Overview
- Defense attorneys filed a court motion Thursday that names three HSI programs — Operation Puppet Master, Operation Whipple Shield, and Project Keyhole — and asks judges to compel extensive discovery about those operations.
- Court documents say undercover agents posed as protesters, attended meetings in churches, parks, libraries and union halls, recorded conversations, collected license plates and built dossiers with names, photos, addresses and employment details.
- The filings say HSI infiltrated encrypted group chats, used Clearview AI face searches, pulled data from law enforcement databases and served administrative subpoenas to obtain multi-year financial records from groups including Sunrise, CWA and SEIU.
- Prosecutors showed a grand jury a PowerPoint linking roughly 18 organizations to an alleged conspiracy, but multiple related prosecutions have already been dismissed or weakened, and most defendants have pleaded not guilty.
- If the court grants the defense request for Clearview outputs, agent devices and interagency communications, the documents could shape legal challenges over First Amendment limits, agency authority under NSPM-7, and calls for oversight of intelligence-style tactics used on political speech.