July 15, 1834 The Spanish Inquisition, a centuries-long brutal effort by the Catholic Church to root out heresy, begun in 1481, was officially abolished by King Bonaparte. Spain’s King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had chosen Catholicism as their religion and asked the pope to help purify the people of Spain. Many thousands were forced to convert, were tortured to encourage confession, or burned at the stake. Witch burning during the Inquisition More on the Inquisition
July 15, 1978 The Longest Walk, a peaceful transcontinental trek for Native American justice, which had begun with a few hundred departing Alcatraz Island, California, ended this day when they arrived in Washington, D.C. accompanied by 30,000 marchers. They were calling attention to the ongoing problems plaguing Indian communities throughout the Americas: lack of jobs, housing, health care, as well as dozens of pieces of legislation before Congress canceling treaty obligations of the U.S. government toward various Indian tribes. They submitted petitions signed by one-and-a-half million Americans to President Jimmy Carter. The Longest WalkZinn Project
That pesky thing called the US CONSTITUTION says that the people have a right to protest the government. The last ten or more years the federal government has been trying to restrain the rights of the people to protest or have their voices heard. This is another example. Hugs
DHS is urging law enforcement to treat even skateboarding and livestreaming as signs of violent intent during a protest, turning everyday behavior into a pretext for police action.
The Department of Homeland Security is urging local police to consider a wide range of protest activity as violent tactics, including mundane acts like riding a bike or livestreaming a police encounter, WIRED has learned.
Threat bulletins issued during last month’s “No Kings” protests warn that the US government’s aggressive immigration raids are almost certain to accelerate domestic unrest, with DHS saying there’s a “high likeliness” more Americans will soon turn against the agency, which could trigger confrontations near federal sites.
Blaming intense media coverage and backlash to the US military deployment in Los Angeles, DHS expects the demonstrations to “continue and grow across the nation” as protesters focused on other issues shift to immigration, following a broad “embracement of anti-ICE messaging.”
The bulletins—first obtained by the national security nonprofit Property of the People through public records requests—warn that officers could face assaults with fireworks and improvised weapons: paint-filled fire extinguishers, smoke grenades, and projectiles like bottles and rocks.
At the same time, the guidance urges officers to consider a range of nonviolent behavior and common protest gear—like masks, flashlights, and cameras—as potential precursors to violence, telling officers to prepare “from the point of view of an adversary.”
Protesters on bicycles, skateboards, or even “on foot” are framed as potential “scouts” conducting reconnaissance or searching for “items to be used as weapons.” Livestreaming is listed alongside “doxxing” as a “tactic” for “threatening” police. Online posters are cast as ideological recruiters—or as participants in “surveillance sharing.”
One list of “violent tactics” shared by the Los Angeles–based Joint Regional Intelligence Center—part of a post-9/11 fusion network—includes both protesters’ attempts to avoid identification and efforts to identify police. The memo also alleges that face recognition, normally a tool of law enforcement, was used against officers.
Vera Eidelman, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, says the government has no business treating constitutionally protected activities—like observing or documenting police—as threats.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
“Exercising those rights shouldn’t be justification for adverse action or suspicion by the government,” Eidelman says. Labeling something as harmless as skateboarding at a protest as a violent threat is “disturbing and dangerous,” she adds, and could “easily lead to excessive force against people who are simply exercising their First Amendment rights.”
“The DHS report repeatedly conflates basic protest, organizing, and journalism with terroristic violence, thereby justifying ever more authoritarian measures by law enforcement,” says Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People. “It should be sobering, if unsurprising, that the Trump regime’s response to mass criticism of its police state tactics is to escalate those tactics.”
Fusion centers like JRIC play a central role in how police understand protest movements. The intelligence they produce is rapidly disseminated and draws heavily on open-source data. It often reflects broad, risk-averse assumptions and includes fragmentary and unverified information. In the absence of concrete threats, bulletins often turn to ideological language and social media activity as evidence of emerging risks, even when tied to lawful expression.
DHS’s risk-based approach reflects a broader shift in US law enforcement shaped by post-9/11 security priorities—one that elevates perceived intent over demonstrable wrongdoing and uses behavior cues, affiliations, and other potentially predictive indicators to justify early intervention and expanded surveillance.
A year ago, DHS warned that immigration-related grievances were driving a spike in threats against judges, migrants, and law enforcement, predicting that new laws and high-profile crackdowns would further radicalize individuals. In February, another fusion center reported renewed calls for violence against police and government officials, citing backlash to perceived federal overreach and identifying then-upcoming protests and court rulings as likely triggers.
At times, the sprawling predictions may appear prescient, echoing real-world flashpoints: In Alvarado, Texas, an alleged coordinated ambush at a detention center this week drew ICE agents out with fireworks before gunfire erupted on July 4, leaving a police officer shot in the neck. (Nearly a dozen arrests have been made, at least 10 on charges of attempted murder.)
In advance of protests, agencies increasingly rely on intelligence forecasting to identify groups seen as ideologically subversive or tactically unpredictable. Demonstrators labeled “transgressive” may be monitored, detained without charges, or met with force.
Social movement scholars widely recognize the introduction of preemptive protest policing as a departure from late-20th century approaches that prioritized de-escalation, communication, and facilitation. In its place, authorities have increasingly emphasized control of demonstrations through early intervention, surveillance, and disruption—monitoring organizers, restricting public space, and responding proactively based on perceived risks rather than actual conduct.
Infrastructure initially designed to combat terrorism now often serves to monitor street-level protests, with virtual investigations units targeting demonstrators for scrutiny based on online expression. Fusion centers, funded through DHS grants, have increasingly issued bulletins flagging protest slogans, references to police brutality, and solidarity events as signs of possible violence—disseminating these assessments to law enforcement absent clear evidence of criminal intent.
Surveillance of protesters has included the construction of dossiers (known as “baseball cards”) with analysts using high-tech tools to compile subjects’ social media posts, affiliations, personal networks, and public statements critical of government policy.
Obtained exclusively by WIRED, a DHS dossier on Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia graduate student and anti-war activist, shows that analysts drew information from Canary Mission, a shadowy blacklist that anonymously profiles critics of Israeli military action and supporters of Palestinian rights.
In federal court Wednesday, a senior DHS official acknowledged that material from Canary Mission had been used to compile more than 100 dossiers on students and scholars, despite the site’s ideological slant, mysterious funding, and unverifiable sourcing.
Threat bulletins can also prime officers to anticipate conflict, shaping their posture and decisions on the ground. In the wake of violent 2020 protests, the San Jose Police Department in California cited the “numerous intelligence bulletins” it received from its local regional fusion center, DHS, and the FBI, among others, as central to understanding “the mindset of the officers in the days leading up to and throughout the civil unrest.”
Specific bulletins cited by the SJPD—whose protest response prompted a $620,000 settlement this month—framed the demonstrations as possible cover for “domestic terrorists,” warned of opportunistic attacks on law enforcement and promoted an “unconfirmed report” of U-Haul vans purportedly being used to ferry weapons and explosives.
Subsequent reporting in the wake of BlueLeaks—a 269-gigabyte dump of internal police documents obtained by a source identifying as the hacktivist group Anonymous and published by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets—found federal bulletins riddled with unverified claims, vague threat language, and outright misinformation, including alerts about a parody website that supposedly paid protesters and accepted bitcoin to set cars on fire, despite a clear banner labeling the site “FAKE.”
Threat alerts—unclassified and routinely accessible to the press—can help law enforcement shape public perception of protests before they begin, laying the groundwork to legitimize aggressive police responses. Unverified DHS warnings about domestic terrorists infiltrating demonstrations in 2020, publicly echoed by the agency’s acting secretary on Twitter, were widely circulated and amplified in media coverage.
Americans are generally opposed to aggressive protest crackdowns, but when they do support them, fear is often the driving force. Experimental research suggests that support for the use of coercive tactics hinges less on what protesters actually do than on how they’re portrayed—by officials, the media, and through racial and ideological frames.
Dell Cameron is an investigative reporter from Texas covering privacy and national security. He’s the recipient of multiple Society of Professional Journalists awards and is co-recipient of an Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting. Previously, he was a senior reporter at Gizmodo and a staff writer for the Daily … Read More
One voice was yelling he was a US citizen. The conditions are horrible. They get their drinking water from the toilet. Maxwell Frost is a progressive treasure. Hugs
We did not record a podcast last week because Donna was traveling to Austin, where her family was celebrating Fourth of July AND the arrival of a new baby (her grand-niece!).
She expected hot, humid weather. What she got was four days of torrential rain, and the specter of over one hundred deaths from flooding in the nearby hill counties – including children at a sleep away camp that was overcome by the deluge.
One week later, this tragedy is ongoing. People are wondering how much DOGE’s cuts to the National Weather Service and NOAA factored into it. Journalist Marisa Kabas has reported that as of Monday, only 86 FEMA employees were on the ground in Texas (they usually deploy hundreds of people to disaster zones like this). “We are doing a lot less than normal,” a FEMA staffer told her.
No shit.
In the meantime, $450 million from FEMA’s budget has been allocated to that concentration camp in the swamps of Florida. And Trump’s big, ugly budget bill allocates billions to expand ICE and build more “detention centers” throughout the country.
ICE continues to terrorize immigrant communities, kidnapping law-abiding parents, gardeners, day laborers, and others who just happen to have brown skin (including US citizens).Donna returned home to Los Angeles in time for a show of military cosplay in MacArthur Park. No one got hurt in that one – but it felt like a dress rehearsal for something worse.
We talked about that and more in this week’s podcast.
We are living through history and it really sucks. Aliza says that the best way to deal with the continual onslaught of terrible events is to DO something. Anything. Volunteer in the community. Participate in events. Write postcards for candidates, donate to good causes.
And allow yourself the down time you need to muster up the energy to do it again.
We talked about some of the everyday heroes who are helping us all muster through this.
Like Joshua Aaron, the developer of the ICEBlock app that alerts people of ICE activity in their area. (Currently just for iPhones; we are anxiously awaiting news that this app will become available to Android users.)
The ACLU has done heroic work for over a century. After recording this week’s podcast, we were dismayed to learn that their Mobile Justice app Aliza has relied upon for years is no longer available.
To ensure compliance with a growing number of consumer privacy laws and the ACLU’s own privacy policies and to minimize risk with surveillance technologies currently used by law enforcement, the national office has made the decision not to renew our contract with Quadrant 2, the vendor behind Mobile Justice, and shut down the app on February 28, 2025.
But the ACLU is still a source of valuable information. Here are a couple of pages that you may want to bookmark:
There are things you can do as a bystander, too. This Yahoo article talks about New York City, but much of it applies anywhere in the U.S. It’s completely legal to film an ICE encounter, and the article has great suggestions for how to narrate and what details to include. There is advice on how your video can help, but it’s also important not to post your videos online without the consent of the person being detained.
The National Immigrant Justice Center is just one of many organizations with so much information on how to handle encounters with ICE or DHS, whether you are the target or a bystander.
The coalition of anti-authoritarian groups that has risen since the start of this regime continue to organize. The next big nationwide gathering is “Good Trouble Lives On,” which will be held in honor of the late John Lewis, around the July 17 anniversary of his death. Find an event near you here.
And in case you’re one of those “DO SOMETHING” people who love to bash Democrats, remember that they ARE doing something. A LOT. If you want to know what, you should follow Ariella Elm on any of the socials. She makes posts like the ones below, and daily posts like this one that list the wins for democracy and actions all over the country that are helping stem the tide of fascism, and we need to thank and elevate these soldiers for democracy.
An especially brutal incident occurred at an SF immigration courthouse Tuesday morning, as protesters attempted to block an ICE SUV that was apparently transporting an arrested immigrant, and the SUV simply plowed its way through the demonstrators.
After Monday’s ICE military-style sweep through a near-empty park in Los Angeles, we wondered this morning if this was a harbinger of things to come. It did not take long to get an answer.
The incident happened at about 11:15 am Tuesday morning at SF Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery Street, where some 20 protesters were attempting to block the transport of an apparent immigrant in custody who was thrown into a black SUV. The SUV drove through the group of protesters, and per Mission Local, federal officers also “pointed their rifles, deployed pepper spray, and shoved people to the ground.”
Warning: The video of this incident contains substantial profanity.
These events are captured in the video above from Mission Local. It begins as your typical SF protest scene, with demonstrators trying to blockade and prevent ICE agents from getting inside the building. There is much skirmishing and shouting between the ICE agents and the protesters, with agents using batons to keep the protesters at bay. Around the 1:14 mark it appears that agents do get their suspect out of the building and into the SUV, at which point, some eight to ten protesters attempt to block the SUV.
The SUV starts inching forward, slowly at first, often stopping as agents try to pull the protesters off the front of the vehicle. Once many of the protesters are off, the vehicle picks up speed. Only one protester still clings to the front of the SUV, and then it really picks up speed. The protester flies off the hood, fellow demonstrators come to aid that person, and there’s another unsuccessful attempt to block the vehicle the next block up, before it speeds away.
The SF Standard has their own video of the incident, albeit from several stories above, seemingly from a Financial District office window.
Bar Association of San Francisco immigration attorney Milli Atkinson confirmed to Mission Local that one immigrant was arrested and detained during the incident. So that is disturbing.
But most disturbingly, have you ever seen such a high percentage of law enforcement officers with their faces covered in masks, with no badges or identifying information, and mostly not wearing anything (other than their vests) that resembles a legitimate uniform? If these are all indeed sworn ICE officers, there seems to be a paramilitary push toward concealing their identities, and some strangely loose new decorum in their uniform standards under the Trump administration.
Mission Local adds that one demonstrator was pepper-sprayed at Market and Montgomery streets, though was then restrained by other agents. One demonstrator reportedly yelled at him, “Your parents were immigrants, asshole.” That site also adds that another ICE agent (or someone appearing to be one) “pointed a matte black rifle at protestors and press, including this reporter,” and that “An SFPD officer stood by and watched from a distance.”
In their own writeup of the incident, the SF Standard spoke to the protester who appears to be the person who held on to the moving SUV’s hood long enough to be jostled off. “I was bleeding everywhere,” said that person, identifying herself only as Sorin. “They were brutal to those of us trying to exercise our rights and protect our community.”
I am watching Sam Seder interview a journalist from L.A. The news he is sharing is documented but not making national or local press across the nation. He told about the imposter caught dressed as an ICE agent who was looking to kidnap someone. He told about the conditions the prisoners of ICE are kept in. They are being held in the basement of the LA federal building with 20 people to a room with one bucket to use as a toilet. They are fed once a day a meal of crackers and water. He told about the people snatched off the street by ICE or bounty hunters that were found in a warehouse in San Diego but ICE denied they had anything to do with it. Several people have been held for ransom after being kidnapped by people dressed as ICE with no ID and masked. Below is the link. Hugs
27-Year-Old Hit With ‘Less-Lethal’ Munition Grapples With ‘Life-Changing’ Injury
DAILY MEMO: Bell Gardens Mayor Gets an ICE Agent’s Badge Number and More
DAILY MEMO: ICE Show at McArthur Park as We Pass The 30-day Mark and More
I watched the ICE militia that marched through this park to sow fear in the Latino population. 20 kids had minutes before been playing at the park when the chaperones got word of what ICE was going to do. The staff quickly ran the children to a building near the park and hid them. The children were traumatized. I will post the video on it tomorrow. Hugs
Heavily-Armed Federal Police In Armored Vehicles Target MacArthur Park
Please read. DeathSantis and ICE are doing horrible illegal things while breaking laws all in the name of white supremacy and getting rid of anyone not white in the US at the same time the Florida tax payer is entirely on the hook for all the costs. This story is even more proof of the authoritarian dictatorship the US is under along with the disregarding of any law or lawmaker that gets in the way of cruelty to brown / black people. Also I read that trump sent 200 marines to this place. The link to that store after this one Hugs
In a surprising and possibly unlawful act, five state legislators were denied entry Thursday into a taxpayer-funded migrant detention center deep in the Everglades, raising questions about what will happen behind the razor-wire fences that are being erected surrounding the controversial facility the state has named Alligator Alcatraz.
Armed only with state law and a growing list of humanitarian concerns, state Senators Shevrin Jones and Carlos Guillermo Smith, along with Representatives Anna V. Eskamani, Angie Nixon and Michele Rayner, arrived at the gates of the facility to conduct what they saw as a legally authorized inspection. What they encountered instead was silence, locked doors and a bureaucratic wall.
The state’s shifting justification for not letting them in — first a flat denial, then vague “safety concerns” — only fueled suspicions.
Wearing mosquito netting, Florida Sen. Shevrin Jones and state Representatives Michele K. Rayner and Anna Eskamani were denied entry along with fellow representatives into Alligator Alcatraz. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com
“This is a blatant abuse of power and an attempt to conceal human rights violations from the public eye,” the legislators said in a joint statement. “If the facility is unsafe for elected officials to enter, then how can it possibly be safe for those being detained inside?”
Just hours earlier, Republican officials and even former President Donald Trump had toured the same site without issue. When the lawmakers attempted to speak with Florida Department of Emergency Management officials by phone, the call was abruptly cut off.
Now, with reports of flooding, extreme heat and detainees allegedly being held without due process, legislators say the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis is operating a secretive, $450 million detention network with no oversight— and no regard for the law.
The state legislators Michele Rayner arrived at the site to conduct what they said was a lawful inspection under Florida Statutes 944.23 and 951.225, which grant legislators access to state-operated detention centers without advance notice. Instead of transparency, they were met with locked gates and silence.
Workers install a permanent Alligator Alcatraz sign at the new state immigration detention facilty in the Everglades. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com
Under Florida law, members of the Legislature have the clear right to access any state-run detention facility, including prisons and jails, without needing prior approval or notification. That legal mandate was ignored, according to Representative Michele Rayner, a civil rights attorney who represents parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
“For two hours, we waited. We cited the law. We cited the press release announcing our visit. Still, we were denied,” said Rayner. “They cited ‘safety concerns,’ even though just hours earlier President Trump and GOP lawmakers had toured the very same facility.”
Rayner said that when she asked whether she could visit a client being detained inside, she was again refused—contradicting statements made to her moments earlier by Florida Department of Emergency Management officials. When legislators tried to clarify the denial with the agency’s general counsel and legislative affairs director, the call was abruptly disconnected.
“This is America right now,” Rayner said. “And everyone should be concerned.”
The delegation’s visit came just one day after migrants were transferred into the detention center despite flooding caused by ongoing summer storms. Lawmakers say they’ve received reports of extreme heat, poor infrastructure, and a lack of mosquito protection, conditions they say that may be endangering the health and safety of detainees.
Florida House of Representatives denied entry, including State Rep. Anna .V. Eskamani, PhD at Alligator Alcatraz. The facility is within the Florida Everglades, 36 miles west of the central business district of Miami, in Collier County, Florida. , Florida, on Thursday, July 3, 2025. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com
“I was bitten by insects as soon as I got here. My lips started to swell. And I’m outside for just a few minutes,” said Rep. Angie Nixon of Jacksonville. “Imagine what it’s like for the people inside who don’t have bug spray or clean bedding.”
Nixon expressed particular concern over reports in the Miami Herald that pregnant women and children could be housed in the facility. “We’re spending $450 million on this while refusing to expand Medicaid and closing public schools in Duval County,” she said. “This is not about public safety—it’s about cruelty as campaign theater.”
Smith did not mince words, calling the site a “makeshift immigrant detainment camp in the middle of the Everglades swamp,” built through no-bid contracts awarded to major Republican campaign donors.
“This isn’t about detaining dangerous criminals,” Smith said. “It’s about detaining housekeepers, cooks, and immigrants who had legal status five minutes ago—until it was stripped away by policy.”
Smith referenced a Miami Herald story that revealed the state may bring pregnant women and children to the site, despite public claims that the facility was intended for “the worst of the worst.” ICE data shows that fewer than 10% of current immigration detainees in Florida have any violent criminal history, and the majority had no prior offenses.
“We’re detaining vulnerable people for political spectacle,” Smith said. “And it’s not a coincidence this facility was unveiled just days after our legislative session ended—avoiding any real oversight.”
Jones added that the facility, built with $450 million in state funds, does not qualify for federal support. “The federal government has said this facility is ineligible for grants,” he said. “That means it’s 100% on Florida taxpayers—and it was done without a single committee hearing or floor debate.”
Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones, Rep. Anna Eskamani and fellow representatives were denied entry Thursday into Alligator Alcatraz. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com
Jones emphasized that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers should be concerned. “This is not a partisan issue,” he said. “We have a duty to ensure that state-funded operations uphold basic standards of decency and legality.”
Rep. Anna Eskamani from Orlando described the detention center as a “political stunt” orchestrated by DeSantis. “Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to build what is essentially a concentration camp,” she said. “This is government by press conference and no-bid contract.”
Eskamani said reports indicate that the first detainees arrived without due process, and flooding had already compromised parts of the facility. “We’re here because the people of Florida deserve transparency. What is being hidden behind these walls?”
All five lawmakers said they plan to pursue legal remedies and initiate legislative inquiries into the construction, contracting, and operation of Alligator Alcatraz.
A check point at Alligator Alcatraz as Florida State Representatives denied entry. The facility is within the Florida Everglades, 36 miles west of the central business district of Miami, in Collier County, Florida. , Florida, on Thursday, July 3, 2025. PHOTO BY AL DIAZ adiaz@miamiherald.com
They also demanded that the Florida Division of Emergency Management and the governor’s office provide a full accounting of who is detained at the facility, what conditions exist inside, and which companies received contracts—particularly those with political ties to the DeSantis administration.
“This is not over,” said Smith. “We will be back, and we will not stop until we get the answers Floridians deserve.”
This story was originally published July 3, 2025 at 6:09 PM.
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