DHS Seeks Signal Chats From Protesters
▼ Summary
– DHS is seeking access to private Signal group chats used by Maine residents to coordinate responses to immigration enforcement, as part of discovery in a lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations.
– Plaintiffs in the case accuse DHS of surveilling their activities, including one who claims agents scanned her face and collected her license plate data for a database.
– Protesters’ attorneys have withheld community Signal chats, turning over only smaller groups with redactions to protect non-plaintiff contact info and strategic communications.
– Government depositions included questions about chat participants, outside involvement, and organizers, which attorneys argue intrudes on the right to collective action.
– Civil liberties groups like FIRE support the protesters, asserting that suing to protect First Amendment rights shouldn’t require surrendering those same rights to expressive association.
The Department of Homeland Security is now demanding access to neighborhood “rapid response” Signal group chats as it fights a lawsuit accusing the agency of trampling protesters’ First Amendment rights. Court filings show that attorneys representing the protesters contend this latest move is itself a constitutional violation.
The case, Hilton v. Noem, was filed in federal court in Maine earlier this year. Protesters allege that DHS violated their First Amendment rights through surveillance of their activities. One plaintiff claims that DHS agents scanned her face and collected her license plate information while she was watching Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, telling her she would be placed in a “nice little database.”
According to the filings, Maine residents organized after immigration enforcement escalated in their neighborhoods. They created Signal group chats to alert each other about where and when DHS operations were occurring.
Discovery in the lawsuit has allowed the government to request a broad range of materials. A declaration from Genevieve Nadeau, an attorney for the protesters and special counsel and program lead for Protect Democracy’s Civil Society Defense, outlines what the government sought. Those requests included a list of every protest each named defendant attended, any communications, including comments or “likes,” that reflected the plaintiffs’ “beliefs and opinions regarding law enforcement personnel, operations, tactics, and activity,” and any communications about “opportunities to observe and/or record ICE activity in Maine, from January 20, 2025, to the present.”
In June, attorneys for the protesters sent a letter to the Department of Justice, stating they were deliberately withholding all community group Signal chats that would otherwise fall under the government’s requests. They did turn over smaller Signal group chats to the court, but the letter said those were redacted to remove contact information for non-plaintiffs, as well as communications that exposed the priorities, tactics, or strategies of a Signal community group chat.
Government attorneys also deposed plaintiffs and pressed them with questions about the community Signal chats. The letter notes that some questions included whether public officials or unnamed political groups participated in the chats, whether people from outside Maine were members, and who organized the chats.
“The government wants access to private Signal chats that communities in Maine and around the country are using to coordinate lawful responses to dangerous abuses of power playing out on the streets where they live and work,” Nadeau says. “We’re asking the court to deny that access and shut down the government’s attempt to intrude on the fundamental First Amendment right to engage in collective action that is so critical to a healthy democracy.”
DHS and the Department of Justice, which is handling the litigation, did not respond to requests for comment.
“You shouldn’t have to give up that First Amendment right to expressive association if you need to sue to protect your First Amendment rights,” says Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at FIRE, a nonprofit civil liberties group.
DHS has been aggressive in targeting critics of the administration’s immigration policies. The government has tried to unmask critics, including a Canadian national, by subpoenaing tech companies for names and identifying information. Meanwhile, ICE’s internal watchdog has probed over 100 alleged “incidents of doxing and threats” against ICE employees.
(Source: Wired)
