Sentinel Shadow: The Secret Domestic Surveillance Program Targeting Dissent in 2025

A secret surveillance initiative known as Sentinel Shadow quietly expanded in 2025, tracking political dissent under the banner of national security. What began as a classified tool for monitoring threats grew into a program that blurred the line between intelligence and intimidation, raising alarms from civil liberties advocates. This piece reveals how the program was developed, who it targeted, and why its existence marks a turning point in the balance between government power and individual freedom.

In the spring of 2025, details began to emerge about a classified domestic surveillance program known as Sentinel Shadow, a real-time data aggregation and behavioral analysis system authorized and deployed by the second Trump administration. Publicly framed as a counterintelligence initiative to prevent domestic terrorism and protect national security, Sentinel Shadow was quietly developed under Executive Directive 14209 and overseen by the Office of National Continuity Affairs, a newly created executive agency reporting directly to the White House. The directive not only bypassed the usual legal checks on surveillance but also redefined the legal scope of "domestic threat" to include nonviolent protest, online criticism of government officials, and broad forms of political dissent.

Although the program was initially shrouded in layers of classification, internal memos leaked by whistleblowers within the NSA and DHS have confirmed its true scope: the tracking and profiling of American citizens based not on criminal activity, but on their speech, behavior, affiliations, and ideological patterns. Individuals are flagged for continued monitoring by an AI-driven risk algorithm that weighs criteria such as political donations, protest attendance, social media engagement, and even participation in labor organizing or mutual aid networks. These risk scores are logged into a federal database shared with agencies like the FBI, ICE, CBP, and select local law enforcement partners—often without warrants, notification, or legal recourse.

Behind the scenes, Sentinel Shadow has been built and maintained through public-private partnerships with a consortium of government contractors and tech firms, including Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries, and Clearview AI. These companies, long known for supplying surveillance tools to ICE and the Pentagon, have played a central role in developing Sentinel’s predictive analytics systems, facial recognition libraries, and data aggregation infrastructure. Financial disclosures and procurement documents show that these firms have received over $2.1 billion in combined federal contracts since January 2025 tied specifically to “domestic stability operations,” a newly introduced budget category under the Department of Homeland Security.

Support for the program has come from senior administration officials, including National Security Advisor Brent Renshaw, who has described Sentinel Shadow as “a transformative tool for preempting domestic extremism.” Attorney General Rachel Cantor has also defended the legality of the program, claiming during a closed-door House Judiciary briefing that “national integrity threats” do not require judicial preclearance if deemed urgent by the executive. Right-wing media outlets and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Security have endorsed the program, framing it as a necessary evolution of intelligence in an age of decentralized protest and “information insurgency.”

Yet even within the intelligence community, dissent is growing. Anonymous sources within the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General have raised alarms that the program operates outside statutory limits and is being used to suppress legal activism and free expression. The lack of congressional briefings and judicial oversight has prompted bipartisan concern, though Republican leadership in Congress has so far declined to pursue hearings, citing “ongoing operational sensitivity.”

As of mid-2025, Sentinel Shadow continues to expand. New contract bids suggest the system will soon integrate biometric data from state DMV databases and airline passenger lists via the TSA Secure Flight program. Civil liberties groups warn that the program is on track to become a permanent surveillance infrastructure with no expiration clause and no meaningful accountability—a system built not to protect Americans from terror, but to profile them for dissent.

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What Is Sentinel Shadow?

Sentinel Shadow is a next-generation domestic surveillance and behavioral analytics program designed to operate entirely outside the traditional legal and judicial frameworks that have historically governed intelligence gathering in the United States. Conceived and implemented under the second Trump administration, the program is jointly administered by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and a classified command center within the newly established Office of National Continuity Affairs (ONCA)—a White House-controlled body formed via Executive Order 14212.

Its legal authority derives from Executive Directive 14209, which reclassified a wide range of domestic activities as “pre-insurrectional threats to national continuity.” This language—deliberately vague and devoid of statutory precedent—grants federal agencies sweeping discretion to identify, monitor, and catalog individuals based not on suspected criminal activity, but on perceived ideological volatility. Sentinel Shadow was designed to circumvent existing oversight channels, including FISA court warrant requirements, the Intelligence Oversight Act, and most forms of congressional review.

Functionally, the system operates as a centralized behavioral risk engine, ingesting vast streams of structured and unstructured data from both public and private sources. These include:

• Telecommunications metadata (calls, texts, and pings triangulated via major cellular providers under classified cooperation agreements)

  
  

• End-to-end encrypted messaging traffic (including Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp, analyzed through metadata correlation and device fingerprinting)

  
  

• Commercial transaction histories, including purchases tied to activist organizations, book titles, political donations, or bulk goods “associated with mobilization activity”

  
  

• Real-time geolocation tracking, sourced from apps and GPS-enabled devices, often without user consent

  
  

• Facial recognition feeds from traffic cameras, airports, shopping centers, and private security systems—many of which are integrated through public-private surveillance partnerships

  
  

• Social media interactions, including private posts, comment threads, hashtags, and direct messages, harvested via data scraping and third-party analytic firms

  
  

Once aggregated, this information is processed through a proprietary machine learning model that assigns every flagged individual a “CIV-9 Index Score”—a numerical rating that estimates their “potential to disrupt national coherence.” Factors influencing the score include the use of anti-government language, proximity to protest events, travel to or from “destabilization zones” (an internal term applied to cities like Portland, Atlanta, and Minneapolis), membership in activist networks, or even sharing articles deemed “subversive” by the algorithm’s content classifier.

Those flagged above a certain CIV-9 threshold are enrolled in persistent watch protocols, which can trigger further monitoring, digital blacklisting (such as inclusion on no-fly lists), or internal referrals to DHS and FBI for preemptive investigation. Importantly, targets are not notified, and there is no public-facing process for appealing or contesting a Sentinel Shadow score. The program operates under a secrecy clause embedded in Directive 14209, meaning that even congressional staff with top-secret clearance are barred from reviewing operational specifics.

At its core, Sentinel Shadow represents a fundamental redefinition of intelligence gathering—one that shifts the government's gaze away from external threats and toward the behavioral profiling of its own citizenry, powered by AI and immunized against democratic oversight.

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Targeting Dissent, Not Crime

While the Trump administration has publicly framed Sentinel Shadow as a national security tool aimed at preempting terrorism and violent extremism, internal documents, whistleblower disclosures, and leaked briefing materials tell a starkly different story: the program’s central purpose is not the prevention of crime—it is the identification and monitoring of dissent.

Multiple whistleblowers from inside the NSA, DHS, and the Office of National Continuity Affairs have confirmed that the program's core AI model is designed to detect what it calls “patterns of domestic destabilization”—a term not defined in any statutory framework, but internally interpreted to include nonviolent political activity, ideological affiliations, and public criticism of the government. This shift in focus means Sentinel Shadow is not responding to threats of violence, but rather scanning the population for signs of discontent.

Internal classification manuals and operational guidelines obtained through anonymous sources show that individuals can be flagged for “enhanced analytic review” if they engage in any of the following constitutionally protected behaviors:

• Public criticism of the federal government or elected officials, particularly when expressed online or during periods of civil unrest

  
  

• Attendance at demonstrations, regardless of the protest’s legality or peacefulness

  
  

• Involvement in labor organizing, union drives, or mutual aid networks deemed “anti-institutional”

  
  

• Donations to certain advocacy groups or political campaigns, especially those opposing federal immigration or policing policies

  
  

• Engagement with foreign media outlets, including reading, sharing, or commenting on articles from organizations labeled “hostile influence vectors”

  
  

• Online expression of support for whistleblowers, independent journalists, or government transparency advocates

  
  

Once flagged, individuals are added to a classified “Domestic Risk Watchlist,” which is accessible across numerous agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and select local police departments linked through federal fusion centers. Inclusion on this list can result in travel restrictions, digital surveillance escalations, social media throttling through third-party platforms, and, in some cases, preemptive home visits or questioning by federal agents under the guise of “routine outreach.”

Notably, individuals placed on the watchlist do not receive notice, due process, or the ability to appeal their status, and the criteria for inclusion are algorithmically assigned, with limited human review. This means that a viral tweet criticizing immigration raids, a recurring donation to a racial justice nonprofit, or attendance at a teachers' strike can generate a CIV-9 score high enough to justify continuous surveillance.

Legal analysts have warned that the Sentinel Shadow system conflates democratic participation with threat potential, undermining the very freedoms it purports to protect. By treating dissent as a red flag rather than a civic right, the program effectively creates a digital caste system, where political nonconformity, not criminality, is the basis for federal scrutiny. What begins as algorithmic flagging becomes real-world consequences: travel disruptions, job denials, increased law enforcement presence, and surveillance that follows citizens not because of what they’ve done, but because of what they believe.

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Sentinel’s Integration With Law Enforcement

Perhaps the most immediate and tangible threat posed by Sentinel Shadow lies in its deep integration with law enforcement agencies at every level of government, transforming a classified surveillance program into a real-time policing tool. Operated in coordination with Joint Task Force Liberty, a federal interagency task force established by the Trump administration in early 2025, Sentinel-derived intelligence is disseminated to more than 80 fusion centers nationwide. These centers serve as data hubs where federal, state, and local law enforcement coordinate operations, often with limited transparency and no judicial oversight.

Once flagged by Sentinel’s CIV-9 algorithm, individuals are added to internal briefings known as “Sentinel Reports” or “Activist Disruption Alerts”—documents that are shared with local police departments, school districts, transportation authorities, and, in some cases, private security firms under contract with critical infrastructure hubs. These reports include names, known aliases, social media profiles, phone numbers, protest attendance histories, and GPS data drawn from cell towers and app-based trackers. The data is typically not vetted by a human analyst before being passed on, creating the risk of error, misclassification, and abuse.

Cities such as Denver, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Phoenix have been documented as receiving Sentinel alerts ahead of protests, labor actions, and community organizing events. Local departments then use this information to create watch lists, increase surveillance patrols, and in several instances, preemptively detain individuals. During the May Day demonstrations of April 2025, at least 76 Americans were arrested or held for questioning based solely on Sentinel alerts, none of whom had warrants, criminal charges, or a documented history of violence. Among them were teachers, students, union members, and clergy.

In Milwaukee, a particularly high-profile case involved a public school teacher who was placed on unpaid leave after being flagged in a Sentinel report for attending a peaceful protest against cuts to the DEI program. Her name was shared with school district administrators by local police, who cited “community security risk factors” sourced from federal briefings. The teacher, who had no arrest record and had not violated any laws, was never informed of what specifically triggered her inclusion in the database. Her employment review remains pending, despite public outcry and legal intervention by the ACLU.

This integration blurs the line between national security surveillance and domestic policing, creating a feedback loop where intelligence gathered without cause or consent becomes justification for punitive action, often without due process. Law enforcement agencies, eager for enhanced situational awareness, have embraced the system without questioning the constitutional implications. In doing so, they have become complicit in enforcing predictive profiles rather than prosecutable crimes.

Civil rights advocates argue that this type of policing, facilitated by algorithms, marks a dangerous departure from community accountability. It bypasses local oversight boards, ignores judicial standards for probable cause, and encourages police to act on secret evidence produced by an opaque federal algorithm. In effect, Sentinel Shadow has transformed local law enforcement into the enforcement arm of a national surveillance regime in which guilt is assigned not by actions, but by affiliations, proximity, and political expression.

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No Oversight, No Consent

Sentinel Shadow is a controversial and fundamentally unaccountable entity. From its inception, the program was designed to operate beyond the reach of the judiciary, Congress, and the public, positioning it as one of the most opaque surveillance systems in U.S. history. Unlike previous intelligence programs that at least nominally passed through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) or received limited briefings to congressional intelligence committees, Sentinel Shadow was deployed without judicial warrants, legislative authorization, or statutory approval.

According to internal memos leaked by staff within the Department of Justice, the Trump administration deliberately classified Sentinel Shadow’s legal basis under a new internal designation: Emergency Domestic Intelligence Operations (EDIO). This designation was crafted to fall outside the jurisdiction of FISA. It effectively insulated the program from both court review and legislative disclosure mandates outlined in the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980. Congressional sources have confirmed that no formal briefing occurred before the program's deployment, and subsequent demands for transparency have been rebuffed with blanket invocations of executive privilege and national security exemptions.

More than a dozen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests—filed by journalists, advocacy groups, and legal scholars—have been denied in full, often citing the existence of sealed presidential directives and undisclosed memoranda of understanding between federal agencies and private contractors. Even members of Congress with top-secret clearance have reported being barred from reviewing Sentinel-related materials or speaking with program administrators from the Office of National Continuity Affairs, the secretive White House agency managing the initiative.

This refusal to provide transparency has triggered a series of legal battles now working their way through the federal court system. Among them:

• Rodriguez v. NSA: A class-action lawsuit arguing that Sentinel’s bulk metadata collection and geolocation tracking of U.S. citizens without a warrant constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

  
  

• Franklin v. DHS: A suit brought by a coalition of activists, journalists, and clergy asserting that they were surveilled and profiled by the program based solely on political speech and association, thus violating the First Amendment.

  
  

• Coalition for Digital Rights v. United States: A broader constitutional challenge claiming that Sentinel Shadow’s secrecy and lack of redress mechanisms violate the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, since an automated system targets individuals with no way to appeal or even know they’ve been flagged.

Leading civil liberties organizations, including the ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, have collectively condemned the program as a “post-constitutional surveillance regime”. Their legal filings point not only to violations of individual rights but to a systemic collapse of the oversight ecosystem meant to protect against executive overreach.

In the absence of judicial rulings or congressional intervention, Sentinel Shadow continues to expand in scope and capacity, unfettered by the constitutional constraints that historically defined domestic intelligence gathering. Critics warn that its very design signals a conscious abandonment of democratic transparency, replacing the rule of law with rule by algorithm, without public consent, legal clarity, or institutional restraint.

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Why This Matters

Sentinel Shadow is not simply a new surveillance initiative—it is the institutionalization of dissent monitoring as a core function of federal governance. Unlike previous intelligence programs aimed at addressing tangible security threats, Sentinel Shadow targets belief systems, speech patterns, and political behaviors. It does not require probable cause, criminal suspicion, or a court’s approval. It requires only that a citizen fit a predictive profile of ideological nonconformity.

This marks a profound and dangerous shift: the transition from surveillance as a tool of public safety to surveillance as a mechanism of political control. Through algorithmic classification and AI-driven flagging, the program collapses the distinction between lawful dissent and actionable threat. It frames civic participation—such as protesting, donating to advocacy groups, and criticizing policy—as indicators of instability rather than expressions of democratic engagement.

Without judicial oversight, legislative authorization, or any form of public consent, Sentinel Shadow erodes the very architecture of accountability that has historically prevented executive abuse. Its existence signals that core constitutional protections—such as privacy, free speech, assembly, and due process—can now be bypassed not by force, but by software. And because it is deeply embedded in both federal and local enforcement infrastructure, its reach extends quietly and pervasively into everyday life.

Experts warn that this program could set a precedent far more enduring than the administration that created it. Once normalized, systems like Sentinel Shadow are rarely dismantled—they are inherited, expanded, and repurposed by future governments across the political spectrum. The threat, then, is not just to privacy or to political opponents of the current regime—it is to the continued viability of a free, open, and democratic society.

What is at stake is not whether the government can gather data. It is whether a government can remain constitutional while doing so without cause, without consent, and without limits.

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What Comes Next

Legal challenges to Sentinel Shadow are currently winding their way through the federal court system, but progress is slow, and many legal experts caution that meaningful relief is unlikely without decisive congressional intervention. Courts have traditionally deferred to the executive branch in matters labeled “national security,” and with much of the program’s legal framework shielded under sealed presidential directives and executive privilege, litigants face an uphill battle even to obtain discovery, let alone halt operations.

Meanwhile, state-level resistance is beginning to emerge. Legislatures in California, New York, and Oregon have introduced bills that would bar state and municipal agencies from participating in Sentinel-related activities. These proposals include prohibiting local law enforcement from accessing federal watchlists without a judicial warrant and banning the use of data obtained through algorithmic profiling in employment, education, or housing decisions. While largely symbolic at this stage, such state-level pushback signals growing unease among lawmakers who see the program as a direct threat to civil liberties and state sovereignty.

Still, legislative pressure alone may not be enough to dismantle the system. Sentinel Shadow was designed to be self-perpetuating—technologically decentralized, legally obscured, and politically insulated. Even if oversight bodies were granted access today, much of the harm is already underway: data has been harvested, profiles built, and watchlists shared across agencies and private institutions with no process for appeal or removal.

And so the broader, more sobering question remains: What happens when the machinery of government no longer distinguishes between lawful dissent and preemptive threat, when surveillance becomes a filter for allegiance, and silence is the only safe position?

Sentinel Shadow is not a theoretical policy proposal or a dormant back-end system. It is operational. It is expanding. And it is learning. Every protest attended, every article shared, every donation made—to the wrong cause, on the wrong platform, using the wrong words—becomes another data point in a growing web of suspicion. The danger now is not that the system might be abused. It’s that it already is and that we are only beginning to understand the extent.

What comes next will be defined not by whether Sentinel Shadow exists, but by whether the public and the institutions built to serve it choose to accept it.