The Truth Behind MLK's Murder, ICE Hires Private Prison Bounty Hunters, One Million Hugs After Losing Brother on 9/11
February 4, 2026

Shortly before [Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s] assassination, he was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign that would involve hundreds of thousands of Americans of all skin colors who would encamp in Washington, D.C to demand the end to economic inequality, racism and war. By 1968 ... King had increasingly focused on poverty issues. This followed his famous April 4, 1967 speech — “Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break the Silence” — when he declared his intense opposition to the U.S. war against Vietnam. One year later to that day, he was assassinated. In the late 1960s, the FBI’s COINTELPRO ... created a network of informants and agent provocateurs to undermine the civil rights and anti-war movements, with a special focus on King. In the 1970s, a parallel group within the CIA, code-named CHAOS ... similarly used illegal means to disrupt the civil rights and anti-war movements. MLK Jr, his father, Rev. M. L. King Sr, and his maternal grandfather, Rev. A.D. Williams, all pastors of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, were spied on by Army Intelligence and the FBI since 1917. The evidence [attorney William Pepper] gathered, detailed and documented in the trial and in An Act of State and The Plot to Kill King establishes that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a conspiracy masterminded by elements within the U.S. government. Pepper presented extensive evidence clearly showing that authorities had withdrawn all security for King; that the state’s chief witness was falling down drunk; that three eyewitnesses, including the New York Times’ Earl Caldwell, said that shot came from the bushes behind the rooming house; and that two eyewitnesses saw Ray drive away in the white Ford Mustang before the shooting, etc.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has hired a subsidiary of for-profit prison company GEO Group to aid in hunting down immigrants at their homes and places of work. ICE has secured a deal with surveillance firm BI Incorporated as part of a new program, first reported in October by The Intercept, to use private bounty hunters to determine the locations of immigrants in exchange for monetary bonuses. BI, which was acquired by the GEO Group in 2011, is one of several firms hired by ICE to provide “skip tracing” services, in which its teams of corporate investigators will use surveillance to track immigrants across the country to their homes and places of work so federal agents can easily swoop in and make arrests. Records show ICE has already paid BI $1.6 million, with the potential for the contract to grow to as much as $121 million by the time it concludes in 2027. The deal illustrates a strategy of vertical integration within GEO Group, which has found a growing line of business operating for-profit immigration detention centers under the second Trump administration. In this case, the corporation stands to be paid by the federal government to both find immigrants and then to imprison them. GEO Group has faced decades of criticism over alleged mismanagement of its facilities and claims of rampant abuse of inmates. ICE ... also contracted with AI Solutions 87, “a company that makes ‘AI agents’ to rapidly track down targets.”

When Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good last Wednesday morning in Minneapolis, the 37-year-old mother became one of at least 25 people killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shooting since 2015. In the days after Ross fired at Good multiple times from the front and side of Good’s car, visual investigations ... present apparent contradictions between the narrative presented by the White House and Department of Homeland Security, which claims Ross acted in self-defense, and what actually happened. But similar contradictions haven’t previously led to criminal indictments in ICE agent shootings. In fact, there does not appear to have ever been a criminal indictment stemming from an ICE shooting at all. I spent four years investigating ICE shootings that occurred from 2015 to 2021, over the course of three presidential administrations. Not counting the Good shooting, ICE agent shootings have involved moving vehicles at least 19 times—which are connected to at least 10 deaths and six injuries. Task forces including ICE agents have shot at least three other US citizens. They have shot in public areas with bystanders 22 times. And in at least seven cases, the person shot by an ICE officer was not the target of the enforcement action. State and local law enforcement agencies have consistently cleared agents of wrongdoing after shootings even when they have hindered investigations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a new budget under the current administration, and they are going on a surveillance tech shopping spree. Standing at $28.7 billion dollars for the year 2025 (nearly triple their 2024 budget) and at least another $56.25 billion over the next three years, ICE's budget would be the envy of many national militaries around the world. Indeed, this budget would put ICE as the 14th most well-funded military in the world, right between Ukraine and Israel. A 2022 report by Georgetown Law’s Center for Privacy and Technology found the following: ICE had scanned the driver’s license photos of 1 in 3 adults, ICE had access to the driver’s license data of 3 in 4 adults, ICE was tracking the movements of drivers in cities home to 3 in 4 adults, ICE could locate 3 in 4 adults through their utility records, ​​ICE built its surveillance dragnet by tapping data from private companies and state and local bureaucracies, ICE spent approximately $2.8 billion between 2008 and 2021 on new surveillance, data collection and data-sharing programs. To search all this data, ICE uses ImmigrationOS, a system that came from a $30-million contract with Palantir. Palantir links data from different databases, like IRS data, immigration records, and private databases, and enables ICE to view all of this data about a specific person in one place. The true civil liberties nightmare of Palantir is that they enable governments to link data that should have never been linked.

Among the most worrying developments and major mysteries in war and espionage over the last decade is a condition known as Havana Syndrome. It is a condition that has left victims enduring debilitating dizziness and mind-numbing headaches. The symptoms mimicked head trauma and there are suspicions that the ill effects were caused by radio waves unleashed by hostile governments. Some injuries have been bad enough to end civil servants’ careers. Now, according to CNN, the Pentagon has purchased a device – for eight figures, through a shadowy, currently unknown source – allegedly capable of producing physical damage equivalent to those who have been afflicted by Havana syndrome. There are reports of a similar sonic weapon being used in the precision operation to remove Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela. It doesn’t necessarily take fire power to put down an enemy. Long range acoustic devices (LRADs) do it through noises blasted at uncomfortable frequencies. “Think of it being similar to directional light,” a source [said]. “The idea is for the sound to be directional enough and loud enough to disrupt somebody.” Emitted from sound cannons for extended periods, the sonic boom blasts are out at more than 140 decibels, which is ... volume categorized by American Academy of Audiology as “painful and dangerous.” “They can do more than freak out an enemy. They can physically incapacitate him,” the source warned.

As of December 1, officials across the U.S. have executed 44 people in 11 states, making 2025 one of the deadliest years for state-sanctioned executions in recent history. The justification for the death penalty is that it’s supposed to be the ultimate punishment for the worst crimes. But in reality, who gets sentenced to die depends on things that often have nothing to do with guilt or innocence. The death penalty has been a bipartisan project. Death by lethal injection involves a three-drug protocol: a sedative, a paralytic, and, lastly, potassium chloride, which is supposed to stop the heart. Executions happen behind closed walls, in small rooms, late at night. The people involved never have their identities publicly revealed or their credentials. The concern being that if people really knew what was involved, there would be a massive public outcry. A ton of states have or death penalty states have passed secrecy legislation. The identity of the executioners was always sort of a secret. But now we don’t get to know where they get the drugs, and in some states, in some places, the secrecy is really shocking. Indiana, which recently restarted executions ... is the only active death penalty state that does not allow any media witnesses.

Federal prosecutors on January 9 charged Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, an IT specialist for an unnamed government contractor, with “the offense of unlawful retention of national defense information,” according to an FBI affidavit. The case attracted national attention after federal agents investigating Perez-Lugones searched the home of a Washington Post reporter. But overlooked so far in the media coverage is the fact that a surprising surveillance tool pointed investigators toward Perez-Lugones: an office printer with a photographic memory. A Justice Department ... affidavit does not allege that Perez-Lugones disseminated national defense information, only that he unlawfully retained it. The affidavit provides insight into how Perez-Lugones allegedly attempted to exfiltrate information from a Secure Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, and the unexpected way his employer took notice. As the affidavit points out, “Perez-Lugones’ employer can retrieve records of print activity on classified systems, including copies of printed documents.” Aside from attempting to surreptitiously print a document, Perez-Lugones, investigators say, was also seen allegedly opening a classified document and taking notes, looking “back and forth between the screen corresponding the classified system and the notepad.” The affidavit doesn’t state how this observation was made, but it strongly suggests a video surveillance system was also in play.

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability concocted a malign scheme to blackmail and intimidate EU anti-fraud agency OLAF, and the European Commission. Established in close coordination with CIA and MI6 officials to prosecute Syrian officials for alleged war crimes, CIJA was repeatedly found by EU regulators to be criminally corrupt. Now, leaked documents reveal CIJA has taken on a secret role in the Ukraine proxy war since 2022, designating the country as one of its “key areas of operation.” According to internal files, CIJA has been, in its own words, “imbedded [sic] with Ukrainian authorities” from the conflict’s earliest stages.” The Commission has been irrefutably implicated in evidence tampering and inducement of false testimony to secure wrongful arrests and prosecutions related to its work in Damascus. It would be unsurprising if CIJA has engaged in similar deplorable activities in Ukraine. Individuals and organisations intimately tied to the Commission are implicated in clandestine British intelligence efforts to assist Kiev in perpetrating atrocities. Multiple UN Human Rights High Commissioner reports have recorded how the SBU routinely engages in enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of suspected “collaborators”. In June 2023, the Commissioner noted how in many cases, detainee confessions were secured via beatings, electrocution, mutilation, sexual violence, and threats of execution and rape.

My friend Kevin died at his desk on September 11, 2001, on the 99th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. So nine months after the towers fell, I got on a bike and honored his life by pedaling 4,200 miles across a grieving country from Astoria, Oregon, to Kevin’s childhood home in Philadelphia. Because the tragedy of that September day touched all of our lives in some way, something surprising occurred on that journey. Everywhere I stopped, everyone wanted to talk, to connect, to feel safe, and above all, to hug. Every citizen felt vulnerable, and I was biking right into their wounded hearts—and the nation’s conversations, connections, and hugs were revitalizing. As I looked deeper into the action that made all of this possible, I developed a seven-principle framework—EMBRACE: E—Engage others with open hearts. M—Make meaningful connections. B—Bridge our differences. R—Respect for all people. A—Accept without judgment. C—Create confidence in our shared worth. E—Engender hope through human touch. These principles aren’t theories from a textbook—they’re tried, tested, and proven lessons earned on the ground by engaging over one million people. And now they’re yours too. With the EMBRACE principles, you’ll see that a hug is more than an extension of a handshake, and vulnerability isn’t a weakness but a gateway to something curative. The EMBRACE principles—and all the hugs—helped me reshape myself into a better man.

Kazu Haga’s dream is that one day, children in every school in the United States will not only learn traditional subjects like math and history but also how to practice nonviolence. As they grow up in our society and confront conflicts that will inevitably arise, they will know how to relate to each other as human beings instead of enemies. Kazu is the founder of the East Point Peace Academy, an organization that is dedicated to bringing about a culture of peace. Just close your eyes for 20 seconds and imagine what a culture of peace would look like in our shared world. Perhaps more importantly, how do we get there as a collective species? [In 2008], Kazu began to reflect on a different way of viewing and practicing nonviolence. Under the Kingian philosophy, nonviolence is not only a refusal to shoot your opponent, but also a refusal to hate your opponent. Holding hate in your heart against even the “worst” opponent is an act of internal, emotional and spiritual violence you commit to yourself. Dr. King described how real peace is not the absence of a negative force like tension or violence or fear but it’s really the presence of a positive force like justice, love, compassion, and understanding. Kazu and others started the East Point Peace Academy because they realized that changing cultures of violence ... takes significant training. “Just as the military trains many of its leaders at West Point, the idea of East Point is that we’re investing heavily in training leaders of the peace movement.”

An abandoned dog has joined a mission of peace across the world and, despite some mishaps, has stayed with it every paw of the way. During their opening 112-day peace walk in India, a group of Buddhist monks found an abandoned dog—or perhaps the dog found them. The canine, believed to be an Indian Pariah breed, was given the name Aloka, and soon became a loyal companion, following the group of monks as they marched across India to spread messages of peace and unity. Their four-legged friend encountered his own hardships along that arduous journey. Aloka was hit by a car, and he also fell ill for an extended period of time. The monks loaded him up in a truck, offering him an escape from all the walking. But Aloka didn’t want to be away from his new companions. He jumped out and rejoined the mission. Now, Aloka and the monks who live in the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana in Fort Worth, Texas have a new mission. In October, nineteen of the Buddhist monks and their loyal companion set out from Fort Worth on a 2,300-mile walk toward Washington, D.C. with a goal of promoting unity and compassion. The journey is expected to cover 10 states in 110 days before ending in the nation’s capital in February. By late December, the group had reached Atlanta. A live tracker on Facebook provides updates on their progress and the group has also been posting frequently to social media. (Don’t worry, Aloka the Peace Dog has his own Instagram as well).

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