Yesterday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), filed a lawsuit challenging an egregious violation of the First Amendment by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). FIRE's website has a helpful description of the damning facts of the case (see also this summary by Reason's Tosi Akintola):
The freedom to criticize law enforcement without fear of punishment is an essential right in the United States. In fact, it's one of the things that separates our free nation from a police state. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement don't seem to understand this.
Five months after a Rochester man, David Streever, wrote a critical email to the then-head of ICE during the agency's January crackdown in Minnesota, federal officers recently went to extraordinary lengths to confront and intimidate him — even going so far as to stake out his New York City hotel as he returned from an overseas vacation with his daughter.
That's an outrageous violation of an American's First Amendment rights. So today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit to challenge ICE's efforts to scare Streever and others into silence and remind other government officials that such behavior is un-American, unconstitutional, and unacceptable in a free society….
In January, federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis ICU nurse, during a tense encounter. Outraged, Streever wrote a stern email to then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, entitled "What's next" and calling the official a "monstrous human being" who will "go down in history as America's Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher," a reference to the infamous Nazi official.
The First Amendment unquestionably protects Streever's criticism. Writing an angry note to political leaders is an American tradition as old as the republic itself. That's why time and again, the Supreme Court has upheld that cherished freedom, warning against attempts to label heated political rhetoric as dangerous or unprotected.
