A national free speech advocacy group is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement over threats from officials and agents to collect information about protesters, including in Maine.
The lawsuit, brought by a group called Freedom for Individual Rights and Expression, says ICE agents in Portland told an observer her information would be entered into a database and that she would be considered a domestic terrorist.
Legal fellow Jacob Gaba said the group is seeking to compel the agency to disclose information about surveillance efforts in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.
And he said the threats could have a chilling effect, regardless of whether such databases even exist.
“If people think that protesting or filming law enforcement may put them in a secret database, many will stay silent,” Gaba said.
In a separate legal case stemming from the same events, a government lawyer told a federal judge in Maine that agents had violated Department of Homeland Security policy by threatening to put the observers’ information into a database.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.