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Trump's DHS Using Secretive Subpoenas to Demand Critics’ Personal Data: Report
"These types of abusive subpoenas are designed to intimidate and sow fear of government retaliation," said a lawyer for the ACLU.
Feb 03, 2026
The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known legal power to surveil and intimidate critics of the Trump administration, according to a harrowing report published Tuesday by the Washington Post.
Experts told the Post that DHS annually issues thousands of "administrative subpoenas," which allow federal agencies to request massive amounts of personal information from third parties—like technology companies and banks—without an order from a judge or a grand jury, and completely unbeknownst to the people whose privacy is being invaded.
As the Post found, even sending a politely critical email to a government official can be enough to have someone's entire life brought under the microscope.
That is what Jon, a 67-year-old retiree living in Philadelphia, who has been a US citizen for nearly three decades, found out after he sent a short email urging a DHS prosecutor, Joseph Dernbach, to reconsider an attempt to deport an Afghan asylum seeker who faced the threat of being killed by the Taliban if he was forced to return to his home country.
In the email, Jon warned Dernbach not to "play Russian roulette" with the man's life and implored him to “apply principles of common sense and decency.”
Just five hours after he sent the email, Jon received a message from Google stating that DHS had used a "subpoena" to request information about his account. Google gave him seven days to respond to the subpoena, but did not provide him with a copy of the document; instead, it told him to request one from DHS.
From there, he was sent on “a maddening, hourslong circuit of answering machines, dead numbers, and uninterested attendants,” which yielded no answers.
Within weeks of sending the email, a pair of DHS agents visited Jon's home and asked him to explain it. They told Jon that his email had not clearly broken any law, but that the DHS prosecutor may have felt threatened by his use of the phrase "Russian Roulette" and his mention of the Taliban.
Days later, after weeks of hitting a wall, Google finally sent Jon a copy of the subpoena only after the company was contacted by a Post reporter. It was then that Jon learned the breadth of what DHS had requested:
Among their demands, which they wanted dating back to Sept. 1: the day, time, and duration of all his online sessions; every associated IP and physical address; a list of each service he used; any alternate usernames and email addresses; the date he opened his account; his credit card, driver’s license, and Social Security numbers.
Google also informed him that it had not yet responded to the subpoena, though the company did not explain why.
But this is unusual. Google and other companies, including Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, told the Post that they nearly always comply with administrative subpoenas unless they are barred from doing so.
With the ACLU's help, Jon filed a motion in court on Monday to challenge the subpoena issued to Google.
"In a democracy, contacting your government about things you feel strongly about is a fundamental right," Jon said. "I exercised that right to urge my government to take this man's life seriously. For that, I am being investigated, intimidated, and targeted. I hope that by standing up for my rights and sharing my story, others will know what to do when these abusive subpoenas and investigations come knocking on their door."
As the Trump administration uses DHS and other agencies to compile secret watchlists and databases of protesters for surveillance, targets people for deportation based solely on political speech, and asserts its authority to raid residences without a judicial warrant, administrative subpoenas appear to be another weapon in its arsenal against free speech and civil rights.
According to “transparency reports” reviewed by the Post, Google and Meta both received a record number of administrative subpoenas during the first six months of the second Trump administration. In several instances, they have been used to target protesters or other dissidents for First Amendment-protected activity:
In March, Homeland Security issued two administrative subpoenas to Columbia University for information on a student it sought to deport after she took part in pro-Palestinian protests. In July, the agency demanded broad employment records from Harvard University with what the school’s attorneys described as “unprecedented administrative subpoenas.” In September, Homeland Security used one to try to identify Instagram users who posted about [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids in Los Angeles. Last month, the agency used another to demand detailed personal information about some 7,000 workers in a Minnesota health system whose staff had protested Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s intrusion into one of its hospitals.
“These types of abusive subpoenas are designed to intimidate and sow fear of government retaliation," said Stephen A. Loney, a senior supervising attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania. "If you can’t criticize a government official without the worry of having your private records gathered and agents knocking on your door, then your First Amendment rights start to feel less guaranteed. They want to bully companies into handing over our data and to chill users’ speech. This is unacceptable in a democratic society.”
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'Smear Campaign' Detected as DHS Claims About Pair Shot by Border Patrol Unravel in Court
"You don’t see evidence of gang association," said one legal expert. "It just feels like a dirtying up of the defendant."
Feb 03, 2026
After a US Border Patrol Agent shot two Venezuelan immigrants in Portland, Oregon in January, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that the two victims were "vicious Tren de Aragua gang members" who "weaponized their vehicle" against federal agents, who had no choice but to open fire in self-defense.
However, court records obtained by the Guardian reveal that a Department of Justice prosecutor subsequently told a judge the government was "not suggesting" that one of the victims, Luis Niño-Moncada, was a gang member.
The Guardian also obtained an FBI affidavit contradicting DHS claims about the second victim, Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, being "involved" in a shooting in Portland last year, when in reality she was a "reported victim of sexual assault and robbery."
Attorneys representing Niño-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras, who both survived the shooting and were subsequently hospitalized, told the Guardian that neither of them have any prior criminal convictions.
Legal experts who spoke with the Guardian about the shooting said it appeared that DHS was waging a "smear campaign" against the victims.
Sergio Perez, a civil rights lawyer and former US prosecutor, noted in an interview that prosecutors filed criminal charges against Niño-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras just two days after they were shot, even before it had obtained crucial video evidence of the incident.
"This government needs to go back to the practice of slow and thorough investigations," he told the Guardian, "rather than what we consistently see in immigration enforcement activities—which is a rush to smear individuals."
Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor, told the Guardian that the court records obtained by the paper don't show DOJ presenting any of the usual evidence that prosecutors use to establish defendants' alleged gang membership.
"What’s interesting about the filings is that you don’t see evidence of gang association," said Palmer. "It just feels like a dirtying up of the defendant."
DHS in recent months has made a number of claims about people who have been shot or killed by federal immigration officers that have not held up to scrutiny.
Most recently, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that slain Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was a "domestic terrorist" intent on inflicting "maximum damage" on federal agents, when video clearly showed that Pretti was swarmed by multiple federal agents and was disarmed before two agents opened fire and killed him.
Noem also openly lied about the circumstances and actions that resulted in the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent weeks earlier.
In November, federal prosecutors abruptly dropped charges against Marimar Martinez, a woman who was shot multiple times by a US Border Patrol agent in October in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.
In the indictment filed against Martinez, prosecutors said that the Border Patrol agent who shot her had been acting in self-defense, and that he had only opened fire after Martinez’s car collided with his vehicle.
However, uncovered text messages showed the Border Patrol agent apparently bragging about shooting Martinez, as he boasted that he “fired five rounds and she had seven holes” in a message sent to fellow agents.
An attorney representing Martinez also claimed that he had seen body camera footage that directly undermined DHS claims about how the shooting unfolded.
No explanation was provided for why charges against Martinez were dropped.
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Trump Is Dragging World Toward a New Nuclear Arms Race
We only have one planet on which to live and time is of the essence.
Feb 03, 2026
Among the critical issues facing our country today, nuclear arms control is seldom top of mind for most people, understandably, given our myriad political, social and economic crises. Recent books and films such as Annie Jacobsen’s 2004 non-fiction tome Nuclear War: A Scenario and last fall’s A House of Dynamite, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, garnered needed attention for the still-existential threat of nuclear weapons, yet the problem remains mostly absent from our political discourse.
Part of the fault for that lies with President Donald Trump, who while constantly touting his ability to “make deals,” is missing in action on a simple agreement that would make the US and the world safer. New START, the arms control treaty negotiated by President Barack Obama and extended by President Joe Biden, will expire on February 5. However, Russia offered last September a one year, or longer, extension of the treaty’s key limits of 1550 deployed, strategic nuclear warheads and 700 launch systems each.
Trump simply needs to say “Da” (yes) to the Russian proposal, which would cost very little politically at this time. While both countries, along with the seven other nuclear weapons states, are in the midst of dangerous and exorbitant nuclear weapons “modernization” programs, neither are in a position to rapidly exceed the current New START limits, nor should they, for global security and financial reasons. While both countries tout their in-development bombs and missiles that could end most if not all life on Earth, at the cost of more life-affirming investments in human needs and protecting our planet, the reality is these systems, such as the new Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), are boondoggles that mostly benefit the financial interests of the large weapons contractors rather than the Common Good.
Should Trump blow this chance, his global approval, already dismal, will doubtless decline further.
Then there is Trump’s fantasy of building a “Golden Dome” missile defense shield. Such a chimera is more properly seen as part of a potential offensive nuclear war fighting scheme rather than mere defense; that is if it works, which it is extremely unlikely to do. So it could be a lose-lose-lose scenario, whereby it spurs other countries to deploy more missiles and counter-measures to overcome such a missile “defense;” and it likely would not work to shoot down all incoming missiles (and would be useless against other forms of attack); and it could be used to argue arms control and disarmament treaties are unnecessary, because the shield will protect us, providing a dangerously false sense of security.
One does not need to engage in all the arguments against Golden Dome, or for investing in other, more economically productive pursuits, or think a nuclear weapons-free world is achievable any time soon, to agree that ditching the benefits of New START is a stunningly bad idea at this time.
The US and Russia (formerly the Soviet Union) have had a series of treaties limiting and reducing nuclear weapons since 1972. If New START limits go away, we will enter a very dangerous brave new world.
Trump’s famously insatiable ego could be slaked by not only agreeing to the Russian proposal, but by challenging Moscow to initiate new talks to go lower. At the end of the Obama Administration and in its aftermath, there were conflicting claims by the US and Russia on which side whiffed at a chance to go lower, to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads each. So Trump could propose something his nemesis Obama failed to do. Such an agreement might take a sustained period of negotiation, or Trump could do as President George H. W. Bush did in 1991 in announcing a unilateral nuclear weapons cut, which was coordinated with and matched by Russia, with mutually agreed verification procedures.
Trust between Moscow and Washington is low for various reasons, but neither country can afford, politically or economically, to engage in a futile, costly new arms race, and global public reprobation would be deservedly harsh for both countries. And it would further erode any credibility for the US to insist China engage in arms reduction talks regarding its arsenal, which is still much smaller than those of Russia and the US. Even at the height of the Cold War, with the Soviet Union and United States competing for global dominance and engaging in deadly “proxy wars” and armed interventions around the globe, the two sides saw the wisdom of not blowing up the planet, and collaborated on a series of treaties that dramatically reduced their nuclear arsenals, which made the world safer.
Should Trump blow this chance, his global approval, already dismal, will doubtless decline further. Upcoming international review conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) this spring and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) this fall, both at the United Nations in New York, will likely lay the blame for a renewed arms race at his feet.
It is not (yet) too late. A coalition of US peace and disarmament organizations is mobilizing public action to press Congress and the White House to accept the Kremlin’s offer, if not by Thursday’s deadline, then as soon as possible. For more information on how to raise your voice on this critical issue, concerned individuals can consult Peace Action’s FaceBook page.
Time is of the essence. We only have one planet.
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'Sigh of Relief' as Judge Blocks Trump Attack on Protected Status of Haitian Refugees
"For Haitian TPS holders and their families, this decision provides immediate relief from the fear of family separation, job loss, and forced return to life-threatening conditions in Haiti."
Feb 03, 2026
Haitian refugees living in the United States with temporary protected status were given a reprieve Monday night when a federal judge blocked an order by the Trump administration to strip them of their TPS—an effort that many feared would lead to an immediate intensification of efforts to target such communities with the same heavy-handed tactics seen by federal agents in Minnesota, Maine, and elsewhere.
US District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington granted a request to pause the TPS termination for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging the order issued by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in November proceeds.
The termination of TPS for Haitian nationals was set for Tuesday, but Reyes's 83-page order stated that it "shall be null, void, and of no legal effect."
Rose-Thamar Joseph, the operations director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, Ohio—which has a large Haitian community that has been the target of racist and xenophobic attacks from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and their allies—said the judge's ruling means "we can breathe for a little bit."
The residents of Springfield and surrounding areas have been anxious that their community would be the next target for Trump's aggressive deportation tactics. The legal challenge to the termination of TPS for Haitians alleges that the secretary acted with "animus," as evidenced by repeated public remarks from Noem and other administration officials.
Reyes, in her ruling, determined that the suit stands a good chance of winning on the merits, writing: “The mismatch between what the secretary said in the termination and what the evidence shows confirms that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was not the product of reasoned decision-making, but of a preordained outcome justified by pretextual reasons."
Jerome Bazard, a member of the First Haitian Evangelical Church of Springfield, told NPR that life in Haiti remains too dangerous for many in his community to return.
"They can't go to Haiti because it's not safe," Bazard said. "Without the TPS, they can't work. And if they can't work, they can't eat, they can't pay bills. You're killing the people."
The sense of relief was felt beyond Ohio, as people from Haiti living with TPS status live in communities across the US.
Tessa Petit, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition and a native of Haiti, said the ruling is a welcome development for the approximately 330,000-350,000 people living in the country with TPS, which allows them to work and pay taxes. In her ruling, Reyes noted that Haitians with TPS generate $5.2 billion annually in tax revenue.
"For Haitian TPS holders and their families, this decision provides immediate relief from the fear of family separation, job loss, and forced return to life-threatening conditions in Haiti," said Petit, "where political instability, gang violence, and humanitarian collapse remain acute. No one should be deported into crisis, and today’s ruling affirms that the law cannot be twisted to justify cruelty.”
“Today’s ruling is a victory for the roughly 350,000 Haitian TPS holders whose status was set to expire tomorrow,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass). “By providing a safe haven to those who cannot return home safely, TPS embodies the American promise as a land of freedom and refuge. Haitian TPS holders are deeply rooted in our Massachusetts communities—from Mattapan to Brockton. They are our friends, our family members, our neighbors, our colleagues. I will keep fighting to protect the Haitian community.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that even though Monday's ruling is sure to be appealed by the Trump administration, it arrives as a "huge" win.
With the order, he said, "350,000 people can breathe a sigh of relief and go to work or school tomorrow without suddenly having been rendered 'illegal' and forced to either go back into danger or risk being rounded up by ICE agents on the street."
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