Trump administration officials can’t seem to get on the same page with their talking points about the ways it’s deploying spy tactics to track Americans critical of the administration.
During his testimony before House lawmakers on Tuesday, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons flatly denied that the administration has any kind of database to surveil Americans critical of the president’s anti-immigrant crackdown. But his statement flew in the face of recent reporting.
As Sarah McLaughlin, senior scholar for global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), wrote in a piece published Tuesday on MS NOW:
U.S. federal agents also appear to be creating a database to track protesters and observers who are legally and peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights. In an encounter a woman filmed in Maine, an ICE agent told her he’s recording her information for a “nice little database” for “domestic terrorists” like her. A CNN report confirms a DHS memo informing agents to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form.”
Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, said during an interview last month that he’d been pushing for the creation of a database to surveil and shame protesters arrested by the administration for “obstructing” agents carrying out Trump’s crackdown. Last year, Homan accused journalists of putting federal agents in danger for reporting on the locations of anti-immigrant raids, so it’s abundantly clear we can’t take his word as to what constitutes actual obstruction.
But it’s also abundantly clear, at least from Lyons’ testimony, that officials in the Trump administration aren’t speaking with one voice with regard to the whole creepy surveillance database thing. And that’s more than a little ironic when you consider moves the administration has announced recently to purportedly ensure the administration speaks with “one voice.”
The tech media outlet FedScoop asked the Department of Homeland Security about Lyons’ testimony denying the existence of a “database.” A spokesperson for the department reaffirmed Lyons’ statement.
“We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement,” Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, told FedScoop. “Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.”
That response doesn’t exactly instill confidence that Americans will not be tracked or targeted for their opposition to Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown.
In a similar vein, at a House hearing on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to confirm or deny whether the FBI has compiled a list of alleged domestic terrorists in accordance with a memo she issued last December. The memo essentially redefined domestic terrorism, criminalized antifascist protesters (also known as “Antifa”), and ordered federal law enforcement officers to target people who “dox” law enforcement.
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