Federal officials have repeatedly claimed that criticizing immigration officials or identifying officers is unlawful and dangerous, despite clear First Amendment protections for both. Now, the government appears to be taking a disturbing new step: investigating Americans for posting information on social media that originally appeared in news reports.
This tactic allows the government to kill two birds with one stone: censoring individual critics and limiting the reach of the press. If the government can deter people from sharing news reports through threats of investigation or prosecution, it can undermine the public impact of journalism without ever censoring a newsroom directly.
Local news outlet Syracuse.com reported last month that federal agents tracked down a New York woman to demand she remove a social media post that they claimed threatened Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel. Agents confronted the woman, Paigelynne Gonyea, where she worked at a polling place and demanded she sign a form letter stating she could be criminally prosecuted for threatening a federal officer.
Gonyea told Syracuse.com that she believed agents were referring to a January Instagram post “where she named the ICE agent who shot protester Renee Good.” In the post, Gonyea shared a picture of the agent, Jonathan Ross, that The Minnesota Star Tribune used in its news report first identifying him as the shooter.
Gonyea wrote, “BREAKING: The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in broad daylight has been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Minnesota Star Tribune. I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted!”
The Department of Homeland Security later told The Associated Press that Gonyea also posted Ross’ home address, and a spokeswoman shared with the AP reporter a different, redacted social media post purporting to come from Gonyea’s account. But Gonyea denied posting Ross’ address, and DHS has not made the alleged post publicly available. Gonyea also told NPR that agents who came to the polling station had a copy of her Instagram post with the photo of Ross, which does not include his address.
Pretty amazing how the same party has gone from "government is the problem" to "people who disagree with fascism are the problem" -- in my lifetime.