DHS Is Getting Sued For the Truth About Its “Domestic Terrorism Watchlist” |
Does photographing ICE agents make you a domestic terrorist in Donald Trump’s America?
That’s the question being asked by a growing chorus of activists and legal observers who fear they’ve been placed on a government watchlist for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Months after the Department of Homeland Security ended its aggressive immigration sweeps in full-bore occupations of Minneapolis and other major cities, new information continues to emerge in legal filings detailing ICE agents’ alleged pattern of intimidation against protesters. One federal lawsuit, filed by Protect Democracy on behalf of Maine residents, centers on statements made by federal agents—including some caught on camera—warning people they would be added to a domestic terrorist database simply for observing immigration operations.
DHS has maintained that such a database doesn’t exist. But lawyers in cases from Maine to Chicago to Minneapolis, representing clients who are suing the agency for alleged civil liberties abuses, say that threats made by federal agents have had a chilling effect on their clients’ freedom of expression—and nobody knows what DHS has done with biometric and license plate information collected from observers. Last week, the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued DHS, too, seeking to compel the agency to turn over records about the alleged database under the Freedom of Information Act.
Those records could provide clarity to the growing number of people who have reported unsettling experiences after encounters with ICE, including Maine couple Carlyn Williams and Xenia Pantos, who were added as plaintiffs to the Maine lawsuit last month.
On January 20, Pantos was driving their spouse’s car........