras to monitor No Kings protests around the country. Also monitored No Hands protests and protests against DOGE. "Should serve as a warning of how it may be used in the future to suppress dissent." www.404media.co/cops-used-fl...

The FBI infiltrated an encrypted chat of immigration court watchers in New York. Then it issued intelligence calling them violent extremists—terrorists. As I told @theguardian.com, this targeting of people who show up for immigrants is straight COINTELPRO: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"Police baked their own contempt into the data, listing people’s occupations as 'SCUM BAG,' 'TURD,' or simply 'BLACK.'" Great FOIA work from @sreynolds.bsky.social and reporting from @dell.bsky.social Worth noting this DHS-CPD partnership happened under Biden; no admin has had good DHS oversight.

DHS acquired part of the Chicago gang database under Biden. But its power to do that remains, even after ineffective internal and congressional reforms. The Trump admin also basically shuttered the civil rights office that oversees the agency. Bad things are likely worse now, certainly not better.

Worth remembering: having "gang ties" is not a crime

DHS's domestic intelligence unit got part of a discredited Chicago gang database amid efforts to put people on a watchlist. The agency operates under lax rules that it STILL broke. It's effectively unreformed and a way around local "sanctuary" laws. By @dell.bsky.social w/ @brennancenter.org docs:

“Why is the Trump administration refusing to be transparent about how much money it’s spending on this political stunt?” asked @warren.senate.gov. “People don’t need troops in their backyard — they need health care, housing, and cheaper groceries.” theintercept.com/2025/11/11/c...

a new genre of photo in the last year is federal agents working for ICE pointing guns directly at photographers

Bail was set at $70,000 total for the four students.

Another ridiculous and harmful effort to evade accountability by the Department of Homeland Security. As always with DHS, this builds on prior bad deeds. Remember the Secret Service basically got off scot free when it deleted key text messages after January 6. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...

Homeland Security fast-tracks expanded arrest powers off federal property @oregonian.com www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...

🚨 No sanctuary for dissent in Chicago: Matt Ruppert and I analyze how Illinois law enforcement run counterprotest operations that benefit ICE. Current "sanctuary laws" don't prohibit this type of support. But they can and should. www.justsecurity.org/124069/defen...

The Dept. of Homeland Security has taken steps to further entrench its counterprotest operations. A new regulation formalizes a questionable DHS legal memo giving agency cops free rein over city streets. Goes into effect today, abruptly pushed up from January. 🧵 www.dhs.gov/news/2025/11...

Of the immigration raids and protest crackdowns in Chicago, the border patrol lead said, "If I had more CS gas, I would have deployed it." Monstrous stuff to celebrate: news.wttw.com/2025/11/04/b...

The defense team presses Lairmore on whether the sandwich really 'exploded.' They return to the photo of the sandwich and wrapper on the ground. "That sandwich hasn't exploded at all, has it?" defense asks. "It looks like a little bit is coming out towards the bottom," Lairmore replies.

Border Patrol agent Lairmore testifies that he was not injured by the sandwich, but he felt the impact through his ballistic vest. The sandwich came apart and "kind of exploded" on his chest upon impact, he says. "I could smell the onions and mustard."

Fourteen years later, I *still* think one of the best ways for us to repudiate Cheney's legacy of torture would be to recognize and honor the courageous soldiers and public servants who exposed the torture policies and tried to end them. www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/o...

New from 404 Media: CBP has quietly launched a facial recognition app for local cops to do immigration enforcement. Scans their face, tells cops whether to contact ICE about this person or not. A truly rapid expansion of ICE's facial recognition app to local cops www.404media.co/cbp-quietly-...

This Halloween, 30 days into a government shutdown, remember: For DHS, tear gassing children at neighborhood parades and locking up U.S. citizens in immigration detention are "essential" functions. They continue without Congressional funding. Public accounting for these abuses does not.

This Halloween, 30 days into a government shutdown, remember: For DHS, tear gassing children at neighborhood parades and locking up U.S. citizens in immigration detention are "essential" functions. They continue without Congressional funding. Public accounting for these abuses does not.

Great expose on the status of attack capabilities at Cellebrite, the defense company used by homeland security agents to crack your phones both at the U.S. border, airports, and interior.👇

Exciting things are happening in the JACK-O'-LANTERN FEED! bsky.app/profile/did:...

Another illegal US maritime strike—again in the Pacific. Against a vessel allegedly operated by an unspecified "designated terrorist organization." Four reported fatalities—dubbed w/o ID or evidence "narco-terrorists." There's a word for premeditated killings outside of armed conflict.

Yellow stagshorn jelly fungus, Calocera viscosa 🌱🍄 #MushroomMonday #MacroMonday #FungiFriends #Nature #Autumn #Bloomscrolling

This week’s cover of New York Magazine is absolutely brutal.

An AP analysis finds drops in the number of Black freshmen at many elite colleges in the two years since the Supreme Court’s decision ending affirmative action. apnews.com/article/affi...

The Trump admin is considering designating Antifa as a foreign terrorist organization. Thomas E. Brzozowski argues this move would create an unprecedented expansion of counterterrorism authorities into the domestic political space and threaten civil society. www.justsecurity.org/122643/antif...

This is an incredibly important read. www.justsecurity.org/122643/antif...

it’s beyond comprehension that scenes like this have become routine in chicago. masked soldiers are carelessly lobbing chemical weapons—that are banned from use during warfare—on random residential streets. this is the third time feds have tear-gassed residents in chicago *this week!*

"One Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s knee was on his neck, another’s was grinding his back. Drenched with tear gas and pepper spray, George Retes might have wished that his 137 pounds were back in Kirkuk, Iraq, one of his Army deployments. Here's a glimpse of your tax dollars at work."

Today is Larry Itliong Day in CA, honoring the Filipino American labor leader whose union members began the Delano Grape Strike on 9/8/65. They asked Cesar Chavez’s National Farm Workers Association to join their picket lines. The rest is history. More: www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

"Jose" sent us this pic of a farmworker in Arvin operating a hay bale tractor. It takes years of experience to operate this type of vehicle as it requires a lot of attention to detail. Hay is often used as mulch for vegetables as it helps the soil retain moisture. #WeFeedYou

Look folks, being an absentee landowner and toiling in the fields are the same thing.

- What is the current "boat strike" death toll? (43) - How much of cocaine supplies (est) actually transit Venezuela? (10-13%) - How much US-bound fentanyl comes from South America? (none) We all need credibly sourced information right now. And here is a new @wola-org.bsky.social fact sheet:

RSF condemns the unjust and continued violence of federal officers towards journalists covering the No Kings protest in Los Angeles. We call on the LA mayor and city council to hold the Chief of Police accountable for the stifling of press freedoms and the blatant violation of the First Amendment.

To this point (what to do if the feds or local cops show up at your door), ACLU has a nice know-your-rights explainer for this exact situation: www.aclu.org/know-your-ri... More advice here for protestors, immigrants, and others.

We're at the point in the story where the FBI is showing up at a dude's house because he attended a protest. Without suspicion of a crime, agents ask important questions like who produced signs for the event. And it had an impact--he decided not to go back to the streets to voice his opinions.

A good accounting of Homeland Security's bad acts in Illinois, out today from @hrw.org 👇

This is true, and also why the feds have been warming up in LA, DC, Chicago, and soon San Francisco.

The DC ACLU is suing on behalf of a man who was arrested by a National Guardsman and MPD officers for playing the Imperial March (from Star Wars) as an act of protest. www.acludc.org/app/uploads/...

More evidence that so-called sanctuary laws provide little sanctuary. They’re too narrow—allowing police to do counterprotest work that benefits the feds, like in NYC yesterday. And poorly enforced. We’re advocating for expanding the scope and building strong enforcement mechanisms.

According to a DHS press release, yesterday’s big show of force in downtown Manhattan resulted in… 9 arrests of immigrants by ICE.

A war manufactured so blatantly as to recall the Iraq buildup, yet hardly treated with the urgency or the outrage it deserves. The regime change Trump is trying to inflict upon Venezuela is the result of compounding normalizations. New at FOREVER WARS:

I've felt for months that we're witnessing a warmup for New York, tested in places like Chicago and Los Angeles. NYC will be a tough city to crack and a political endgame, and the public first needs softening up to a big federal street presence. This video feels like a preview of 2026.