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A Georgetown policy center warns that DHS, ICE tactics over multiple administrations is putting Americans' privacy at risk.

New research by the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law found that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has collected the DNA of more than 3.3 million people, with the program’s “primary purpose” not revolving around immigration enforcement but to “build a national DNA database for solving crimes.”

Federal agents launched a sweeping undercover surveillance operation earlier this year targeting progressive organizations, labor unions and other groups protesting the immigration crackdown then raging through Minneapolis, according to court documents filed Thursday.

The program, dubbed Operation Puppet Master, was aimed at what officials called a network of conspirators helping “violent opportunists and agitators.” The documents were filed in a case involving 15 people charged by federal prosecutors in June with impeding the crackdown, accusing them of conspiring against the federal government through a range of actions, from throwing ice chunks to setting up blockades.

That was an enormous price tag, but the department said it had no time to consider other offers. The planes were needed urgently for deportation flights.

But since then, the department has barely used this new fleet — for deportations, or anything else.

Three of the aircraft are luxury business jets. Just months after acquiring them, the department sought to loan or lease two to other agencies, including one for the use of F.B.I. director Kash Patel, according to a letter to the department sent Wednesday by top Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Our politics reporter Nick Corasaniti discusses a Times analysis of a Voting Rights Lab database identifying county-level election officials overseeing key midterm elections who are also affiliated with the election-denier movement.