DHS Pressures Platforms for Identities of Anti-ICE Users
A teenage boy shows a social media post with the arrest of his father by federal agents, as he stands outside the ICE Los Angeles Staging Facility looking for the location of his father in Los Angeles last June. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
The Department of Homeland Security is pressuring tech companies to reveal the identities of social media accounts that criticize or track Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, according to officials and tech employees familiar with the requests. Over the past several months, Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas, The New York Times reports.
These subpoenas, which do not require judicial approval, seek names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other personal details linked to anonymous accounts that post critical commentary about ICE or share information about agents’ locations. Some companies have started to resist these demands.
DHS maintains it has broad authority to issue such subpoenas and argues in court that identifying account holders is necessary to protect ICE officers in the field. Civil liberties advocates, however, see the practice as a significant expansion of a tool that was historically reserved for serious criminal cases, such as child trafficking. “The government is taking more liberties than they used to,” said Steve Loney of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, who has represented users targeted by these requests, describing a “whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.”
Whether companies comply with the subpoenas is up to them. According to the Times, Google, Meta, and Reddit have complied with some requests, noting that they review every demand and sometimes alert users so they can challenge the subpoenas in court. Some users have done so.
This week, a free speech organization filed a lawsuit alleging that President Donald Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem are pressuring tech platforms to remove content in an effort “to control what the public can see, hear, or say about ICE operations,” according to Ars Technica. An earlier lawsuit, from the creator of the ICEBlock warning app, claims that DHS is using its regulatory authority to suppress protected speech.
Advocates argue that platforms are not doing enough to protect users. Meta recently began blocking links to ICE List, a site containing names of ICE and Border Patrol agents, Engadget reports. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin has also requested that the Justice Department provide all communications it has had with Apple and Google regarding the removal of apps used to track ICE agents.
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