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Privacy groups are pushing Big Tech to notify users about federal surveillance after anonymous ICE critics were exposed.By Mike Ludwig
This article was originally published by Truthout
Privacy groups are pushing Big Tech to notify users about federal surveillance after anonymous ICE critics were exposed.
Lawmakers and privacy advocates are demanding answers from the Trump administration about its weaponization of digital tools and popular web platforms to spy on critics and activists. Targets have included a student who attended a pro-Palestine protest and anonymous web users posting about President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown, but the administration’s secret systems of surveillance likely cast a wide net.
Privacy groups are also making demands of Big Tech firms such as Meta and Google, which have come under pressure from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hand over identifying information for anonymous users. Officials from the agency have wielded legally dubious administrative subpoenas — meant to be used to determine duties on imported products — in an attempt to compel the information.
The efforts to expose domestic spying under the Trump administration offer a preview of how Democrats could yield subpoena power next year if voters hand them the House majority in November. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Democrat from Illinois who was appointed ranking member of the cybersecurity subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security this week, said emerging technologies are being used to violate civil rights and target Trump’s critics.
“The Trump-Miller regime is weaponizing the government and abusing every authority to persecute anyone whom they perceive as an enemy,” Ramirez told Truthout in a text on April 29, referencing Stephen Miller, the anti-immigrant extremist serving as a top adviser to Trump. “And fascism always requires a public enemy.”
ICE Targets Personal Information of Trump Critics
On April 17, attorneys with the Civil Liberties Defense Center filed a motion in federal court to throw out a grand jury subpoena that Reddit received from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demanding “extensive private information” about an anonymous user. The user had posted statements critical of ICE and other political content on Reddit, a popular online discussion forum.
Reddit originally received an administrative subpoena from an ICE official in Virginia demanding the user’s personal information, The Intercept first reported earlier this month. The Civil Liberties Defense Center, representing the Reddit user, immediately filed a motion against the summons. Rather than defend the original administrative subpoena in court, ICE switched tactics in early April and demanded that Reddit attorneys appear before a secret grand jury, according to organization’s executive director Lauren Regan.
“First the government is filing these administrative summonses in hopes that the users won’t know what do to or how to challenge them in court, and as soon as lawyers step in litigating the lawfulness of these subpoenas and summonses, the administration is withdrawing them so there isn’t a court ruling against them in regard to these shenanigans,” Regan said in a recent interview with Truthout.
On April 22, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued DHS for the release of public records detailing the use of administrative subpoenas by ICE to try and unmask the administration’s online critics. So far, what little is publicly known about the practice comes from Regan and other civil liberties attorneys who have defended web users against ICE’s subpoenas.
In at least six cases reported in 2025, ICE claimed users were “doxxing” immigration agents by documenting their activity online, part of a broader crowd-sourcing movement that works to publicly identify masked agents who make violent arrests and alert communities about their presence. Attorneys for the users argue that social media posts and websites such as StopICE.net are protected by the First Amendment.
According to the EFF complaint, the administrative subpoenas are issued under an obscure 1930 tariff law that empowers customs officials to file summonses for “determining liability for customs duties, taxes, fees, and other monetary obligations arising from the importation of merchandise into the United States.”
However, since early 2025, DHS and ICE have issued subpoenas under the 1930 law to web platforms including Google, Meta, Reddit, and Discord demanding names, email addresses, and IP addresses linked to anonymous accounts, the complaint alleges. The lawsuit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act.
EFF Deputy Legal Director Aaron Mackey said DHS should not claim legal authority to unmask online critics and then run away from court when attorneys for the same users challenge the administrative subpoenas.
“We want to know if there has been any internal audit, and if the office of legal counsel has actually looked at any of this and said, ‘yes this is legal,’ and what are the legal reasons,” Mackey said in an interview on April 29.
Targeted via Google After 5 Minutes at a Protest
As a Ph.D. candidate with a British passport studying at Cornell University in upstate New York, Amandla Thomas-Johnsonthought he would be “the last person to be hunted down by the immigration authorities.” However, Thomas-Johnsonis Black and attended a pro-Palestine protest on campus in October 2024 as pro-Israel groups used a mix of doxxing, public threats, and financial pressure to push university leaders to punish anti-genocide activists as campus protests spread nationwide.
Thomas-Johnsonsaid he spent only five minutes at the protest but was banned from campus shortly after. When Trump returned to office in January 2025, Thomas-Johnson went into hiding at a professor’s rural home. Three months later, after a friend was detained at an airport in Florida and questioned about his whereabouts, Thomas-Johnsonself-deported to Canada before fleeing to Switzerland.
“I did not return to the UK as reports that pro-Palestine journalists had been arrested there made me fearful,” Thomas-Johnsonwrote in October 2025. “I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my ordeal.”
After a few weeks in Switzerland, Thomas-Johnsonreceived an email from Google informing him that the company had revealed his personal information to DHS. At first, he was not alarmed because an associate, Momodou Taal, had received similar emails from Google and Facebook notifying him that the U.S. government had requested personal information. After Taal challenged the requests — administrative subpoenas likely filed under the 1930 tariff law — law enforcement eventually withdrew them and Taal’s data reportedly remained private.
“This is the standard playbook for authoritarianism I think — intimidation of the people, and making the people live in fear,” Regan said. “Making them think that if they critique the government or have beliefs contrary to the current regime in power, then somewhere they will be threatened and targeted.”
During Trump’s first administration, tech companies routinely fought federal subpoenas on behalf of their users who were targeted for protected speech, according to The Intercept. However, in Thomas-Johnson’s case, Google released personal information to DHS before notifying him and providing time to challenge the request in court.
“My data was handed over without warning — at the request of an administration targeting students engaged in protected political speech,” Thomas-Johnson wrote for EFF on April 14.
For nearly a decade, Google has promised billions of users that it will notify them before disclosing their personal data to law enforcement — and the company has done so many times, according to EFF. On Google’s Privacy & Terms page, the company pledges that, “When we receive a request from a government agency, we send an email to the user account before disclosing information.” However, the group says that promise was broken in Thomas-Johnson’s case.
On April 14, EFF sent complaints on behalf of Thomas-Johnson to the attorneys general of California and New York requesting they investigate Google for deceptive trade practices.
“Google should answer the question: How many other times has it broken its promise to users?” EFF Senior Staff Attorney F. Mario Trujillo said in a statement on April 14. “Advance notice is especially important now, when agencies like ICE are unconstitutionally targeting users for First Amendment-protected activity.”
In an email, a Google spokesperson said all subpoenas undergo a review process designed to protect user privacy while also meeting legal obligations.
“We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance,” the spokesperson said. “We push back against those that are overbroad, including objecting to some entirely.”
Mackey said EFF is also suing DHS for more information on the practice, but Congress must also provide oversight and accountability. Lawmakers must use their own subpoena power to determine the extent of surveillance under Trump.
Democrats Demand Answers About Israeli Spyware
The lawsuit came as Democrats in Congress continue to press DHS for details about domestic surveillance. ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, acknowledged earlier this month that the agency is deploying Israeli spyware that can intercept encrypted messages, as well as advanced data tools that monitor smartphones and social media to enforce Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The admission came several months after House Democrats Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), Shontel Brown (Ohio), and Yassamin Ansari (Arizona) sent a letter to DHS demanding information on the department’s use of foreign spyware.
The lawmakers had requested information about Graphite, a spyware program produced by the Israeli firm Paragon Solutions that can covertly access encrypted messages, photos, and location data on smart devices. In an April 3 joint statement, the lawmakers said Lyons acknowledged that ICE is using a “specific tool” but did not name Graphite and “failed to provide the documentation and evidence requested by Congress to verify what safeguards, standards, and oversight mechanisms are actually in place.”
“They are moving forward with invasive spyware technology inside the United States, and instead of answering the serious constitutional and civil rights concerns that we raised, DHS is asking the public to accept vague assurances and fear-based justifications,” Representative Lee said.
Lee added that the people most at risk — including immigrants, Black and Brown people, journalists, and anyone speaking against the government — deserve more from ICE, an agency with “a long record of overreach and abuse.”
“Constitutional rights do not disappear because this administration wants more surveillance power, and fear tactics cannot be used as a way to sidestep accountability, privacy, and due process,” Lee said, adding that she will continue to fight for transparency.
Transparency may be difficult to achieve while the GOP controls Congress, but Representative Ramirez said more oversight could come if the balance of power changes after the midterms. Ramirez said she is also looking at oversight of consumer technology, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which have been used to identify and record unsuspecting people in public.
“We must be clear that giving our rights away won’t ensure our security,” Ramirez said. “That’s why we must — through oversight, policy, and regulation — take away every weapon fascists would wield against us.”
This article was originally published by Truthout and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines.
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