Activists fighting Nevada lithium mine faced years of surveillance, records show

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Bureau of Land Management, monitored Indigenous and environmental activists opposing the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada for years, according to more than 2,000 pages of internal records reviewed by ProPublica and The Nevada Independent. Surveillance efforts included social media tracking, video monitoring and meetings of a joint terrorism task force, with one protester arrested to date.

The main company behind the mine, Lithium Americas, hired a former FBI counterterrorism agent to help develop its security strategy. The Indigenous activist group People of Red Mountain describe the surveillance as targeted and unjust. “We’re being watched, we’re being followed, we’re under the microscope,” Gary McKinney, a spokesperson for the group and member of the Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe, was quoted as saying.