This piece calls out a coordinated push by the Left to force AT&T to drop contracts with ICE, highlights the wider danger of government-controlled internet access, and explains why this kind of pressure threatens all of us — especially outspoken conservatives. It traces the pattern from COVID-era coercion to the Biden administration’s costly broadband program and the recent petition from The People’s Lobby. The goal is to show that when private companies yield to political mobs, the consequences reach far beyond a single contract.
The Left Wants AT&T to Unplug ICE (and They’ll Unplug You, Too)
I’ve been warning about this for a while: when one side declares essentials to be “rights,” they hand the levers of power to government and activist groups. That power can be used to shut people out if they don’t toe the line, as we saw in the heavy-handed moments of the COVID era. Those tactics aren’t abstract; they were attempts to deny healthcare access and even interfere with family custody in some circles.
Internet access is the next battlefield. The Biden administration spent $42 billion on high-speed internet projects aimed at rural areas, yet critics say the rollout failed to connect a single household in some key reports. Control of the pipes is control of speech, commerce, and livelihood, and anyone paying attention should be worried about who gets to flip the switches.
Now a radical leftist group is pressuring AT&T to break its contract with ICE, and they’ve launched a petition to make it happen. That campaign is framed as standing up for vulnerable communities, but the tactic is simple: threaten a company’s bottom line and hope it caves.
With $30.7 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2025 alone, AT&T does not need its 2024 or 2025 contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remain profitable. Yet, the telecom giant is choosing to both collect money from customers who are in the crosshairs, and line its pockets with public dollars to help ICE agents – who are masked, unidentifiable, and operating without warrants – as they terrorize members of the public in communities like Chicago.
“AT&T has a choice to make: Be a good business, or exploit people. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t put people from every ethnicity in your ads, take TV, internet and cell phone money from customers who live in communities that are being scapegoated, and then provide ICE with the surveillance and first responders communications infrastructure they used to turn people’s homes into war zones. We don’t want Blackhawk helicopters and heavily armed infantrymen kicking down doors in the middle of the night to kidnap parents and zip tie children. Not in Chicago. Not anywhere,” said The People’s Lobby Executive Director Will Tanzman.
That statement from The People’s Lobby reads tough, and of course it does: it’s designed to play on fears and shame a company into compliance. The reaction is predictable — vilify a contractor, threaten reputational damage, and hope management chooses optics over operation. But businesses like AT&T have employees, customers, and legal obligations that don’t vanish when activist pressure mounts.
Let’s be blunt: it’s laughable that a few activists think they can micromanage what services a corporation provides to law enforcement. That sense of entitlement — telling companies which lawful contracts they may keep — is authoritarian in spirit. If this approach works against AT&T, it sets a precedent that any business dealing with any government agency can be blackmailed into surrender.
It’s unlikely AT&T will simply drop a major federal contract, but if it did, someone would step in to fill the gap. We’ve seen Elon Musk deploy Starlink in crises before, and the private sector will always find ways to serve critical national needs. Still, the political interference runs deeper: an $800 million contract once eyed for SpaceX was revoked by the FCC amid claims of politicization, showing how regulatory bodies can weaponize policy.
The bigger picture is worrying. The same people pushing to cut off contracts for enforcement agencies would gladly pull service from conservative voices if they had the chance. During the Obama and Biden years there were efforts to restrict banking, advertising, and platform access for dissident voices, and this is just a more direct, tech-focused extension of that playbook.
When the state and activist mobs can pressure companies to choose sides, freedom of speech and the ability to earn a living are on the chopping block. This isn’t abstract political theater — it’s an invitation to a future where disagreement equals disconnection. Conservatives should track these fights closely because the next target could be any company that refuses to kowtow.
Pressure campaigns dressed as moral crusades are effective because companies often prioritize risk avoidance over principle. That’s why it matters to call this out now: fight the normalization of coercing private firms into political conformity. If we let that trend continue, it won’t stop with AT&T; it will reach into every corner of civic and commercial life.
