An FBI “Fly Team” was sent to “exploit” Portland protesters' phones to map left-wing protest networks, as suggested by emails sourced by public records request
Mattathias Schwartz / The New York Review of Books : Tweets: @kenklippenstein Tweets: Ken Klippenstein / @kenklippenstein : This article appears to confirm a key part of my report about how the Justice Department worked with DHS to access protesters' cellphones. https://www.nybooks.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This reporting closes a loop on Ken Klippenstein's earlier account of how the Justice Department worked with DHS to access protesters' cellphones during the 2020 unrest: emails pulled via public records request now point to an FBI 'Fly Team' on the ground in Portland, tasked with exploiting seized phones to map left-wing protest networks. It matters because it documents physical device exploitation — not just social media monitoring — aimed at domestic political activity.
The Portland episode sits at the start of a documented run of FBI and DHS surveillance expansion: the bureau later leaned on license plate readers and facial recognition for the Jan. 6 investigation, pursued Pegasus spyware for criminal cases before abandoning the plan, and signed a contract worth up to $27M for the Babel X social media monitoring tool, while DHS's inspector general opened a probe into warrantless tracking via brokered cellphone data.
First-order effects
- Portland protesters are directly affected: their phones were treated as intelligence sources to be exploited, and their personal networks mapped by a federal team operating alongside DOJ and DHS.
- The emails give journalists and oversight bodies named evidence linking the FBI, Justice Department, and DHS in a coordinated phone-access operation, converting prior sourcing into documented fact.
Second-order effects
- DHS's inspector general was already probing warrantless tracking through purchased location data after Democratic senators demanded answers; confirmation that device exploitation extended to protest policing gives that inquiry a concrete case to widen around.
- Each records-request disclosure raises the cost of the next covert deployment, pushing agencies toward tools with thinner paper trails — commercial brokers and foreign-made spyware like the Pegasus option the FBI explored and dropped.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, domestic protest response is being built on the same toolkit as counterterrorism — device forensics, network mapping, predictive analytics — with legal oversight arriving only after deployment, through IG probes and records requests rather than upfront warrants.
- Sustained exposure of these programs pressures Congress toward codified limits on warrantless phone exploitation and data purchases, making procurement choices the new battleground where surveillance norms get set.
The trend: Federal law enforcement is normalizing warrantless phone and network surveillance against domestic political targets faster than inspectors general and Congress can constrain it.