DHS Attempted to Turn Americans on Each Other

Documents released Thursday by America First Legal, a legal group led by Stephen Miller, former senior advisor to President Trump, show that a Department of Homeland Security group proposed that Americans report each other to federal law enforcement.

The documents released were after the AFL had sued the DHS over the creation of a “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group,” alleging that the group was illegally partisan and in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. In response to the lawsuit, the DHS agreed to disband the group and give its records to AFL, in exchange for AFL dismissing the case.

In the documents of the now-disbanded committee, the DHS discussed ways to increase the collection of information on American citizens including by attempting to “get into local communities in a non-threatening way.” 

The documents also included the suggestion that political dissent dealt with the “public health” infrastructure, and that information be collected with “a public health catcher’s mitt.” 

The documents also show that the DHS group had intended to use various companies to collect information, with the documents stating “we need to know how commercial companies collect their data.”