Lawsuit says ICE visits to online critics are chilling speech
A First Amendment suit says DHS agents warned a New York man after he emailed criticism to ICE’s acting director.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
4 min read
A federal lawsuit says Department of Homeland Security agents tracked down and warned a New York man after he sent a sharply critical email to a senior ICE official. The case puts new attention on DHS investigations of online criticism that the department describes as threats or doxxing.
David Streever says in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, DC, that he did not threaten anyone when he emailed Todd Lyons, then acting director of ICE, after federal agents killed two US citizens in Minneapolis. According to the complaint, Streever’s message condemned Lyons in harsh terms and predicted his “downfall,” but described the consequence as the burden of knowing the truth about himself.
According to The Verge, DHS agents went to Streever’s home in Rochester while he was away in Finland with his daughter and spoke with his wife. They left a warning notice saying ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility handles crimes including threats against ICE personnel. After Streever returned to the United States and checked into a New York City hotel, another agent found him there, The Verge reported.
Streever was not arrested, according to The Verge. The notice said his conduct “MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW,” according to the lawsuit.
Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression who represents Streever, told The Verge that the First Amendment bars government retaliation and coercion, not only arrests. He said he did not know how DHS located Streever at the hotel, but pointed to the department’s use of requests to online platforms for identifying information.
The New York Times reported that since at least last August, DHS has sent several hundred administrative subpoenas to companies including Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta seeking names, email addresses, phone numbers and other information tied to people who criticized ICE online. Wired reported this week that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility has opened more than 100 investigations into alleged doxxing and threats involving ICE.
DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis told The Verge the department does not comment on ongoing investigations and denied that DHS is trying to suppress speech. Bis said ICE investigates credible threats against employees and officers, including threats to the ICE director, and said people who assault or threaten law enforcement officers will face consequences.
The Associated Press reported that ICE special agents David Brodie and Abbi Henry also confronted Paigelynne Gonyea, a Syracuse woman, at a polling place and gave her a similar warning notice. Gonyea told the AP she believed the visit concerned a January social media post about Jonathan Ross, an ICE agent publicly identified by the Star Tribune as the agent who shot Renee Good.
Bis told the AP that doxxing federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime that endangers officers and their families. The Verge reported that DHS has treated identification of agents as doxxing even when the agents’ names were already public.
Other reported encounters have involved criticism that agents said could be read as threatening. The Washington Post reported that DHS agents and a local police officer visited a 67-year-old retiree in the Philadelphia suburbs after he emailed an ICE prosecutor urging caution in an Afghan refugee’s deportation case. According to the Post, agents said the email was not illegal but flagged references to “Russian roulette” and “the Taliban.”
DHS has cited sharp increases in threats and assaults against agents, including figures of an 8,000 percent rise in threats and more than a 1,300 percent rise in assaults, according to The Verge. NPR reported that available data did not support the scale of assault increases claimed by the department.
Aaron Mackey, deputy legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Verge that some speech can cross into threats or incitement, but calling someone a Nazi is protected speech and does not meet that standard. Mackey said federal officials are reaching beyond specific violent acts in ways that can chill speech.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.