Homeland Security investigators secretly recorded conversations, infiltrated Signal chats and obtained financial records for labor unions and progressive groups as part of a wide-ranging surveillance effort during Operation Metro Surge, according to court documents filed Thursday morning. 

The documents, first reported by The New York Times, were filed by a defense attorney in the federal case against 15 Minnesotans accused of conspiracy to impede or injure a federal agent.

The feds’ surveillance programs, dubbed “Operation Puppet Master” and “Operation Whipple Shield,” go far beyond the 15 people indicted. 

Homeland Security agents used administrative subpoenas — subpoenas issued by the federal agency rather than a judge — to obtain financial records from organizations including the labor unions Service Employees International Union and Communications Workers of America; Voices for Racial Justice, a longstanding racial justice training organization; and Sunrise Movement, an environmental justice organization that organized noise protests outside of immigration agents’ hotels during Operation Metro Surge.

“This broad collection of financial records of labor and social justice advocacy organizations, done in secret and with no articulable criminal predicate, violates both the First Amendment and these organizations’ right to financial privacy,” wrote Kevin Riach, the defense attorney for defendant Isaac Sant.

Undercover agents posing as activists surveilled and recorded meetings at the United Labor Centre building in Minneapolis, Loring Park, the Augsburg Park Library and various churches. 

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