The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has backed down from a fight to unmask the owners of Instagram and Facebook accounts monitoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Pennsylvania.
One of the anonymous account holders, John Doe, sued to block ICE from identifying him and other critics online through summonses to Meta that he claimed infringed on core First Amendment-protected activity.
DHS initially fought Doe's motion to quash the summonses, arguing that the community watch groups endangered ICE agents by posting "pictures and videos of agents’ faces, license plates, and weapons, among other things." This was akin to "threatening ICE agents to impede the performance of their duties," DHS alleged. DHS's arguments echoed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who has claimed that identifying ICE agents is a crime, even though Wired noted that ICE employees often post easily discoverable LinkedIn profiles.