The FBI Budget Has a Secret. It's About You.

New FBI counterterrorism agency focuses on dissent, and ICE has new spyware that can break encrypted messages

Hey, Raw America family. Welcome to the Sunday Wrapup. I’m here with my cup of coffee, and I’ve got a lot to catch you up on. The “ceasefire” buried stories this week that you really need to see.

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The Story Nobody Wanted to Cover: Trump Is Building a Domestic Terrorism Task Force Aimed at You

While the ceasefire consumed every front page, the FBI quietly submitted its 2027 budget request to Congress.

Buried inside it: a funding application for an NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center: a new interagency operation drawing on the FBI, DHS, the DOJ, and others, whose stated mission is to “proactively identify networks and prosecute domestic terrorist and related criminal actors.”

Trump created it by presidential memo last September. Now he’s asking for permanent, dedicated funding.

What counts as domestic terrorism under Trump’s rules? Views associated with “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity.” Support for what it calls the “overthrow” of the government.

In other words: protesting. Dissenting. Showing up at a rally. Disagreeing with the president online.

The memo authorizing it targets what it calls networks engaged in “ideologically motivated criminal activity.” That sounds reasonable until you read the ideology it has in mind. Anti-capitalism. Anti-Christianity. Opposition to the government. These aren’t descriptions of terrorists. They’re descriptions of the American left.

This didn’t come out of nowhere. In the same week this budget request surfaced, NPR confirmed that ICE is already using spyware to intercept encrypted communications. Not just on suspected criminals, but on citizens who’ve protested.

That’s the infrastructure. NSPM-7 is the mandate. Steve Bannon said last month that ICE’s presence at airports was a “test run” for having agents at polling places.

This is the standard under which your government wants to fund a multi-agency surveillance and prosecution machine.

They Handcuffed a Soldier’s Bride on a Military Base

On April 2nd, Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank drove to Fort Polk in Louisiana with his new wife, Annie, to register her as a military spouse and begin the green card process. Annie came to the U.S. from Honduras as a toddler. No criminal record. A biochemistry student and Sunday school teacher.

A series of phone calls led to ICE agents handcuffing her in front of her husband’s family and driving her to a private detention center in Basile. The removal order they cited was from 2005.

Annie, 22, spent five days in custody before Senator Mark Kelly called the DHS secretary directly and public pressure forced her release with a GPS ankle monitor.

Deportation proceedings continue. The administration rescinded the military family protections that would’ve previously prevented this. Matthew Blank is heading overseas to serve his country. His country arrested his wife on a military base.

The ICE Dragnet You Haven’t Heard About

This week, Reuters obtained internal ICE data revealing something that had never been publicly disclosed: TSA shared records on more than 31,000 travelers with ICE for possible immigration enforcement, leading to more than 800 arrests.

The TSA’s Secure Flight Program was created in 2007 as a counter-terrorism tool, explicitly not an immigration dragnet. That distinction no longer exists.

The cases that have emerged are harrowing. An Irish couple who’d lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years were detained in front of their children while trying to fly from Florida to New York. They were deported. Their two children, ages 7 and 10, were left behind with adult siblings. A Chinese woman seeking permanent residency was grabbed at Atlanta’s airport en route to Philadelphia.

ICE is now at 13 major U.S. airports, deployed originally because the DHS shutdown left TSA workers without paychecks, causing a staffing crisis. Democrats have demanded their removal. Trump has refused.

Meanwhile, NPR confirmed this week that ICE is using spyware capable of intercepting encrypted messages: not just against suspected criminals, but against American citizens who’ve protested ICE’s activities. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned that the agency hasn’t ruled out deploying this malware against protesters with no criminal connection whatsoever.

After the politically toxic Minneapolis surge in which two U.S. citizens were killed, ICE shifted to a “quieter” enforcement model. More than 13,000 local police officers around the country have now been deputized to act as ICE agents under the 287(g) program, making immigration arrests during routine traffic stops. The crackdown didn’t slow down. It just got harder to see.

Months after federal agents killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good, a federal judge ruled this week that agencies have three weeks to produce evidence related to Good’s death. The evidence will not be made public. The officers who killed Pretti and Good haven’t faced any discipline. That’s where it stands.

If continued reporting on ICE matters to you, we need you with us. Please consider upgrading your subscription today.

And One More Thing: Good News From Wisconsin

Democrats just won their fourth consecutive Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and it wasn’t close. Liberal judge Chris Taylor defeated her Republican opponent 60% to 40%.

This represents a 20-point landslide in a state Trump carried less than two years ago. Taylor even won counties Trump carried easily in 2024. The court is now 5–2 liberal, locked in through at least 2028.

Democrats have now flipped 30 state legislative seats from red to blue since Trump returned to the White House. Republicans haven’t flipped a single one.

In Georgia this week, Republicans held Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old seat, but by only 12 points, in a district she won by 29. That’s not a win. That’s a warning. Democrats are currently running an average of 11 points ahead of their 2024 margins in special elections across the country.

The generic congressional ballot has Democrats up six points.

Trump’s approval rating has hit a record low of 39%.

In Texas last month, a record 2.3 million votes were cast in the Democratic primary. More people voted in North Carolina’s Democratic primary than the Republican one. The energy is real, it’s measurable, and it’s showing up in places no one expected.

Why This Is What I Do

I founded Raw Story because someone had to say plainly what the mainstream press wouldn’t: that the Bush administration lied us into a war. The press played along until it was too late.

This week, I’ll be speaking with Jim Acosta, CNN’s former White House correspondent, about media consolidation, ICE, and Iran. Please join me for the conversation on Raw America’s website Thursday at 1pm ET.

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Raw America exists because someone has to speak the truth. The FBI is asking Congress to fund a domestic terrorism apparatus targeting people who protest. ICE is using airport security data as an immigration dragnet and spyware against American citizens. And all of it is happening while everyone watches a pointless, illegal war.

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Founder, Raw America and Raw Story