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The Trump administration last month made explicit what it has been implying for months, namely that it considers videotaping ICE raids to be illegal and intends to go after those who do it. The administration is, effectively, preparing to defy current law: Federal courts have overwhelmingly held that the First Amendment protects the right to record police activity in public spaces.
Writing in The American Prospect, Matthew Cunningham-Cook reports that in response to an inquiry from the Center for Media and Democracy, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said, “Videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online is doxing our agents” and added: “We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law.”
Numerous reports from raid scenes suggest that ICE agents are already informally “enforcing” their disapproval of at-the-scene recording by shoving, beating and even shooting (with less lethal munitions) journalists, freelance photographers, and others with cellphone cameras. Bad things seem to happen especially often when persons who make a practice of filming raids are themselves noncitizens.
If you buy the DHS line, the officers who injured journalists after seeing them recording may have been acting in, well, self-defense. Cunningham-Cook cites a press briefing in July at which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stated that “violence” is “anything that threatens [DHS agents] and their safety. It is doxing them. It is videotaping them where they’re at.” If we’re using Noem’s standard, maybe the officers were just responding with counterviolence to the violence of being filmed.
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