Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
At least three classified documents have been confirmed missing from the Epstein files that Attorney General Todd Blanche said he released in full. A massive data breach exposed the personal details of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees. Pete Hegseth pushed out the Pentagon’s chief planner with no explanation. And ICE is running the largest domestic surveillance operations against left-wing movements in U.S. history.
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Trump’s DOJ Is Hiding Classified Documents From the Epstein Files
The sky is blue, water is wet, and the Epstein files are incomplete.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said in January that the Justice Department was not withholding any documents from the Epstein files, asserting there was no secret tranche being held back for national security reasons. CBS News has now found at least three documents in the public release that refer to classified material Blanche received but failed to disclose.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the DOJ to release all files related to Epstein’s prosecution, with the exception of those pertaining to national security. Among the classified material that was missing were financial records, which is significant because they were not a category that could be removed under the law.
The classified documents aren’t the only documents to disappear from the archive. A separate CBS News analysis found that FBI interview records documenting what accusers who claimed Trump was involved told agents could not be found in the released files, despite being listed in the DOJ’s own evidence index.
The contents of the classified documents are unknown, but at least some are related to Epstein’s financial records. Trump is mentioned more than 38,000 times in the files, and the allegations against him and associates range from rape and child rape to assault and trafficking.
Massive Leak Exposes 41,000 Homeland Security Workers
They protect the country from hackers the way they protect the border from drugs.
The personal details of more than 41,000 Department of Homeland Security employees and contractors from seven agencies have been exposed in a breach of DHS records. The records include email addresses, phone numbers, office locations and references to internal surveillance programs and undercover operations.
The transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets published the archive, which it calls “Icepick,” after receiving it from a group that calls itself the Department of Peace. The data was apparently taken from DHS’s Okta login system and last updated August 19, 2026.
The records identify 39 employees linked to certified undercover operations at more than a dozen field offices. Other permission groups refer to wiretap programs, a communications intercept center, and tools for extracting data from seized phones and social media.
The records also show that 13 senior officials, including former DHS head Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth’s younger brother Philip, were given special exemptions from the department’s web filter through groups called “Executive Leadership” and “AI Access.” One permission group, “Grok.com,” included eight technology officials from DHS.
Pete Hegseth Fires Pentagon’s Chief Planner For No Reason
The chain of command now runs from the defense secretary to a woman who got banned from Uber.
Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia, the Pentagon’s top planner, was removed from the Joint Chiefs of Staff this week without explanation and without a replacement in place. His firing comes as Trump weighs new military strikes against Iran.
Sylvia led the Joint Chiefs’ strategy and planning directorate, the J5, which links the military’s operational commanders with the civilian leadership in the Pentagon and the White House. He is the second person to be pushed out of the job in the past year, following his predecessor, Army Lt. Gen. Joseph McGee, who was forced into retirement.
Hegseth lost confidence in Sylvia, and Sylvia did not get along with Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s third highest-ranking official, Defense Department officials said. Hegseth has given the same explanation for at least 26 admirals and generals forced out or who stepped down since he took over.
Last year, conservative commentator Laura Loomer called for the Trump administration to fire Sylvia’s son Gavin, a data analyst for FEMA, over an Instagram post he made after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. She ended the post by telling Hegseth to look into General Sylvia’s employment, noting that he had been nominated for a third star by Joe Biden.
ICE Is Running the Largest Anti-Left Surveillance Operation in U.S. History
Eleven undercover agents in one room is less infiltration than it is a staff meeting.
ICE is engaged in a massive surveillance operation against left-wing activists who organized community responses to immigration raids, according to court filings in the Minnesota 15 case. The agency has repurposed post-9/11 tools built for terrorism and money-laundering investigations to spy on Americans.
The Minnesota 15 are Twin Cities activists facing federal conspiracy charges for allegedly using encrypted messaging apps to organize volunteers who tracked ICE agents and their vehicles during last winter’s raids. Federal prosecutors claim that amounts to a criminal conspiracy to obstruct immigration enforcement.
To build the case against them, ICE assigned around 120 HSI agents, including 11 undercover operatives, to infiltrate churches and community meetings. Agents used Reaper drones, Patriot Act financial tracking tools, and commercial data brokers to monitor and identify participants.
Experts who reviewed the filings say nothing of this scale has been seen in the United States since the federal government’s COINTELPRO campaign against civil rights and anti-war activists in the 1960s and 1970s. Even at its peak, the CIA’s Cold War-era surveillance of the anti-Vietnam War movement had just 42 officers.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Attempt to Segregate California Ballots. U.S. District Judge David Carter refused to order California election officials to throw out ballots from 20,000 people the Trump administration said were noncitizens. Carter wrote that never before in American history has the federal government attempted to coerce a state to abandon its constitutional election procedures on the eve of an election. The justice department gave officials only 48 hours to review the list, refused to provide details about its methodology and then sued California when officials didn’t comply. When the counties began looking at the names, they found that the department had flagged people who weren’t even on the rolls. A panel of Ninth Circuit judges also ruled 2-1 against the justice department earlier this week, after the DOJ tried to bypass Carter completely.
New York Approves Its First Two Utility-Scale Thermal Energy Networks. The New York Public Service Commission has approved $111.5 million for two thermal energy network projects that will replace fossil fuel heating in the Hudson Valley town of Haverstraw and the city of Buffalo. The networks use wells and pipes to capture constant underground temperatures and waste heat from sewer systems, making electric heat pumps far more efficient than running them by themselves. The Haverstraw project will use $50 million to connect as many as 30 buildings, including homes, government buildings, and an elementary school. The Buffalo project will spend $61 million serving low-income multifamily housing and replacing fossil gas boilers in a downtown district heating system.
NYC Begins Moving 3,000 Families Off the Waitlist For Subsidized Child Care. The Mamdani administration started notifying 3,000 families on a waitlist for child care assistance that they can finally get vouchers for their children. The families are among nearly 30,000 waiting for help through the Child Care Assistance Program, which covers children between six weeks and 13 years of age. Earlier this month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed to use additional state dollars to move 10,000 families off the waitlist. The city is also paying all co-payments and fees, making child care completely free for families of four making less than $117,000 a year. Officials say they are starting with families who have been waiting the longest, some since last May.
Scientists Turn Seawater Into Fresh Water Without Producing Harmful Brine. Researchers at the University of Rochester have created a solar-powered system that converts seawater into drinking water without generating the toxic brine that current desalination plants release back into the ocean. The system instead captures the salt in solid form, which can then be collected and used, rather than allowing it to remain in liquid form. The technology works by running seawater across specially treated metal panels which absorb sunlight and evaporate the water, pushing the leftover minerals to the edges. In tests with real seawater, the panels cleaned themselves and continued to work without losing efficiency. In a related study, the team demonstrated that the same panels can be tweaked to extract lithium from the leftover salt.
