A Canadian national who has not entered the United States in more than a decade is suing the Department of Homeland Security and its new secretary, Markwayne Mullin, over what he alleges are violations of his privacy after the agency tried to obtain his location information, activity logs and other online data from Google after he criticized the Trump administration on social media.
According to the lawsuit, DHS violated the customs law that gives the agency the power to request records from businesses and other parties. The agency allegedly sought records from Google after the man, who was not named, posted comments criticizing Trump's immigration crackdown and the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good, two U.S. citizens killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.
"I don't know what the government knows about our client's residence, but it's clear that the government isn't stopping to find out," Michael Perloff, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, told WIRED.
Perloff, who is representing the unnamed man in the lawsuit, argues that the government is using the fact that big tech corporations are based in the U.S. to request information it would not otherwise be able to obtain.
DHS requested the man's location data using a customs summons, a tool typically used to investigate issues related to importing goods and collecting customs duties, WIRED noted.
According to the complaint, Google alerted the man about the request on Feb. 9, despite a request included in the summons "not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time." Court records also indicate the summons did not provide a specific reason for why the government requested the man's location or why he was under investigation.
His lawyers allege the summons was filed because of the man's online comments, which included posts condemning immigration enforcement agents after the killings of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis in January.
In an interview with WIRED, the man said watching immigration raids across the U.S. made him feel the need to do something "that would stand out and be seen by despairing Americans" in an attempt to show them they had support elsewhere.
The man told WIRED that watching members of the Trump administration "smear these two souls as terrorists was absolutely disgusting and enraging. People were being asked to disbelieve our own eyes so that the men responsible for killing two good Americans would go free."
The summons specifically asks for any records and other information related to "History of Account Suspensions or Violations of Terms due to Threatening or Harassing Language." The complaint describes the man's posts as "passionate and even sometimes off-color but never contain threats or incite violence."
According to the outlet, DHS has been using customs summonses and other types of subpoenas to try to identify social media users who continuously criticize the agency's actions. In February, The New York Times reported that Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta had received hundreds of administrative subpoenas over the previous six months. In March, a group of U.S. lawmakers asked tech leaders for data on how many requests their companies had received and how they responded, but it is unclear whether they got an answer, WIRED said.
"There was a long time where the United States government advised other countries on how to protect people within their territory from foreign oppression," Perloff said. "And it is appalling to realize that now other countries may have to do that about us."
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