This story was originally published on Truthout on Oct. 06, 2025. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
Today, federal lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demanding information on any plans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has to use Graphite, a spyware program that can access — without the owner’s knowledge or consent — a phone’s location data, photos, and encrypted applications, including WhatsApp and Signal.
Last year, the Biden administration paused the contract with Paragon Solutions, which operates Graphite, while it conducted a review to ensure it complied with an executive order issued in 2023 which limits the government’s use of spyware. In August, the Trump administration lifted the stop work order, news that was first reported by All-Source Intelligence.
The letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was signed by Democratic Reps. Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), Shontel Brown (Ohio), and Yassamin Ansari (Arizona).
The lawmakers asked Noem to provide information on the government’s use of surveillance technology by October 14, including “a comprehensive list of data surveillance targets and ICE’s strategy for deploying spyware or mass data surveillance within the United States.”
The lawmakers warned that allowing ICE to use to spyware “threatens Americans’ freedom of movement and freedom of speech.”
“Given the Trump Administration’s disregard for constitutional rights and civil liberties in pursuit of rapid mass deportation, we are seriously concerned that ICE will abuse Graphite software to target immigrants, people of color, and individuals who express opposition to ICE’s repeated attacks on the rule of law,” they wrote.
Paragon was founded in 2019 by former Israeli military intelligence officers who worked in the Israeli military’s Unit 8200. Last year, the Florida-based private equity firm,
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Oct. 02, 2025. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Just hours after President Donald Trump said US soldiers should use Americans cities as “training grounds,” federal law enforcement officials on Tuesday night descended upon an apartment complex in Chicago where witnesses say they broke down residents’ doors, smashed furniture and belongings, and dragged dozens of them, including children, placed in U-Haul vans.
Local resident Rodrick Johnson, who lives in the building raided by Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents, told the Chicago Sun-Times that federal officials broke down his door, put him in zip ties, and kept him detained outside the building for three hours before letting him go.
“I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” he explained to the paper. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”
Pertissue Fisher, who also lives in the building, backed up Johnson’s account and said that agents forcibly removed all residents from their homes regardless of their legal status.
“They just treated us like we were nothing,” she told local news station ABC 7 Chicago. “They, like, piling us all up in the back on the other side, and it wasn’t no room to move nowhere.”
Ebony Sweets Watson, who lives across the street from the raided building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she saw children, some of whom weren’t even wearing clothes, dragged out of the building by ICE agents and then placed into U-Haul vans.
“It was heartbreaking to watch,” she said. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sept. 30, 2025
.It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday sparked instant ridicule among critics for delivering a speech
in front of American generals in which he railed against “dudes in dresses,” “climate change worship,” and “fat” soldiers.
During the address, which US military leaders around the world were summoned to attend in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth rattled off a long list of culture war grievances that he claimed had weakened the American military, which he asserted is forced to follow “stupid rules of engagement” that limit members of the armed forces. Hegseth has spent much of his tenure taking steps to remake the military into what he has said will be a more aggressive force, including by firing top lawyers.
Among many topics, Hegseth, a former Fox Newshost
, took aim at some American soldiers’ physical appearances.
“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations and see fat troops,” Hegseth fumed at one point. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals.”
Hegseth also said that the Trump administration had moved to systematically “to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department.”
What this means in practice, Hegseth elaborated, was “no more identity months, [diversity, equity, and inclusion] offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship.”
“We are done with that shit!” he emphasized.
Elsewhere in his address, Hegseth announced he was “overhauling” the inspector general process that has been used to investigate allegations of misconduct against military officers. According to Hegseth, the current process has put “complainers, ideologues, and poor performers in the driver’s seat.”
“No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers, no more walking on eggshells!” Hegseth exclaimed.
US President Donald Trump
, who spoke at Quantico after Hegseth’s address, called the defense secretary’s speech “great,” even as it was being pilloried as “embarrassing” and “ridiculous” far and wide online.
Watch the complete speeches by both Hegseth and Trump.
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie described
the speech as “some of the most loser shit I have ever seen in my life” and he marveled that Hegseth had hauled in military leaders away from their jobs to watch it.
“Can you imagine sitting in that audience as a three-star flag officer—decades in the service, multiple post-grad degrees, and a virtually unequaled level of command expertise—and being forced to watch this dunderheaded dry drunk give an off-brand Jordan Belfort seminar?” Bouie asked
.
Pamela Herd, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, also asserted that senior military personnel likely felt insulted watching Hegseth’s speech.
“I just can’t get over the lack of shame—the unabashed confidence,” she said
. “Can you imagine what those generals are thinking being lectured to by someone so inexperienced and incompetent?”
Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, expressed
astonishment that Hegseth “summoned all the US generals from around the globe at great expense to fat shame them.”
American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick argued
that Hegseth would open up US defense policy to significant vulnerabilities if he were to move forward with banning the American military from discussing the impacts of climate change.
“Climate change may be the single greatest geopolitical wild card of the next century—a reshaping of countries’ agricultures, economies, and even literal geography,” he wrote. “And here a guy who never rose above the rank of Major says the U.S. military shouldn’t even consider it. We are screwed.”
Attorney Max Kennerly took aim at Hegseth’s comments on military service members’ physical fitness, which he said
showed a deep ignorance of how the modern military fights wars.
“I can’t get over how the right-wing doesn’t understand modern militaries, with the majority serving non-combat roles,” he explained. “You think the best IT security and logistics personnel spends two hours in the gym every day to look like the cast of 300? They’re at furry conventions and model train shows.”
Following Hegseth’s speech, the president’s lengthy address included defenses of his policies, including his decision to deploy federal troops to US cities to fight what he called “the enemy within.” Trump has ordered federal troops to cities including Washington, DC; Chicago; and Portland to remove unhoused people from the streets, arrest immigrants, and fight anti-fascist protesters.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” said Trump.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sept. 28, 2025
.It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
In between his highly publicized designation
of Antifa as a domestic terror organization and his indictment
of former FBI Director James Comey, US President Donald Trump
signed a little-reported national security memorandum that gives law enforcement new tools to target his critics.
Trump signed
National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on Thursday. The directive, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” focuses exclusively on “anti-fascist” or left-wing activities, and mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
“I don’t want to sound hyperbolic but the plain truth is that NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who does not support the Trump administration and its agenda,” journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote
in a piece raising alarm about the directive on Saturday.
Klippenstein argued that the memorandum was worrying on several fronts. For one, its focus on preventing crimes before they are committed opens the door to rights violations.
“In other words, they’re targeting pre-crime, to reference Minority Report,” Klippenstein wrote.
For another, the memorandum casts a very wide net, targeting groups, individuals, funders, and “entities” and listing several protected beliefs as “indicia” of extremism.
These include:
“Anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity;
Support for the overthrow of the United States Government;
Extremism on migration, race, and gender; and
Hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
What’s more, the memorandum entrusts enforcement to the FBI’s over 4,000-strong Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF), which removes the legal challenges to directing the National Guard or other military forces to quash domestic dissent.
“For the Trump White House, the beauty of using an already existing network is that it bypasses Congressional oversight and scrutiny and even obscures federal activity to governors and legislatures at the state level,” Klippenstein wrote.
This is much, much more significant than the Comey indictment but has gotten like 0.1% of the media coveragehttps://t.co/AOoveczCJt
The types of activities that will be targeted are also quite broad, with the document defining “organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder” as “domestic terrorist acts.”
The memorandum also targets any individual or group who might fund activity the administration deems terrorism and directs the Internal Revenue Service to “take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism,” which could be a means of threatening the status of nonprofits.
Finally, as Drop Site News pointed out
, the memo authorizes the attorney general to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations for the first time in US history.
“By targeting beliefs and protest activity, the directive positions dissent itself as a potential crime,” Drop Site wrote.
🚨 Trump has signed NSPM-7, a national security directive that dramatically expands federal powers against what it calls “domestic terrorism.” It orders a national strategy to “disrupt” individuals or groups “that foment political violence,” including “before they result in… https://t.co/QifVpUpg6lpic.twitter.com/3JP3WU5iz2
The Trump administration’s focus on violence associated with left-wing beliefs and groups is not supported by the facts. National Institute of Justice data found
that right-wing violence had led to 520 deaths since 1990 compared with 78 deaths due to left-wing violence. However, the administration removed that study from the Department of Justice website shortly after Charlie Kirk
was killed, The Guardian reported
earlier this month.
The administration’s efforts, while accelerated, build on processes that began during the US response to the September 11 attacks, as Klippenstein explained:
A “pre-crime” endeavor, preventing attacks before they happen, is core to the post-9/11 concept of counterterrorism itself. No longer satisfied to investigate acts of terrorism after the fact to bring terrorists to justice, the Bush administration adopted preemption. Overseas, that led to aerial assassination by drones and “special operations” kill missions. Domestically, it led to a counter-terrorism campaign whose hallmark was excessive and illegal government surveillance and the use of undercover agents and “confidential human sources” to trap (and entrap) would-be terrorists.
However, the Trump administration is expanding the War-on-Terror mandate with fewer guardrails.
“Now, with Donald Trump’s directive retooling the counter-terror apparatus to go after Americans at home, this means monitoring political activity, or speech, as an investigative method to discover ‘radicalism,‘” Klippenstein said, noting that the NSPM-7 breaks with post-Watergate national security documents by failing to mention the First Amendment rights to protest and organize.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is already eager to make use of the document.
“We are witnessing domestic terrorist sedition against the federal government,” he wrote
on social media on Friday. “The JTTF has been dispatched by the Attorney General, pursuant to NSPM-7. All necessary resources will be utilized.”
In an interview with Greg Sargent for the New Republic, Trump ally Steve Bannon confirmed
that Miller and others in the administration were preparing to go after left-liberal groups and media whose criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could be interpreted as “goading” on violence against the agency.
Referring to Miller’s comments that calling
ICE authoritarian incited violence and terrorism, Bannon responded, “Stephen Miller is correct—more importantly he’s in charge.”
The threats of investigations put liberal and left-leaning organizations in a tough place. On the one hand, they want to prepare as best they can. On the other, they do not want to obey in advance.
“Officials at these groups tell me they must strike a balance between being clear-eyed about how bad this could get while not letting it discourage political activity,” Sargent wrote. “That latter form of surrender is exactly what Trump and Miller want. And under no circumstances should anybody willingly hand it over to them.”
Four Washington, D.C. residents, along with the immigration organization CASA, filed a class action suit
against the Trump administration on Thursday, alleging that federal agents have systematically arrested people in the city without warrants or probable cause.
“Over the past month and a half, plain-clothed, masked, and armed federal agents have flooded the streets of the nation’s capital, indiscriminately arresting without warrants and without probable cause District residents whom the agents perceive to be Latino,” says the complaint.
The complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of D.C., the National Immigration Project, and others, on behalf of the plaintiffs.
In August, President Trump declared a crime emergency
in D.C., despite record-low rates of violent crime. During that press conference, Trump made numerous misleading statements about the prevalence of crime in the city, and announced that D.C.
will “no longer be a sanctuary for illegal alien criminals.”
“We will have full, seamless, integrated cooperation at all levels of law enforcement, and we’ll deploy officers across the District with an overwhelming presence,” he said.
A few days later, on August 15, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed D.C.’s mayor to use local resources to assist with “enforcement of federal immigration law,” including “locating, apprehending, and detaining aliens unlawfully present in the United States.”
Between the time of the emergency declaration and September 9, more than 40 percent of the arrests in D.C. were for alleged civil immigration violations, more than any other cause for arrests, according to the suit. The complaint says that federal officers have indiscriminately targeted anyone who appears Latino, including one person who was taking the trash out and another who was walking out of a grocery store.
Agents abducted one resident when he was on his way to dialysis treatment, according to the groups’ press release
announcing the lawsuit. He was detained for over eight hours, without food or his medication.
“They ignored my U.S. driver’s license and left me without critical treatment that day, putting my health in immediate danger,” he said in a statement. “Since then, I have lived in fear that I could be torn from my family and deported to a place where I cannot get the medical care I need to survive.”
All four of the individual plaintiffs in the case were abducted by federal agents who did not have warrants for their arrest.
José Escobar Molina, who has had Temporary Protected Status (TPS) since 2001, was taken by federal agents as he was about to get into his truck and start his work day.
“The agents immediately handcuffed Mr. Escobar Molina, grabbed him by the arms and legs, and called him ‘illegal’ repeatedly,” the suit says. “When he responded that he has ‘papers’ (in other words, immigration status), they replied, ‘No you don’t. You are illegal.’”
After they put him in a vehicle, he told them again he had “papers.”
The driver reportedly yelled at him, “Shut up, bitch! You’re illegal.”
He was detained overnight and released the next day after a supervisor realized Molina had valid TPS.
Federal agents abducted another plaintiff, identified in the complaint as N.S., as he sat in his car in a Home Depot parking lot after he finished shopping.
“The agents pulled N.S. out of the driver’s seat, threw him against the car, handcuffed him, and provided him a clear bag in which to place his belongings, before placing him in the back of a van,” the complaint says.
N.S., who has a pending asylum application, was detained for almost four weeks in detention centers around the country until he was released on his own recognizance.
“His knee is swollen due to being shackled for several hours at a time and sitting on several long flights as he was repeatedly transferred while detained,” the complaint says. “He is unable to sleep through the night. He is scared to walk outside or drive and has stopped driving his grandchildren and youngest son to school.”
In another case, a plaintiff identified as R.S.M. and her husband were driving to work when federal agents surrounded their car. They detained R.S.M for about 10 hours, and released her with an ankle monitor. R.S.M. has a pending asylum application.
Trump’s emergency order expired on September 11, but “mass immigration stops and arrests in D.C. are continuing,” the complaint says.
After D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said
local police would stop cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) once the emergency declaration expired, Trump lashed out at the mayor, who he had previously praised for her cooperation.
“It has been a beautiful thing to watch but, now, under pressure from the Radical Left Democrats, Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has presided over this violent criminal takeover of our Capital for years, has informed the Federal Government that the Metropolitan Police Department will no longer cooperate with ICE in removing and relocating dangerous illegal aliens,” Trump posted
on Truth Social.
“If I allowed this to happen, CRIME would come roaring back. To the people and businesses of Washington, D.C., DON’T WORRY, I AM WITH YOU, AND WON’T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN,” he continued. “I’ll call a National Emergency, and Federalize, if necessary!!!”
Most of the city’s residents, however, are opposed
to the president’s takeover. In August, D.C. resident Sean Dunn, who threw a sandwich at a federal agent, became a folk hero, and a grand jury refused to indict him
.
“Fuck you! You fucking facists!” he allegedly yelled before throwing the sandwich. “Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 09, 2025
. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered
at the Port of Sidi Bou Said in Tunis, Tunisia early Tuesday morning after the international group organizing a humanitarian aid mission to Gaza
said one of its boats had been struck by what was believed to be a drone.
The Global Sumud Flotilla said one of the main vessels of its fleet of 50 boats was struck while it was anchored in the harbor. The boat was carrying the group’s steering committee, which includes climate leader Greta Thunberg
, human rights activist Yasemin Acar, and Brazilian organizer Thiago Ávila.
Footage taken from a boat docked near the “Family Boat” showed the moment an object appeared to drop onto the vessel, triggering an explosion.
Footage from another boat across from the “Family” – the principal vessel of the Global Sumud Flotilla – shows an object dropping from above onto the ship, triggering an explosion on contact. https://t.co/7TtpIRPzVQpic.twitter.com/RKBDnTugt6
The Global Sumud Flotilla said
no one was injured in the apparent attack and said that “acts of aggression aimed at intimidating and derailing our mission will not deter us.”
“Our peaceful mission to break the siege on Gaza and stand in solidarity with its people continues with determination and resolve,” said the group in a statement.
Political commentator Brian Allen posted another video taken aboard the Family Boat.
🚨 BREAKING: Greta Thunberg was aboard a Gaza aid ship hit by a suspected drone strike off the coast of Tunisia.
The vessel, carrying activists and humanitarian supplies, was set ablaze mid-mission.
The flotilla is the latest fleet of boats headed for Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid and break the siege Israel
has imposed since October 2023 as it has relentlessly attacked the exclave, killing more than 64,000 Palestinians so far, and said it is planning
a complete takeover of Gaza.
Nearly 400 people, including at least 140 children, have died of starvation caused by Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid. More than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to access food, including at hubs set up by the privatized, US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said
in late July that parts of Gaza are facing famine, with one in three people going days without consuming any food.
Israel has stopped several aid boats from reaching Gaza in recent months, including the Madleen
and the Handala, and detained organizers. The Conscience, another boat operated by the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, was reportedly bombed by Israel in May off the coast of Malta, forcing organizers to turn back.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has threatened
to designate humanitarian aid organizers trying to reach Gaza by boat as “terrorists” and to detain them.
On Tuesday, Francesca Albanese
, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said the reports of a drone attack have to be verified but noted Israel’s “history” of attacking aid vessels bound for Gaza.
Tunisian officials have said
the vessel was not attacked by a drone and blamed the fire that broke out on a cigarette butt or lighter.
“There is no other state protecting this boat other than Tunisia creating a safe port,” said Albanese. “The question is, if it’s confirmed that this is a drone attack, it will be an assault, an aggression against Tunisia and against Tunisian sovereignty.”
“We cannot keep on tolerating this,” she added, “and normalizing the illegal.”
