A fightback is building as crackdown deepens against civil liberties

November 4, 2026

By ERWIN FREED

Dozens of activists are accused by the federal government of contributing to bogus “criminal conspiracies.”  In Minnesota, two separate conspiracy cases accuse 54 people of participating in illegal conspiracies for participating in protest and journalistic activities. The Minnesota 15, Righteous 39, Michigan 8 (now 12), Spokane 3, and Prairieland Defendants are the most well known cases in the ongoing crackdown. All of these cases are attacks on organized labor.

The California Faculty Association and the Graduate Employee Organization at University of Michigan (GEO-AFT 3550) are facing frontal attacks on their unions by the right-wing press and FBI. Doctored video of a CFA meeting was leaked to Trump booster Bari Weiss’s Free Press in an attempt to scandalize the union with false accusations of antisemitism. The Department of Justice first charged GEO President Hiab Teshome with felonious financial crimes. Those bogus charges were dropped the same day that a grand jury subpoenaed GEO’s books, including all member lists, meeting minutes, and financial records. The union is fighting to retain basic privacy rights.

Fueled by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, U.S. intelligence and police apparatuses are being explicitly targeted at anyone standing for basic democratic rights, immigrant communities, and racial justice. As the world drifts closer to major inter-imperialist conflict and expanding zones of overt imperialist military occupation takes hold in the semi-colonies, Western imperialisms are tightening restrictions on protest, speech, and organizing for progressive movements.

The Prairieland case

While there are many additional cases of “lawfare” and anti-protest policing, it is worth taking a moment to review two of the cases mentioned above to understand the tactics and scope of the current crackdown.

Around two dozen protesters held a noise demonstration on July 4, 2025, outside of the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas. As the protest was winding down and many of the participants had left, Alvarado Police Officer Thomas Gross sped onto the scene and almost immediately aimed his gun at a demonstrator moving away from him. Video evidence indicates that Gross discharged his weapon, something that would appear to have been covered up by the judge and prosecutors.

In response to seeing a potentially lethal attack on a protester, Marine Corps veteran Benjamin “Champagne” Song let out a warning shot into the ground away from the officers. Gross went to the hospital for superficial wounds that the government alleges resulted from being shot by Song, but video evidence released after sentencing indicates Gross was likely hit by shrapnel produced from his own weapon’s discharge.

Using the presence of guns and defensive action of Song as pretext, 22 people were ultimately indicted as part of an alleged conspiracy to attack cops and carry out an armed prison break. One person, Daniel “Des” Rolando Sanchez Estrada, was not at the protest at all. Des was convicted for “corruptly concealing a document or record” and sentenced to 30 years for possessing legally protected political materials.

After arrests, pressure and legal sabotage was mounted by the judicial system against the defendants. Many were initially held in solitary confinement, with one reporting that human feces coated their cell. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman blocked the defendants from retaining a private attorney, meaning they had to use public defenders. Song’s legal team was not allowed to make an argument that the warning shot was taken in self-defense. Eight defendants became cooperating witnesses, providing coerced testimony to validate the government’s made-up conspiracy theories.

Before the trial even began, the deck was stacked against non-cooperating defendants. In an explicit “warning” to the left, Judge Pittman laid down ridiculously high sentences of between 30-100 years to non-cooperating defendants.

From the war on drugs to the war on speech: Minnesota 15

The Minnesota 15 are 15 activists accused of a “conspiracy to impede or attack federal agents.” The majority are current or recent union members and all are community activists. They are not accused of participating in or coordinating any acts of violence. Instead, the original 92-page indictment against them lists “evidence” including participating in rapid response group chats, protests, and mutual aid activities. Any successful convictions on the basis of these charges would be a tremendous blow to freedom of speech and association.

The white supremacist structure of U.S. law and society lays the foundations that are shaping today’s repression. Discovery materials released in connection with the Minnesota 15 case show that a longstanding multi-state ICE undercover program “Operation Keyhole” was effortlessly transformed into a political policing operation. According to court documents, Operation Keyhole has carried out at least 77 investigations into “narcotics trafficking, child sexual abuse, financial investigations, and counter-proliferation” since it began in 2008.

Conspiracy cases, informant networks, and mass surveillance all have deep roots in the “war on drugs.” As large pharmaceutical companies profit off addiction and U.S. police and military operators protect “illicit” drug trafficking at every level, locking up street dealers and mostly Black and Latino users are the major justifications for expanding the surveillance state. Alongside fear-mongering about “Islamist terrorism,” the steady growth of policing technology and methods based on military occupation is made through criminalizing working class people of color.

These methods include the exact “guilt-by-association” dragnet investigations now mobilized against the political left, particularly in the Minnesota 15 and Prairieland “conspiracies.” Journalist Ali Winston shows that Reaper drones, private data brokers, and financial audits are all being used to “investigate” any type of potential organization, including trade unions. Documents connected with the MN15 case show that even SEIU regions have been targeted for federal investigations.

When we fight, we win

Democratic rights are never guaranteed for the working class. Our ability to speak and organize are constantly under threat. The Trump administration is in continuity with all other U.S. administrations in functioning first and foremost to ensure capitalist class rule. Police state methods are always used against workers and oppressed people whenever the big owners think they can get away with it.

Capitalism utilizes both coercion and consent to continue exploitation and oppression. In normal times in an imperialist democratic republic, the police and military are focused on combating “crime” and claim to be apolitical. Obviously this posture is a fraud, but it serves the role of allowing people to maintain illusions in some “impartial” system.

Trump’s NSPM-7 and the overtly partisan transformation of virtually the entire federal government’s media operations breaks this illusion for many who would otherwise be or have been passive in the face of extreme police terror in Black and Brown communities. The government’s efforts to link all types of political beliefs as broad targets for repression shows that everyone in the U.S. interested in the basic principles of free speech and free thought needs to be marching alongside each other.

Minnesota 15 defendants are bravely showing the way toward a real mass defense of democratic rights. In the face of major conspiracy charges, under constant surveillance by the state, all 15 are committed to speaking out publicly and have been doing just that around the country. Alongside screenings of the documentary “When ICE Melts,” defendants are speaking to faith groups, unions, community organizations, and assemblies of all kinds explaining not only their case, but also the tremendous organizing that pushed ICE out of the Twin Cities. In Connecticut, the persistence of activists raising MN15 everywhere led to Senator Richard Blumenthal publicly calling the charges against the MN15 “bogus” and demanding they be immediately dropped.

These efforts need to be deepened and expanded all over the country and internationally. Every activist organizing for solidarity with victims of repression needs to think about how we can bring this case to the biggest audience possible. And how can the desire for solidarity be turned into mobilizations on the shop floor and in the streets?

(Photo) Pro-immigration protesters rally in front of Minneapolis City Hall, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Yuki Iwamura / AP)

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