The Department of Homeland Security asked an Icelandic hosting company to take down data obtained through hack
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked an Icelandic hosting company on Thursday to take down or limit access to data related to thousands of agency personnel, saying the content put them at risk, according to the request posted online by hosting company FlokiNET.
The database “places more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking and physical harm”, the request said.
Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign allegedly collaborated with party operatives to confuse voters in midterms
The US justice department on Thursday is reported to have issued subpoenas in response to a report that the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign collaborated with party operatives to get a challenger with the same name as the Republican senator Dan Sullivan on the midterm ballot.
ABC News and the Associated Press reported the subpoenas, citing sources familiar with the matter. The federal investigation comes a day after the New York Times found that the effort to recruit a second candidate named Dan Sullivan in the Senate race set to be decided on Tuesday was led by Peltola’s campaign, which had for months denied involvement.
US vice-president writes to top Iranian security official in sign Washington has not abandoned diplomacy
Hopes of averting a major new conflagration between Iran and the US soon after Tuesday’s midterm elections could rest on Iran’s response to a personal letter from the US vice-president, JD Vance, offering to restart diplomacy.
The letter, written after predominantly Qatari mediation, was sent to the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, Mohsen Rezaei on Sunday. It requires Tehran to agree to make commitments on its nuclear programme at the start of a process that would lead to the opening of the strait of Hormuz within seven days in return for US sanctions relief.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch a criminal investigation into Bank of America for its violations of anti-money laundering laws. In a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Massachusetts Democrat called the Treasury Department’s recent $1.21 billion fine of Bank of America a “slap on…
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to launch a criminal investigation into Bank of America for its violations of anti-money laundering laws. In a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Massachusetts Democrat called the Treasury Department’s recent $1.21 billion fine of Bank of America a “slap on…
The midterm elections are just days away, and while anything can happen, the broad consensus among pollsters suggests a bad night for Republicans.
Hoping to shore up a victory for his party, President Donald Trump seized upon an idea: bribe the voters.
"If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them," Trump pledged in September, "I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000."
According to Vice President J.D. Vance, this "dividend"—which would cost more than $1.3 trillion—would come from the "extraordinary amount of revenue" generated by Trump's tariffs. Of course, that math doesn't work: According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the U.S. took in just under $300 billion in tariff revenue between January 2025 and July 2026, not counting the amount it has had to refund after the Supreme Court found they were illegally imposed.
At that rate, it would take years of tariffs just to pay for Trump's dividend. Adding insult to injury, of course, is the fact that tariffs are paid by Americans, meaning we would be taxing ourselves to pay for our own disbursement.
But in the campaign season's closing days, Trump has made a number of other threats and offers, contingent on his party's success—a completely risible use of government power.
In September, three Ohio Republicans—Rep. Mike Turner and Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted—petitioned the president to build a planned Space Force training academy in their state.
"Every other state wants it," Trump said this month at an Ohio campaign rally. "If we win the midterms, Ohio will be very, very strongly considered."
Some of his pledges have been much more explicitly transactional.
On October 17, the Department of Defense—which Trump calls by its original name, the Department of War—announced a conditional $80 billion loan to pharmaceutical manufacturer Antheia. That same day, at a campaign rally in Kentucky, Trump made a pledge to the state's voters.
"If the Republicans win, the Department of War will be investing $100 million in the pharmaceutical company Antheia to revitalize a gigantic drug manufacturing facility in Winchester, Kentucky," he said. But he prefaced it by telling Rep. Andy Barr, the Republican running for the state's open Senate seat, "you have to win, Andy. Otherwise, forget it."
Days later in both Kansas and Iowa, Trump brought up E15, a gasoline blend that contains up to 15 percent ethanol derived from corn. It has advantages and disadvantages as an alternative to traditional gasoline, but it's a boon for corn-growing states.
"Normally, E15 is not allowed during the summer because warmer temperatures increase fuel evaporation and thus the formulation of ground ozone ('smog')," writes Benjamin Zycher of the American Enterprise Institute.
The government can waive that restriction to address disruptions in the fuel supply, which it did in March amid gas price shocks related to Trump's war in Iran. The House passed a bill in May to make the waiver permanent and allow E15 to be sold year-round, which Trump backed in June; the Senate version of the Farm Bill includes a year-round E15 amendment, but Democrats have held up its passage.
"With Roger Marshall in the Senate," Trump told Kansans last week, "we will make year-round E15 permanent. But if [Democratic candidate] Adam Hamilton is in, I'm not doing it."
He then made the same pledge in Iowa, where Rep. Ashley Hinson is the Republican Senate nominee. "With Ashley in the Senate, we will make it year-round E15," Trump said. "We'll make it permanent."
Of course, it's nothing new for politicians to make big promises in exchange for your votes. Typically, they're all hollow to at least some degree.
And Trump's pledges do reflect some version of reality: Keeping the Senate in Republican hands will make it easier for him to do certain things. But some of his others have been downright indefensible, less like typical political bribery than outright extortion.
At a rally in North Carolina last month, he tied hurricane disaster aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to Senate candidate Michael Whatley's election.
"We spent more than $2 billion [in] FEMA funding," he told attendees. "You're waiting for some additional money…and I'm gonna get that to you, Michael. Now if Michael loses, I'm not sending it." He added right after, "I'm only kidding, you're gonna get it."
Other times, he didn't take it back: Trump appeared at a campaign rally in Georgia this week, stumping for Rep. Mike Collins to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff, and part of his sales pitch was that if Ossoff wins, he may just ignore the state.
"President has a lot of power," he said, and there's "a big difference when he likes the people representing a state. Collins could call me anytime he wants." But if Ossoff wins, he added, he won't take the call, and he even narrated a hypothetical conversation to make his point: "'Tell him I'm not in.' 'But he needs money for Georgia.' 'I don't give a damn what he wants!'"
Also this week, Trump railed about the Senate race in Alaska, where Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan faces not only former Rep. Mary Peltola but a retired teacher also named Dan Sullivan. The New York Times reported this week that the Peltola campaign actively recruited the second Sullivan to run explicitly as a spoiler, to siphon votes away from the senator.
"I have delivered for Alaska at Historic Levels," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "The Democrats are trying to steal this important Republican Seat and, if that happens, everything we've done for Alaska will come to an immediate hault [sic]."
It's one thing to say the federal government shouldn't provide aid to states—and since taking office, the administration has cut or paused such disbursements by $177 billion. Last week, the FEMA administrator indicated that going forward, states should expect to shoulder more of their own disaster aid.
But this goes much further, with the president explicitly conditioning aid on whether or not the state's voters have displeased him.
Perhaps, as in North Carolina, Trump was simply joking; the White House did not respond to Reason's request for clarification.
But there's certainly precedent to suggest he was serious.
"Last September, the Department of Energy (DOE) recommended cancellation of 624 grants for clean energy projects that had been approved by the Biden administration," Reason's Jacob Sullum wrote in July. The government then "winnowed it down to 284 grants, all but one of which had been awarded to projects in states that were represented by Democrats in the U.S. Senate and had voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election."
In March, Politicoreported that Trump had approved 89 percent of disaster aid requests from states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators but only 23 percent of requests from states with Democrats in those offices.
According to the Idle RamblingSubstack, the trend continues: Trump has rejected nearly half of aid requests from Democrat-led states in this term while only rejecting 18 percent from Republican-led states.
But perhaps worst of all, he threatened not to pay out damages to people who suffered harm.
Between 1953 and 1987, the water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina was contaminated by leaks of fuel and dry cleaning chemicals. The government estimates that as many as 1 million people, both service members and their families, were exposed to toxic chemicals. The Department of Veterans Affairs officially recognizes eight diseases stemming from exposure, including multiple cancers and Parkinson's disease.
In 2022, Congress passed the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, which waived any federal government claims of immunity and allowed veterans to sue over exposure to tainted water. As of September 2026, the Department of Justice says it has paid out more than $879 million, out of more than $1.1 billion in settlement offers.
"We're also fighting for our great veterans, and taking care of those veterans who brought claims related to water contamination at Camp Lejeune," Trump told North Carolina rallygoers last week. "And if we win the House and the Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible." But "if we don't win, there's no money. If we do win, you're getting it."
It should be clear by now that Trump values personal loyalty over all else. To that end, there is nothing he finds more disreputable than failing to do what he says.
In the closing days of this campaign season, he is making that more explicit than ever, tying his party's success in a state to whether the state is entitled to equal treatment under the law.
Trump was right that presidents have "a lot of power." He's also a living example of why they shouldn't.
In a July 16 letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a "preliminary review" suggested there "may be as many as 190,832 non-citizens registered to vote" in her state. Weber was skeptical—for good reason, it turned out. Three months later, the Trump administration reduced that estimate by nearly 90 percent, saying about 20,000 "likely noncitizens" had received California vote-by-mail ballots.
The Justice Department gave Weber and Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's top election official, 48 hours to determine whether any of the people on the government's list were in fact citizens. Otherwise, it said, Weber and Logan should segregate those ballots and refrain from processing them until citizenship could be verified. After Weber and Logan declined to comply with the Justice Department's demands, it asked a federal judge for a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring them to do so—a request that he rejected in a scathing opinion on Wednesday.
"Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch," writes U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee. "This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections. If Plaintiff's last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve."
The Justice Department delivered its list of "likely noncitizens" to Logan three weeks before Election Day. At that point, Los Angeles County already had sent ballots to 5.9 million voters and processed 331,000 of them. Logan said he was "legally prohibited" from doing what the Justice Department wanted because it had failed to explain the methodology used to compile the list, raising the possibility that citizens would be denied their voting rights.
There was ample reason for that concern. On July 17, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin averred that "as many as" 15,903 noncitizens were registered to vote in Nevada. The following month, when the DHS submitted a list of allegedly illegal voters to Nevada election officials, the number had fallen to 185—99 percent lower than Mullin's original figure. It turned out that every one of those 185 voters was a U.S. citizen.
"DHS has identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote" in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, Mullin said in July. He was echoing President Donald Trump, who for years has grossly exaggerated the extent of illegal voting by noncitizens, often in service of his own vanity.
Trump has repeatedly claimed, for example, that he would have won the popular vote in 2016 but for "the millions of people who voted illegally," and in January 2024 he warned that noncitizen voters "could very well affect the next election." In a speech the night before Mullin's announcement, Trump asserted that the DHS had "identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections."
Judging from Nevada's experience, the actual number may be closer to zero. It is hard to say, because the methods used by the DHS remain hazy.
In the California case, Carter says, the DHS "purchased a voter file that appeared to reflect 'the actual voter rolls in California, that as of August 2025, may be used for the 2026 federal election.'" It "then 'enhance[d]' the voter data through a 'reliable third-party data analytics'" and used records maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to find "an internal USCIS immigration number" that "may" correspond to each registered voter. "The matches are scored," Carter notes, "because 'the resulting data may be incomplete, outdated, or mismatched.'"
The DHS "then compared the potential identity matches to Department of State and Social Security Administration data to screen out U.S. citizens," Carter adds. "In the next step, a confidence level was assigned (where a high score supported a 'strong identity link') and a manual review was conducted for each match to 'determine which registered voters'" were "likely to be aliens." Then came "a 'quality review' to identify issues such as 'duplicate entries' and 'incomplete records,'" followed by "an 'enrichment process' that utilized 'additional unique identifiers' to 'improv[e]' the matching process."
The government did not initially specify the source of the "reliable third-party data analytics." But it later revealed that "the third-party platform it relied on was
Lexis Nexis," Carter notes. "It remains unknown how Lexis Nexis performed its analysis, such as how it 'linked names to Social Security numbers not available on the California public voter file.' Plaintiff likewise did not explain what its 'enrichment process' entailed or how it occurred. Plaintiff also provided 'no error rates' or 'validation against a reliable benchmark' that would enable a determination of the accuracy of its findings. Omissions of this critical information prevent an evaluation of Plaintiff's procedure, including how Plaintiff reduced its initial claim of nearly 200,000 alleged noncitizens to 20,000 individuals."
Potential sources of error include conflating people with similar or identical names and outdated records that do not reflect recent naturalization. Because it is unclear how the DHS tried to address such problems, it is not surprising that Weber and Logan did not want to rely on the Trump administration's list, especially given its pattern of dramatically reducing the putative number of illegally registered voters.
"It is well-documented that matching voter registration records with data from other
administrative databases 'presents numerous challenges,'" Carter writes. And given the potential for error, he says, "Plaintiff's allegations are not credible." He adds that the TRO sought by the Justice Department "would likely lead to voter disenfranchisement" and "would create a significant administrative burden for Defendants, leading to chaos and upending the election."
In any event, Carter says, the Trump administration does not have legal standing to seek such an order. The government's main argument was that California officials, by refusing to segregate ballots from people on its list, were interfering with its enforcement of 18 USC 611, which makes it a misdemeanor for "any alien to vote" in a federal election.
"Defendants do not 'interfere' with the United States' ability to enforce Section 611 by
administering an ongoing election in accordance with established State and Federal law, rather than assuming new obligations pursuant to a federal criminal law they are not responsible for enforcing," Carter writes. It is well established that state officials have no obligation to enforce federal law, he notes, and that they cannot be "commandeered" to do so.
Nor does the federal government need such assistance to enforce Section 611. "The very same day the United States filed its TRO [application] in this Court, the Department of Justice brought charges against 28 individuals" in California under that law, Carter notes. It is not clear how many of those defendants, who represent 0.0001 percent of California's 23 million registered voters, actually cast ballots. But "if fraudulent voting occurs," Carter says, "the United States should uphold the law and bring additional Section 611 indictments against those non-citizens it believes actually voted illegally in the current—or a prior—election."
The Constitution gives states the primary responsibility for conducting elections, subject to explicit limits imposed by Congress. But the Justice Department's actions in this case "are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials," Carter writes. The department "has filed at least thirty-one lawsuits in federal district courts across the country seeking complete voter rolls from the States. Out of the twenty-six decided cases, the DOJ has prevailed in precisely zero."
In addition to "its failed attempt to seek State voter rolls," Carter notes, "the United States has also requested that States act based on the Executive's own lists." But "sister district courts across the country have cast doubt" on the reliability of those lists for the same reasons that Carter cites in this case.
On October 23, the Justice Department "sent letters to every county in California requiring them to set aside the votes of alleged non-citizens," Carter notes. "The letters stated that election officials 'risk significant federal scrutiny' if they failed to comply with the Government's demands. The government reiterated its threat in open court yesterday, stating that State and County election officials who do not comply with their letter risk federal charges under 18 U.S.C. § 2, which criminalizes aiding and abetting the commission of a criminal offense. The court reiterates what it said yesterday: these threats must stop."
Tourist board responds with toilet humour after US president’s ‘shithouse country’ jibe over failure to win Nobel peace prize
Some might find it decidedly incommodious to be dumped on by Donald Trump as a “shithouse country”. Not the Norwegian tourist board, which chose instead to lift the lid on some of the nation’s loveliest lavatories.
“Are these the world’s best shit houses?” asked Visit Norway on its website, days after the US president vented his fury once more over failing to win the Nobel peace prize by describing Norway as a “shithouse country” at a rally on Sunday.
Nine maritime labor organizations say the Trump administration’s prolonged Jones Act waiver raises serious questions about compliance with federal law, including reporting requirements, immigration restrictions and the use of foreign...
President Trump will no longer travel to Kansas or Iowa over the weekend to rally voters ahead of Election Day, instead opting for virtual campaign appearances. A White House official confirmed to The Hill Thursday the in-person Kansas event had been canceled, without providing more details about the decision. Later in the evening, the Republican…
President Trump will no longer travel to Kansas or Iowa over the weekend to rally voters ahead of Election Day, instead opting for virtual campaign appearances. A White House official confirmed to The Hill Thursday the in-person Kansas event had been canceled, without providing more details about the decision. Later in the evening, the Republican…
President Trump blasted Democrats Thursday over their ongoing calls to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom they see as one of their primary targets, if the party takes control of the House. “I think it’s terrible. All they do is they talk about impeaching everybody,” the president told reporters when asked if he is worried…
President Trump blasted Democrats Thursday over their ongoing calls to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom they see as one of their primary targets, if the party takes control of the House. “I think it’s terrible. All they do is they talk about impeaching everybody,” the president told reporters when asked if he is worried…
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a liaison at the military's Special Operations Command (SOCOM) with access to advanced surveillance technology, leaked files show. The files also reveal ICE liaisons at Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) with access to the same tech, and an ICE contractor associated with U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in the Middle East.
On Wednesday, a hacker group calling itself the Department of Peace released a massive collection of U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel files, including ICE and other domestic security agencies. "They have our information, so it's only fair that we have theirs," the hackers wrote in a note attached to the database, which was posted online to Distributed Denial of Secrets, a platform for data leaks.
DHS told TheWashington Post that it was "aware of a potential breach" and "working to address the situation swiftly and effectively." A website hosting a searchable version of the leak, ICEpick, was taken down after the DHS sent a letter demanding that the domain name host "stop serving the personal contact and location data of individuals who did not consent."
The files include an ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit chief who appears to oversee the agency's military liaisons. His subordinates include a "Combatant Command Program Manager" at SOCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida; an "HSI Liaison to USAFRICOM" in Stuttgart, Germany; and a "Senior Liaison to U.S. Southern Command" in Doral, Florida.
All of the officials named in the files are listed as users of "Penlink," "Falcon," and "RavenGo." The contractor PenLink offers officials the ability to track individual cell phone users or collect data on everyone in a certain location, according to documents obtained by 404media. FALCON, created by the contractor Palantir, allows officials to combine records from governmental and commercial databases, The Guardianreports. The DHS eventually phased out FALCON in favor of an in-house system, RAVEN.
The unit chief is additionally listed in a group called "LCR_Users." The acronym may refer to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence at Liberty Crossing, McLean, Virginia. Two employees are listed in the DHS files with "ODNI" in their title and "LCR - Liberty Crossing" as their location. The first Trump administration reportedly looked into merging ICE into the federal intelligence community, but never officially did so.
The files also include an HSI contractor listed as "CENTCOM analyst" at the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia. Unlike the other liaisons, this contractor does not have access to ICE's own surveillance software. The National Targeting Center is a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unit that surveils international travel and selects passengers for questioning. CENTCOM oversees all U.S. military forces in the Middle East.
Although it has been mentioned in public, ICE's relationship with the military is shrouded in mystery. Of course, the best-documented relationship is with SOUTHCOM, responsible for U.S. forces in Latin America. Official press releases also mentioned HSI's participation in an AFRICOM maritime security training exercise in 2021. The connections to SOCOM and CENTCOM have not been publicly reported.
ICE did not respond to Reason's request for comment.
The DHS has an in-house intelligence office that is separate from HSI and publicly cooperates with the U.S. military, as well as the rest of the intelligence community. But HSI's "global footprint" and ability to straddle the line between law enforcement and foreign policy "make it uniquely capable of disrupting and dismantling the sophisticated groups and networks that we now face," HSI Executive Assistant Director Katrina W. Berger testified to Congress in 2024.
HSI is supposed to handle serious organized crimes involving the border rather than day-to-day deportations. However, the Trump administration has turned the directorate into an all-purpose domestic spying and enforcement arm. HSI is now running a massive surveillance operation against left-wing protesters, WIRED recently revealed.
Agents have reportedly been pulled away from investigating human trafficking and drug cartels to deal with immigration enforcement. HSI was involved in arresting former CNN journalist Don Lemon for showing up at an anti-ICE protest at a church, and led the raid against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) reportedly aimed at showing that her U.S. citizenship is invalid.
Last month, ICE announced upcoming contracts for a $100 million, fast-tracked expansion of its domestic surveillance capabilities, with contractors asked "to identify and assess relationships among individuals, organizations, locations, events, activities, data points, and other entities." Former military intelligence analyst Michael Wriston called the intensified ICE surveillance a case of "imperial boomerang" in an interview with The American Prospect. "These are the kinds of things that happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, for years. Now that methodology is being brought into the ICE space."
Two California lawmakers are demanding that the Trump administration abandon reported plans to use ships for mass deportations, including the former Cal Poly Maritime Academy training vessel Golden Bear. Reps....
The National Links Trust said this week it will cease operations at East Potomac Golf Links, Washington’s most popular public golf course, as President Trump eyes the property for redevelopment. In a statement Thursday, the trust said it entered a new long-term lease agreement with the Interior Department and National Park Service (NPS) to manage,…
The National Links Trust said this week it will cease operations at East Potomac Golf Links, Washington’s most popular public golf course, as President Trump eyes the property for redevelopment. In a statement Thursday, the trust said it entered a new long-term lease agreement with the Interior Department and National Park Service (NPS) to manage,…
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents slashed the tires of a couple who were recording the agents in an incident near Portland, Oregon, earlier this month. The agents then drove away without arresting or talking to the couple, video footage shows.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which released the footage today, says it is yet another example of ICE agents retaliating against people for protected First Amendment activity. In an administrative complaint on behalf of the anonymous couple, the ACLU and the ACLU of Oregon are demanding an investigation and answers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about why agents tailed, boxed in, and "vandalized" the vehicle of a U.S. citizen.
The stunning video does not resemble any sort of normal law enforcement:
"What happened to us is not unique, and that is what is so terrifying," A.P. and M.P., the unnamed husband and wife, said in a statement provided by the ACLU. "We observe and record public ICE activity in order to shine a light on their abusive behavior and to create a record of what our government is up to. Because of that, they are terrorizing us and anyone else who dares to exercise their First Amendment right to hold our government accountable. We hope that sharing our story will bring attention to their reckless and unconstitutional attacks on our communities."
According to the ACLU complaint, the unnamed married couple was driving in Hillsboro, Oregon, on the morning of October 7 when they spotted an ICE SUV. The couple followed the SUV to a supermarket parking lot, where there were also two other ICE vehicles. The couple lowered their windows and began yelling "This is ICE! This is ICE!" as well as blowing whistles and honking the car's horn.
One ICE agent grabbed a shopping cart and began approaching the couple's car. The complaint states that the couple heard the agent say something to the effect of, "Let's block them in with the cart." As the couple began driving away, several ICE agents began chasing after them on foot.
The three ICE vehicles chased the couple after they left the parking lot, "driving aggressively and nearly colliding into" their car, according to the complaint. Additional video shows the ICE vehicles swerving aggressively in front of the couple's car and later unsuccessfully attempting to box in their car. "None of the ICE vehicles had their flashing lights or sirens on during this entire sequence of events," the complaint states.
The couple cut through an empty parking lot, and the chase continued down several more streets before the ICE vehicles turned on their emergency lights and sirens. According to the complaint, the couple continued driving for roughly a minute, fearing to pull over on an empty road with no bystanders.
Video shows that when they stopped at a traffic light, a masked ICE agent exited his vehicle, walked up to the couple's car, stabbed one of its rear tires with a knife, and then walked back to his car. The couple's car moved slowly forward and into a turn lane before stopping again. Then the same agent got back out of his vehicle and stabbed the tire a second time before returning to his vehicle without attempting to speak to the couple.
"All three ICE vehicles turned off their flashing lights and sirens and drove off," the ACLU complaint states.
The complaint notes that the couple "experienced retaliatory action similar to that experienced by many other individuals across the country engaged in these same First Amendment protected activities."
"In particular, individuals around the country have reported being similarly tailed, boxed in, and threatened with or subjected to violence after observing, gathering information about, and recording ICE agents performing their duties in public," the complaint states.
Last October, ICE agents in the Portland area busted out the car windows of a U.S. citizen who had been filming them, dragged her out of her vehicle, and detained her for roughly seven hours before releasing her without charges.
The ACLU of Tennesseefiled a class-action lawsuit in May against a federal law enforcement task force in Memphis for harassing legal observers. Memphis residents allege in declarations that they have been violently arrested, surveilled at their houses, pulled over under false pretenses, and jailed for trying to film the task force. In September, the ACLU of Tennessee published videos showing federal agents arresting the lead plaintiff in its lawsuit while he was attempting to film task force operations.
DHS and immigration officers haverepeatedly accused videographers and legal observers of obstruction of justice and "doxxing," but civil liberties advocates say the DHS is flat wrong about the law: Every federal appeals court that has considered the issue—nine so far—has firmly upheld the right to record law enforcement in public.
The Supreme Court has also unequivocally upheld the First Amendment right to criticize or oppose police activity, whether verbally or through other expressive activity.
"The right to record publicly visible law enforcement activity is fundamental to our democracy," Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a press release. "Like many people across the country, our clients have been observing and recording ICE activity in their community. These videos have proven critical to exposing ICE's abuses. If we cannot see and document what our own government is doing on our streets, we cannot hold it accountable for running roughshod over our rights."
The ACLU complaint to the DHS Office of Inspector General and two other DHS oversight offices demands that the agents involved in the incident be identified, investigated, and disciplined. The ACLU is also requesting a "comprehensive investigation of a disturbing pattern of ICE agents retaliating against individuals who observe, gather information about, and record ICE activity."
The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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