DHS: videotaping ICE is “violence”
You have noticed the drip, drip, drip of authoritarianism since Donald Trump occupied the White House again in January. Democracy’s death by a thousand cuts, to employ another metaphor.
Abductions and deportations by secret police; efforts to suppress the press and universities; the souring of relations with international allies; blatant Trump family corruption; “emergencies” that aren’t; the gutting of federal agencies; troops in the streets of Los Angeles and D.C.; Orwellian doublespeak from administration spokespeople; and open defiance of the courts and the Constitution; etc. Basically, our would-be dictator operates as if he is the law.
Thought crimes are next. Or are they already here? You may not have noticed in the gusher of lawlessness from the Trump administration. The Freedom of the Press Foundation explains:
It was bad enough when government officials claimed that journalists incite violence by reporting. But now, they’re accusing reporters of actually committing violence.
The supposed violence by reporters? Recording videos. At least three times recently, a government official or lawyer has argued that simply recording law enforcement or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers is a form of violence.
MAGA Republicans are pouring motor oil down a slippery slope toward prosecuting exercise of the First Amendment.
In July, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem proclaimed during a news conference following ICE raids on California farms that videotaping ICE agents performing operations is “violence.” Noem lumped video recordings in with other forms of actual violence, like throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails at agents.
Then, in August, Justice Department lawyer Sean Skedzielewski argued, during a court hearing over the Los Angeles Police Department’s mistreatment of journalists covering protests, that videotaping law enforcement officers “can be used for violence.” He claimed recording is violent because it can reveal officers’ identities, leading to harassment, and can encourage more protesters to join the fray.
Also in August, the government applied similar logic as it fought against the release of Mario Guevara, the only journalist in U.S. custody after being arrested for newsgathering. Guevara, who is originally from El Salvador, was detained while covering a protest in Georgia and turned over to ICE for deportation. In a bond hearing before an immigration court in July, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the government argued that Guevara’s recording and livestreaming of law enforcement “presents a safety threat.”
The Center for Media and Democracy adds:
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that “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.”
Also notice also ICE agents bumping or brushing back or having incidental contact with protesters and then alleging that the contact constitutes a felonious assault on the officer by the protester. These are harassment arrests typically dismissed by courts so far. But not until after the detaining and jailing of residents who oppose masked agents often violently disappearing their neighbors off the streets or from courthouse hallways. It is purposeful.
Constitutionally protected videotaping of ICE actions is on its way to being redefined as “assault” as well:
That expansive definition is likely driving the department’s claims of escalating “violence” against ICE agents, which purportedly rose from an alleged 700% increase on July 11, to 830% four days later, and to 1000% by August 7. When asked by CMD to provide concrete examples of violent assaults on personnel, the DHS spokesperson pointed to an incident of trash dumped on an ICE agent’s lawn and a sign with a profanity directed at an agent by name.
Peter Eliasberg, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California attorney representing journalists and observers who were attacked and injured by DHS officers in Los Angeles, told CMD that this definition bears “no relationship to what violence actually is. I don’t think there’s any evidence that… there is truth [in] those numbers.”
Meanwhile, DHS agents have repeatedly resorted to violence, assaulting and injuring journalists and legal observers doing their jobs. The lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Press Club, the NewsGuild–Communications Workers of America, and individual plaintiffs alleges that DHS agents used targeted, unchecked, and officially sanctioned violence against them, including “smashing the hands of people recording events with their phones” and shooting reporters with “less lethal” munitions.
But that too is purposeful.
DHS appears to “fundamentally misunderstand the First Amendment,” said David Cole, a First Amendment scholar and law professor at Georgetown. “The First Amendment is designed above all to give citizens the right to criticize and report on government abuse. There’s not only no law against recording law enforcement officers doing their job, but it is a First Amendment protected right to do so in public in ways that don’t interfere with them carrying out their tasks. It reflects a failure [on the part of] the administration to understand the central role that watchdogs play in our democracy [and any] attempt to restrict [that] goes against the First Amendment.”
But there is no First Amendment in an autocracy. Nor separation of powers in a dictatorship.
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I don’t know how bad this will get. I don’t know if we’ll get to vote in 2026. But I do know that yelling at your TV, clicktivism and calling your congressman won’t stop it. There are more No Kings rallies planned for Oct. 18, but that’s five weeks away, a lifetime in Trump years. Your resistance, like the man on the streetcorner above, must be public and visible. If you believe the world is on fire, act like it, or else why would your less informed neighbors get off their couches and join you?
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