PRESS RELEASE: Privacy Rights Advocates Challenge Trump-Vance Administration’s Secret Tracking of People Exercising their First Amendment Rights

Lawsuit Challenges Secret Government Policy that Collects, Stores, and Uses Personal Information About People Observing Immigration Enforcement

SAN DIEGO — Privacy rights advocates and three individuals today filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful surveillance of those who peacefully observe and document federal immigration enforcement. Plaintiffs allege that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has adopted a secret policy to collect, maintain, and use personal information about people engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment.

The plaintiffs are the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Nicole Cleland, Jacquelyn Ivey, and Anna Walker, legal observers who have been subjected to DHS surveillance and retaliation after peacefully observing federal immigration enforcement activity. They are represented by Democracy Forward and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.

According to the complaint, DHS has deployed facial recognition technology, body cameras, license plate information, mobile devices, and other surveillance tools to identify and track people who legally observe immigration enforcement in public. Plaintiffs allege that DHS has maintained and accessed those records in its own systems — including the Automated Targeting System (ATS), whose records can be disclosed to other government law enforcement agencies. Plaintiffs also allege that DHS used that information to revoke their Global Entry privileges in retaliation for exercising their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit describes how DHS’s policy violates the Privacy Act, which prohibits the federal government from maintaining records describing how individuals exercise their First Amendment rights except in limited circumstances, and requires agencies to publicly disclose and justify when it collects personal information for new reasons or from new groups of people. The plaintiffs also challenge the policy as arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act. Plaintiffs also allege that DHS unlawfully retaliated against the individual plaintiffs when they exercised their First Amendment rights.

The complaint details how while the individual plaintiffs peacefully observed immigration enforcement activity, DHS photographed or identified them and shortly thereafter revoked their Global Entry benefits. It also alleges that DHS rescinded longstanding internal privacy safeguards so that it could dramatically expand its collection and maintenance of information about Americans engaged in protected First Amendment activity.

The plaintiffs ask the court to declare DHS’s surveillance policy unlawful, vacate it, and prohibit DHS from continuing to collect and maintain records describing individuals’ protected First Amendment activities.

“I believe government accountability starts with transparency,” said Nicole Cleland. “People should be free to peacefully observe and document what their government does in public without worrying they’ll be tracked or retaliated against. This case is about protecting that right for everyone.”

“This isn’t about losing a privilege; this is about standing on principle,” said Jacquelyn Ivey. “The government is trying to intimidate people into looking the other way instead of holding it accountable. But the moments when those in power try hardest to silence us are often the moments we most need to speak up.”

“Now more than ever, those of us who have the privilege to speak out have a responsibility to defend the rights of everyone in our communities,” said Anna Walker. “When people are punished for exercising their First Amendment rights, we begin losing the democratic principles that protect all of us. Every American should be alarmed by retaliatory action against one’s free speech. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”

“When our government compiles secret dossiers on everyday people for exercising their constitutional rights, it sends a chilling message: if you speak up, watch your back,” said EPIC Deputy Director and Director of Enforcement John Davisson. “If every protest, every recording, every act of dissent opens us up to surveillance and retribution, privacy and free speech are at risk of collapse. But the laws of this nation don’t permit that, and we won’t either.”

“The federal government cannot build secret dossiers on people because they exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully observe, document, or criticize its actions. That is exactly the kind of government surveillance Congress sought to prevent when it enacted the Privacy Act after some of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “The Trump-Vance administration is once again attempting to use fear and unchecked power to discourage people from exercising their constitutional rights. No one should have to wonder whether peacefully observing their government will land them in a federal database or cost them the ability to exercise their rights. The Constitution protects the people’s right to hold their government accountable, not the government’s ability to surveil and retaliate against those who do.”

“The Privacy Act places clear limits on the government’s ability to collect and maintain records about people based on their protected First Amendment activities,” said Steve Berman, Managing Partner at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. “This lawsuit seeks court intervention to enforce those protections and ensure the government complies with the law.”

The case is Electronic Privacy Information Center et al. v. DHS et al., and the legal team at Democracy Forward includes Andrea Matthews, Bradley Girard, Adnan Perwez, Ross Snyder, Jennifer Fountain Connolly, and Robin Thurston.

Read the complaint here.

Please contact [email protected] with requests for further comment.

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ABOUT EPIC

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) was established in 1994 to protect privacy, freedom of expression, and democratic values in the information age. Our mission is to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age for all people through advocacy, research, and litigation.