A powerful United States Senate committee has requested that multiple academic research centers focused on political extremism hand over years worth of documentation on federal watchlisting programs, the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, vaccine mandates, the 2020 election, and Trump supporters, according to information obtained by WIRED.
The queries appear to be connected to an ongoing investigation by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’s chair, Senator Rand Paul, into the “weaponization of the Quiet Skies Program,” which was the subject of a September 30 hearing on Capitol Hill. While Paul’s inquiry was lauded by Muslim-American organizations as a long-overdue examination of abusive federal surveillance, it appears the inquiry is a broader attempt to target academic researchers on extremism, which could chill inquiries into far-right radicalization.
At least three university research centers focused on extremism received requests for documentation from the Senate committee in the past two months. A copy of a letter from the committee reviewed by WIRED asks the university that received it to turn over records for all communications, reports, memoranda, or data exchanged with federal staff from January 1, 2020 through February 1, 2025, and any records regarding Quiet Skies and the No Fly List, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. The university was also instructed to identify all staff who held federal security clearances, any and all sources of federal grant funding, and internal procedures.
Critically, sources tell WIRED that the Senate committee requested the research centers disclose all emails, internal and external, relating to a massive list of more than 300 query terms, which include “mask mandates,” “origins of Covid-19,” “Trump supporters or the Trump Campaign,” “Capitol Police.” FBI director Kash Patel, US attorney general Pam Bondi, Department of Justice operative and former interim US attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin (now the US pardon attorney), Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, “Trump voter,” “red hat,” “sedition,” “Sedition Hunters,” and far right groups and individuals including the Oath Keepers, Boogaloo Boys, Enrique Tarrio, Stewart Rhodes, Three Percenters, and others.
People familiar with the committee inquiry view Paul’s sprawling queries as a targeted effort to chill or discourage academic research on far-right groups, ideologies, or individuals.
Of the more than 300 subject matter queries listed in the Senate letter, researchers say only two terms—“anti-fascist” and “Black Lives Matter”—appear to align with left-wing movements, ideologies, or possible extremist groups. Earlier this month, the State Department formally designated four anti-fascist groups in Germany, Greece, and Italy as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, further raising fears of a US crackdown against dissent already hinted at in National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 and a presidential order, both of which targeted anti-fascist beliefs, opposition towards Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raids, and criticism of capitalism and Christianity as potential indicators of terrorism.
