Latest news with #ProtectingLawEnforcementfromDoxxingAct
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
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Marsha Blackburn Wants Secret Police
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R–Tenn.) introduced a bill Wednesday that would make it a federal felony punishable by up to five years in prison to publish the name of a federal law enforcement officer with the intent to obstruct an investigation. Blackburn unveiled the "Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act" as masked Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are carrying out nationwide raids under the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts. These raids have sparked public protests and pushback from local officials, including Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell, who has released records of local police interactions with ICE that include the names of ICE agents. "Blue city mayors are doing everything they can to obstruct the Trump administration's efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens," Blackburn said in a press release. "Just last week, Nashville Mayor O'Connell and his office doxxed federal law enforcement officers after the Trump administration worked with Tennessee Highway Patrol to arrest criminal illegal aliens." However, press freedom groups say the bill raises serious First Amendment concerns. "Public oversight and accountability relies on accurate news about law enforcement activity," Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy at the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press tells Reason. "The bill is dangerously overbroad and could be used to chill newsgathering and reporting that is clearly in the public interest." Government employees, including law enforcement officers, generally don't have the presumption of privacy when it comes to information such as their names, salaries, and business conducted in public. Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped police and politicians from accusing people of "doxxing" officers for releasing public information. Last month, ICE agents stormed a house in Irvine, California, executing a search warrant for a man accused of putting up flyers around Los Angeles with photos, names, and phone numbers of several ICE agents operating in the area. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment from Reason to state what law the man was accused of violating. While the requirement in Blackburn's proposed law for an intent to obstruct an investigation would appear to provide some safeguard against abuse, Blackburn and other Republicans' comments make clear that their goal is to insulate ICE from transparency. When asked by reporters on Friday if he was OK with ICE agents not identifying themselves, House Speaker Mike Johnson responded, "Why, so they can target them? So they can put names and faces online and dox them? That's what these activists do." What Blackburn and Johnson's comments ignore is that an anonymous police force is an unaccountable police force. For example, when New York City's Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) attempted to investigate the hundreds of complaints of police brutality and misconduct during the 2020 George Floyd protests, it was forced to close a third of the cases because it couldn't identify the officers involved. The CCRB noted that it faced "unprecedented challenges in investigating these complaints" due to officers covering their names and badge numbers, failing to turn on their body-worn cameras, and failing to file reports. Of course, it's already functionally impossible to sue a federal law enforcement officer for a civil rights violation thanks to the Supreme Court's evisceration of the Bivens doctrine, but the normalization of anonymous federal agents will further immunize them from other forms of oversight such as media, inspector general, and congressional investigations. There are already laws on the books to handle those who threaten federal officers or interfere in investigations. It's essential for government transparency, public trust, and the rule of law that the officials dictating and enforcing public policies can be identified by media outlets and citizens without fear of retribution. The post Marsha Blackburn Wants Secret Police appeared first on
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sen. Marsha Blackburn introduces bill making it illegal to 'dox' federal law enforcement
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has introduced legislation making it illegal to 'dox' federal law enforcement officials — a direct response to a spreadsheet published by Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell's office detailing city departments' recent communications with federal immigration agents. Blackburn announced that she'd filed the 'Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act' on June 4, explicitly naming O'Connell as the impetus. O'Connell, a few weeks earlier, had amended an existing executive order requiring city departments to report communications regarding federal immigration enforcement on a tighter timeline as part of a broader response to a weeklong U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Nashville. Even in its original version, the executive order included a provision that those communications be posted online for transparency. When O'Connell's office posted that list most recently in late May, the spreadsheet originally included the names of some officials who called. Those names have since been removed from the version of the spreadsheet posted online. 'My 'Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act' would make this illegal and hold blue city mayors accountable for obstructing enforcement of our immigration laws by putting law enforcement officers in harm's way,' Blackburn said in a news release announcing the bill. Per the release, Blackburn's legislation would make it illegal to 'publish the name of a federal law enforcement officer with the intent to obstruct a criminal investigation or immigration operation.' An individual found guilty of doing so would face a fine and imprisonment of five years. Typically, "doxxing" refers to the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet, like their home addresses, private contact information and names of family members. As for the public availability of law enforcement officers' names, they are not typically considered private information. O'Connell's response to the ICE operation sparked outcry from Blackburn even before she filed the bill. She decried O'Connell for 'doxxing' federal law enforcement agents on social media May 28. Days later, she called for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate O'Connell's purported 'obstruction' of immigration enforcement operations in Nashville. O'Connell's already under investigation by a pair of congressional committees, prompted by a call from U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles that Blackburn also supported. Republican Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton called for O'Connell to rescind his executive order and "return to normal communications with state and federal authorities" in a statement posted to his social media accounts on June 5. "This order has jeopardized the safety of federal and state agents to the extent that individuals are harassing and interfering in the lawful duty of these agents," Sexton's statement read. He did not provide examples of interference. "While Metro has refused to assist federal agents with ICE, they decided to escalate it by forcing all employees to act as big brother." O'Connell, for his part, has called on federal officials to release the names and charges of the nearly 200 undocumented immigrants detained in Nashville as part of the May ICE operation. To date, only a few of those individuals have been identified, and an ICE spokesperson has previously said about half of the group arrested had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@ Get Davidson County news delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Sen. Blackburn introduces bill criminalizing 'doxxing' law enforcement
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democrats are calling for ICE agents to lose their masks and have identities released. DHS says no way
The Trump administration and Democrats are locked in a fierce argument over whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should be allowed to continue wearing masks while conducting operations. National and local Democratic leaders, as well as immigrant advocates, have criticized the practice, comparing the masked immigration agents to figures from repressive fascist and communist regimes of the past. 'This is America. This is not the Soviet Union,' House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Tuesday during a press briefing. 'We're not behind the Iron Curtain. This is not the 1930s. And every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will of course be identified.' The comments, which the White House condemned as 'sick,' came after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents last week to 'secret police.' Meanwhile, Virginia U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine wrote last month to immigration officials, arguing mask use violates Homeland Security regulations and puts 'everyone at risk – the targeted individuals, the ICE officers and agents, and bystanders who may misunderstand what is happening and may attempt to intervene.' The government has insisted such disguises are vital, given what the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday was a 413 percent spike in assaults against immigration agents. 'When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by known and suspected gang members, murders, and rapists,' the department wrote in a statement on X. Earlier this week, acting ICE director Todd Lyons also defended the practice. 'I'm sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I'm not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line, because people don't like what immigration enforcement is,' he said at a news conference in Massachusetts, where immigration officials have been carrying out large-scale arrest operations over the last month. Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, announced legislation on Wednesday that would make doxxing law enforcement illegal. 'Blue city mayors are doing everything they can to obstruct the Trump administration's efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens,' she told The New York Post of the bill, a seeming reference to Nashville Mayor Freddie O'Connell publicly sharing information last month on the identities of Homeland Security conducting operations in his city. Blackburn's Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act would punish those who name officers 'with the intent to obstruct a criminal investigation or immigration enforcement operation' with up to five years in prison. The second Trump term is not the first to time masked immigration agents have been active, but masked officers have featured prominently in some of this administration's most controversial moments, including the April arrest of Tufts doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, the May shoving match between Democrats and ICE agents at a New Jersey detention center, and ICE arrests at court houses and immigration offices around the country. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has warned that such arrests at sensitive locations by masked agents will prevent people from accessing their legal rights and reduce government oversight. 'These actions will have a chilling effect if people are too terrified of attending court hearings with the knowledge ICE officers may be waiting to detain them at any given moment,' the group wrote in a memo last week. 'This fear tactic robs noncitizen respondents of accessing a fair hearing process.'
