A lawyer representing the protesters said this violates First Amendment rights.
As revealed by unsealed court documents, Homeland Security agents allegedly create dossiers on those accused of observing or objecting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. As first reported by WiredThese DHS files on protesters reportedly contain sensitive information such as photos and license plates and are stored in a database built by Palantir called Investigative Case Management.
The new information comes from a partially unsealed court filing about a January ICE operation that took place in Maine, according to Wired. The filing is part of a class action lawsuit, which resulted in a redacted version made available to the public on Friday and revealed the alleged database of ICE protesters.
According to the lawsuit, DHS agents would harass and intimidate observers or protesters, sometimes by driving through their homes or labeling them a “threat to law enforcement, professional protesters.” In one example, an agent reportedly called one of the plaintiffs on her cell and suggested that she tell her spouse “not to do something like this in the future because people who do things like this will be added to a domestic terrorism watch list.”
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs said this type of database creates a chilling effect on protesters’ First Amendment rights. On the other hand, said a DHS spokesman Wired that the case was “merited” and denied the existence of such a database that marks and tracks “domestic terrorists”.