ANJALI KAMAT: Operation Puppet Master. That’s the name of an expansive surveillance program launched by the federal government against activists, left-leaning political organizations, labor unions and other groups in Minnesota last winter as hundreds of thousands of residents joined protests demanding an end to the violent mass deportation campaign in the state by ICE and other federal agencies, known as Operation Metro Surge.

The spying program was launched by HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, four days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a nurse and protester, and just weeks after agents shot another protester, Renee Good.

The spying program came to light in court documents filed in federal district court in Minnesota and first reported on by The New York Times. The documents were filed by defense attorney Kevin Riach in the federal case against 15 purported antifa members, Minnesotans accused of conspiracy to, quote, “impede or injure federal officers” and to, quote, “violently oppose immigration law enforcement.” Riach represents one of the accused, Isaac Sant.

AMY GOODMAN: In Kevin Riach’s motion, he reveals that undercover agents posing as protesters spied on community members at meetings in churches, parks, libraries, schools and union halls, and that HSI secretly obtained the financial records of national labor unions, including the SEIU and the Communication Workers of America, CWA, as well as national nonprofits like the Sunrise Movement. The financial records go back three years.

Democracy Now! spoke to Kieran Knutson, president of the CWA Local 7250, on Sunday to get his response.

KIERAN KNUTSON: We were outraged, but not surprised, to learn this news. You know, the federal government was conducting an illegal and murderous campaign of terror against immigrant and working-class people in the Twin Cities, so it’s not a surprise to us that they were using these methods to try and infiltrate and map the folks who were organizing opposition to their campaign. And, you know, it’s our understanding that they’ve surveilled our members, that they have infiltrated meetings that we co-sponsored, and possibly even entered our office once as undercover cops for the federal government as part of this operation. So, yeah, it just shows what kind of government we’re up against.

ANJALI KAMAT: In the motion filed with the court, attorney Kevin Riach writes, quote, “With no evidence, the government alleged to the grand jury that the conspiracy in this case extends far beyond the defendants to include the AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, Monarca, Veterans for Peace, and the Grease Pit bicycle repair shop, among others.” So far, none of the groups targeted by the HSI inquiry have faced charges.

The executive director of the Sunrise Movement, Aru Shiney-Ajay, said, quote, “While federal agents repeatedly broke the law, ordinary people exercised their First Amendment rights to protect their neighbors.”

The surveillance operation arose from a White House directive known as National Security Presidential Memo 7, NSPM-7, which identifies a potential domestic terrorist as someone expressing, quote, “anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, or anti-American views.”

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by two guests. Isaac Sant is a healthcare worker in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the 15 protesters charged by the federal government in June. It was his attorney, Kevin Riach, who filed this motion and released these documents on Thursday. And Emilia González Avalos is executive director of Unidos MN, a grassroots group and immigrant advocacy organization that was also spied on by the federal government.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I wanted to turn first to Isaac Sant in St. Paul. It’s your attorney who released these documents. It has been explosive around the country to see the federal government, after the killing of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, investigating who? The activists who were protesting these killings and the deadly immigrant crackdown. Now, your attorney advised you not to speak today, but you’ve chosen to. Why? Talk about what’s happened in the Twin Cities.

ISAAC SANT: Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me.

I believe this case is a blatant act of political repression against anybody who was brave enough to protest against ICE’s terroristic rampage through our streets in December and January. And I think the calculus here is a little different than in a normal criminal trial. I think these are politically motivated charges intended to quell dissent, and that my little organization is not really the target of these. I’m under indictment, and it’s obviously very stressful, but the whole community is really the target here. This is intended to have a chilling effect on protest and to intimidate people out of the street.

ANJALI KAMAT: Isaac, were you one of the groups that was under surveillance? And did you suspect anything during the time?

ISAAC SANT: I did suspect that we might have been under surveillance. I mean, I was at a mass meeting immediately after the brutal murder of Renee Good, and I thought there might be undercovers in the room, sure. But what I didn’t know was that — 

AMY GOODMAN: What were you indicted for, Isaac?

ISAAC SANT: I was indicted for conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer and also for interstate stalking.

ANJALI KAMAT: I want to bring in Emilia González Avalos into the conversation, executive director of Unidos MN. Emilia, can you talk about your organization? I’m looking at this chart of — that Homeland Security Investigations put out called “The Conspiracy,” and there’s a group called Monarca right at the top. And this is a project of Unidos, your group. Can you talk about your experience with federal surveillance?

EMILIA GONZÁLEZ AVALOS: Of course. Well, Monarca is, as you said, our constitutional observing program. It is an on-ramp for community organizing where we developed these massive forums for people to learn about how to legally and constitutionally observe what was happening in our streets with the deadly force being used upon our immigrant families. And that’s all we did. We were teaching people how to use their First Amendment; what does a warrant, an administrative warrant, looks like differently from a judicial warrant; what were the rights and opportunities that we have to protect the rights of immigrants in detention or while they are being detained; how do you locate a person that has just been detained? We also talked about Fourth Amendment rights.

And this program grew to almost 30,000 people before Metro Surge and reached to 50,000 people after Metro Surge, and it continues to grow. And so, we were shocked. We were sick to hear that we were also in this list of people that were organizing using their First Amendment rights and the right to petition to their government, but also not surprised. We have learned through history that this is one of the tactics they have used across the world to repress and scare and disrupt movements that are organizing with other people against racism, that are organizing for justice, and that are organizing for a multiracial, high-functioning democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to what the U.S. attorney for Minnesota said in a news conference. He refused to answer repeated questions about whether any federal agents or officers were injured by the defendants.

DANIEL ROSEN: Whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, cause bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime. And I would dare say, you know, we just cannot have in this country all of all — people getting together, engaging in all of these violent acts, and then simply saying, “Well, you know, nobody got hurt, so how bad could it have been?”

AMY GOODMAN: That was the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen, who also suggested there could be more charges related to ongoing investigations into anti-ICE activism during so-called Operation Metro Surge.

DANIEL ROSEN: If you are actively conspiring to impede law enforcement, actively conspiring to commit the acts that today’s indictment alleges, you ought to go on the assumption that we’re watching you and that we’ll get you.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is quite something. When there are accusations of violence, the U.S. attorney cannot name one example of violence that the defendants were involved with. Can you respond to this, Isaac Sant?

ISAAC SANT: On the advice of my attorney, I’m not going to talk about the details of any overt act I’m alleged to have committed in the indictment. But what I can tell you is that our activism, me and all of my co-defendants, was nonviolent throughout Metro Surge, and that, as I said, this is a naked act of political repression. This is not about what we did. This is about who we are and what we believe. This is about the suppression of our politics and, more broadly, of any opposition to ICE’s campaign of terror across the country.

And yeah, I didn’t hurt anyone. I’m not alleged to have hurt anyone. And there’s nothing in the indictment that I’m accused of that tens of thousands of people also didn’t participate in as acts of protest when ICE was rampaging through our streets.

ANJALI KAMAT: I want to bring Emilia back into this conversation. This indictment against the 15 defendants, you know, accuse them of everything from throwing ice chunks to setting up blockades. But the surveillance documents released last week now show the government was monitoring peaceful library meetings about deescalation tactics. What are your thoughts on the kind of evidence being gathered by the Trump administration and the financial records that have been collected of the SEIU, Sunrise Movement, three years of financial records?

EMILIA GONZÁLEZ AVALOS: Well, I am not an attorney, and I also have never experienced or witnessed a network of surveillance that tries to fish and hunt for the behaviors that they want to polarize, and then act using that, acting with the strength of the Department of Justice. It is also said that in this administration, a ham sandwich can get an indictment. And so, it is very dangerous, the times that we’re living, the discretion in which the rule of law is being used.

And I hold two things at the same time: Courts decide on individual conduct, and everybody has the right to due process. Everybody gets a defense. And a government that puts a bicycle collective and a teachers’ union and a network of regular people like Unidos on a conspiracy chart, in my opinion, loses the right to be believed about who the dangerous people are.

AMY GOODMAN: Emilia González Avalos, thank you so much for being with us, executive director of Unidos MN, and Isaac Sant, healthcare worker and activist in St. Paul, one of the 15 Minnesotans charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers during their immigration crackdown last winter. It was his attorney who released the documents.

Coming up, in an exclusive interview, the prominent British human rights attorney Rajiv Menon, speaking out on being charged with contempt of court for what he said during his closing argument in defense of his client, a protester with Palestine Action. We’ll go to London. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “I Keep Faith” by the British musician Billy Bragg, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.