Defense papers show six local cops and eight HSI agents surveilled a Crimethinc tour talk in Chicago

A plainclothes officer from suburban Aurora was dropped off at the April 2 talk by Officer Mike Xu of Downers Grove, according to the HSI report ^[9]. The event was at Co-Prosperity, a gallery in Bridgeport, one stop on a national tour organized by the anarchist collective Crimethinc ^[10].

The task force drew officers from Chicago, Aurora, Downers Grove, Cook County and Kane County ^[4]. Local officers were six of the 14 ^[3], about 43 percent of the unit ^[11]. Kane County Sheriff's records show the unit is the Chicago-area Homeland Security Investigations Task Force, and local officers join it full or part time for two years with their superiors' sign-off ^[6].

Chicago police gave WIRED a state-law answer. The department said Illinois law allows its HSI work because that work involved criminal enforcement, not immigration ^[14]. According to a source with knowledge of the matter, the department believed the early April operation served a federal racketeering investigation ^[15]. The only financial item in the HSI report is a GoFundMe account supporting the Crimethinc speaking tour, and the report says nothing about money sought or collected at the April 2 event ^[7].

The Chicago mayor's office did not comment before publication. ICE declined to confirm or deny details of any past or present investigation, and said its individual agents lack authorization to talk with the press ^[8].

The Chicago material does not settle whether the home department's surveillance-approval rules still apply to an officer on a federal task force. The department's public answer concerns only the state's immigration limit. And the only sign-off WIRED describes from the Kane County records is the one superiors give when an officer joins ^[6].

For the lawyer or oversight staff who has to answer for officers on someone else's task force, we'd sort each assignment on two questions. First, which rulebook governs surveillance of a protest or public gathering, the home department's order or the host agency's. Second, where the notification attaches, to the person when they join or to the operation when it starts. An assignment that answers "host agency" and "at joining" leaves the home department's order with nothing to act on. Moving the notice to the operation fixes that, and it costs the host agency a duty to tell another department's counsel what it is doing.