Secret Service agents believe they have uncovered a plot that could have compromised the nation’s largest city’s telecommunications network—and law enforcement functions—in preparation for the arrival of more than 150 world leaders in New York this week.
‘The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,’ Secret Service Director Sean Curran said Tuesday.
According to ABC News reporting,
Secret Service personnel along with officers from the New York Police Department and other federal agencies said they seized hundreds of servers and more than 100,000 cellphone SIM cards in multiple locations around the New York metro area [emphasis added].
Investigators say the haul included gear capable of blasting 30 million texts per minute—enough to swamp 911 dispatches and jam the networks hospitals, ports, and power systems rely on. A law enforcement source briefed on the probe told ABC News the plot bore the fingerprints of the Chinese government.
And the kicker:
‘The threat was uncovered as part of the Secret Service’s normal work of protecting the president, his family and key administration officials,’ the source said.
That last point matters. This plot was uncovered because federal agents were doing their job protecting President Trump, his family, and senior officials—working hand in glove with local police.
And it is not a stretch to imagine that blue states and cities—hostile to this president and openly promising to “fight” his administration—may refuse that cooperation.
Even in New York, it could change after November’s mayoral race. Zohran Mamdani, the neo-Marxist front-runner, has already made clear that his priority is fighting President Trump, not partnering with his administration.
Contrast that with Mayor Eric Adams, who ran on a law-and-order campaign and has, however imperfectly, cooperated with the Trump administration. That cooperation has been wielded as a political cudgel by the activist left.
It is a telling sign: collaborative law enforcement—the very partnership that just thwarted a Chinese-linked sabotage plot—is in real jeopardy under a Mamdani-led Manhattan.
If New York City demonstrates the importance of cooperation, California illustrates the dangers of obstruction.
Governor Gavin Newsom is now boasting that California is the first state in the nation to ban federal immigration agents from wearing masks.
‘Unmarked cars, people in masks, people quite literally disappearing, no due process, no rights… Enough, ICE — unmask, what are you afraid of?’ he declared.
Then he went further:
This is about the secret police. We’re not North Korea, Mr. President, we’re not the Soviet Union, we’re the United States of America, and we’re pushing back against these authoritarian tendencies and actions of this administration.
Balderdash. Not content with spewing venom, lies, and dystopian agitprop, Newsom equates sworn federal officers—and the elected president who directs them—with despots from the Soviet Union and North Korea, and the henchmen who buttressed their regimes, even as the Department of Homeland Security reports assaults on ICE officers have soared by 1,000 percent in a single year.
Against that backdrop, to strip away basic anonymity is not transparency. It is recklessness—a clear and present danger that paints a target squarely on agents’ backs.
As former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani put it:
The state is saying that unmasking these federal officials is necessary to restore public trust, but really it’s a safety issue. They can be doxed. Their families can be put at risk, so I can easily see this specific regulation being struck down by the courts.
And struck down it will be. Article VI of the Constitution—better known as the Supremacy Clause—is crystal clear:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme Law of the Land… any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Newsom knows his mask ban will fail in court. But legal victory was never the point.
The real objective is political theater—feeding the activist base, burnishing his credentials as a presidential hopeful, and arming California Democrats with a rallying cry as they aim to expand their congressional delegation in 2026.
And it is precisely the type of hyperbolic rhetoric that has fueled a disturbing rise not only in violence against law enforcement, but in a growing assassination culture on the left.
It wasn’t always this way. For decades, cooperation between state and federal law enforcement was the norm. Governors might quarrel with Washington over budgets or politics, but when the public’s safety was at stake, they worked together. That consensus is breaking down.
And here is the fatal flaw: immigration enforcement is not a silo. The Department of Homeland Security was established after 9/11 precisely because intelligence, counterterrorism, immigration, and border security are inextricably linked.
To obstruct ICE is to weaken the networks that track terror cells—interdict cartel pipelines—identify human-trafficking rings—and defend against foreign espionage and sabotage.
Manhattan has shown what happens when cooperation still works: a plot was stopped cold because the Secret Service and the NYPD worked as one.
California shows the opposite: a governor who brands ICE as “secret police” while stripping agents of the anonymity that shields them from retaliation.
Make no mistake: blue-state intransigence is not only a danger to the residents of those states, but to the entire Union.
The Supremacy Clause makes federal law the “supreme Law of the Land,” and the Guarantee Clause obligates Washington to ensure that every state enjoys the protection of a republican form of government. National security, immigration, and the defense of infrastructure are not parochial matters. They are federal responsibilities by design.
When California shackles federal agents, it undercuts the very framework that keeps all states safe. When other states refuse, they weaken not only themselves but the Republic.
Put simply, California and its imitators are engaged in an unconstitutional power grab that endangers every citizen.
This assault on immigration enforcement tears at the glue that binds together our economic and national security—our power grid, public utilities, communications networks, intelligence gathering, and law enforcement itself.
The difference between foiling an attack and watching it succeed will not always be a matter of skill or luck—it will increasingly be a question of whether local politicians prefer spectacle to cooperation.
Worse still, the Biden administration’s open-border approach ensures that malevolent actors are already inside our country.
Applause lines about “unmasking” federal agents may win cheers in the progressive echo chamber of media, NGOs, celebrities, billionaire donors, and activists—but in treating law enforcement as a prop for partisan theater, governors and mayors gamble not just with their own safety, but with ours.
Should Democrat voters continue to reward theatrics that obstruct investigations, the consequences will be grim: telephones darkened, hospitals isolated, and our bridges, ports, and power grid rendered more vulnerable.
And when calamity strikes, it will not stop at blue-state borders. There will be a domino effect that engulfs the entire Union.
Those who wish the Republic harm are fully aware that asymmetric warfare thrives in an environment where interdiction is frustrated and hindered by political interference that restricts cooperation among local, state, and federal law enforcement.
Here’s the blunt truth: the next plot may already be in motion—and in a time when blue-state theatrics matter more than governance, it is far more likely to succeed. And time is running out.
So, what are we afraid of, Governor Newsom? The answer is simple: the danger you’ve created for ICE officers and their families—and for the entire Union.
Charlton Allen is an attorney, former chairman of the North Carolina Industrial Commission, and founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc. He edits The American Salient, and hosts the Modern Federalist podcast. X: @CharltonAllenNC.
Image: Free image, Pixabay license.