The Daily Wrap Up

16 Feb. 2026

[Transcript edited for clarity, length and flow]

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According to The New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas in recent months to Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta seeking names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information tied to anonymous social media accounts that criticize ICE or share agents’ locations. Criticizing ICE falls squarely under the First Amendment. As for sharing agents’ locations, we are talking about public locations where agents are conducting operations.

Government officials and tech employees familiar with the requests told the Times that some companies have already complied. Apparently, they have not read Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, and they certainly have not internalized Rule One: do not obey in advance. Anticipatory obedience is capitulation. That reflex to comply is one of the reasons we are here, fighting with both hands tied behind our backs.

The Trump regime is aggressively trying to tamp down criticism of ICE tactics and procedures. One way to do that is to identify demonstrators and instill fear in anyone considering speaking out. We have seen the videos: ICE agents filming protesters while wearing masks themselves, claiming they are being targeted with facial recognition technology.

Steve Maloney of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has represented individuals whose social media account information has been sought by DHS. He said the government is taking more liberties than it used to, at a whole new level of frequency and lack of accountability.

So‑called border czar Tom Homan made the objective explicit during a January 15 appearance with Laura Ingraham:

Tom Homan: And these people who want to say follow ICE and film ICE, you know what you can protest. They have that right. But when you cross the line, and we’ve proven it, if you interfere or impede or assault an officer, you’ll be prosecuted. And one thing I’m pushing for right now, Laura, we’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impediment, assault, we’re going to make ’em famous. We’re going to put their face on TV. We’re going to let their employers and their neighborhoods and their schools know who these people are… We’re going to broadcast every one of these people we arrest.

That is what rule by thug sounds like. No one should have believed for a second that this regime had any intention of reforming ICE.

Homan doubled down on CBS’s Face the Nation when pressed about masks and racial profiling:

Tom Homan: When they say stop racial profiling, that’s just not occurring. ICE will briefly detain and question somebody based on reasonable suspicion. It has nothing to do with racial profiling. As far as the mask, I don’t like the masks either, but threats against ICE officers are up… These men and women have to protect themselves… Masks right now are for officer safety reasons.

No. Masks make it easier to commit violence against people exercising their First Amendment rights. Law enforcement officers across the country perform their duties without face coverings. They wear visible badges and name tags. Somehow ICE must remain anonymous.

Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer framed unmasking agents as dangerous:

Tom Emmer: If you can identify who these officers are, what are you trying to do, intimidate them, put their lives at risk? We’ve got to give our officers the tools they need and the protection they need to do their job.

It is remarkable that this concern does not extend to protesters subjected to facial recognition and data collection by the federal government, which has exponentially more power to ruin lives than any group of demonstrators.

Homan has also claimed that ICE is heroically locating missing children:

Tom Homan: Last administration, over half a million children were smuggled into this country… They lost track of 300,000 of ’em. President Trump has already found 145,000 of ’em… The last administration wasn’t even looking for.

The first Trump administration implemented family separation, taking children from parents and failing to keep adequate records. Some families remain separated. Now we are told this is about protecting children.

CBS News captured what enforcement actually looks like on the ground:

CBS News Reporter: What ICE surveillance footage shows is the moment dozens of elementary school students ran through a South Jersey apartment complex as an ICE operation began…

Dylan: Out of nowhere, people would just start running, saying that ICE is over there and everybody was running and we all were scared.

That is the reality: terrified children running from masked agents.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz estimate that enforcement actions have cost their city and state more than 200 million dollars in lost wages, stalled projects, and canceled bookings. When asked to respond, Homan dismissed the economic impact and declared:

Tom Homan: President Trump gets another win. President Trump gets a win every day. Every day he’s winning. And I’m just proud to be a small part of this administration.

It is extraordinary to watch that level of devotion.

Attention has also shifted to the Epstein files. On ABC’s This Week, Representative Thomas Massie explained why transparency matters:

Thomas Massie: It’s not about Bill Clinton and it’s not about Donald Trump. This Epstein Files Transparency Act was about getting the survivors justice… What these survivors need, they need to see some of their own 302 forms… and they also need to see some of the men that they’ve implicated prosecuted.

When asked whether he had confidence in Attorney General Pam Bondi, Massie was blunt:

Thomas Massie: I don’t think Pam Bondi has confidence in Pam Bondi… She hasn’t got any sort of accountability there at the DOJ… You can assign tasks to people, but you can’t assign your responsibility.

Pressed on Donald’s attacks against him, Massie added:

Thomas Massie: This is the Epstein administration, and they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.

When Donald was asked about the files, he insisted:

Donald: I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein… They released three million pages… nothing on me… There are a lot of questions about Bill Clinton and Bill Gates… It’s a terrible thing the amount of time that’s being wasted.

A legitimate question remains: what qualifies as being implicated? How many mentions? Ten? A thousand? Thirty‑eight thousand? One million? Context matters, but the only way to answer the question definitively is transparency.

Last week the Republican‑controlled House passed the SAVE Act, 218 to 213. The bill would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote or update registration. Incidents of noncitizen voting are vanishingly small. Voter fraud is not a systemic problem in the United States.

Under this legislation, citizens would need documents such as a birth certificate or passport. Many Americans do not readily have those documents. Passports are expensive. Birth certificates are often misplaced. Women who change their names when they marry could face additional bureaucratic hurdles if their identification does not match prior documentation.

Senator Bill Hagerty defended the bill in an appearance with Maria Bartiromo:

Bill Hagerty: What the SAVE Act does is very simple. It requires that you demonstrate that you are indeed an American citizen… When you go to the poll, you have to prove that you’re yourself by showing an ID… The Democrats… flooded this country with tens of millions of illegal aliens… We’re looking at every way we possibly can to get this to the floor… and do something that makes common sense for America.

The premise is false. The objective is clear.

This is not about election integrity. It is about narrowing the electorate. It is about making it harder for certain Americans to vote. It is about maintaining power by restricting access to the franchise.

Taken together, the mask policies, the surveillance of critics, the database of protesters, the selective transparency around powerful men, and legislation that raises new barriers to voting all point in the same direction.

This Republican Party is not trying to strengthen democratic institutions. It is trying to erode them.

The right to vote is foundational. The right to speak freely without fear of government retaliation is foundational. The right to know whether those in power are accountable is foundational.

Undermine those rights, and you undermine the constitutional order itself.

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