An Indiana man is part of a federal lawsuit claiming that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem coerced Apple and Facebook into removing online platforms spotlighting actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges Bondi and Noem violated First Amendment free speech rights of the platform creators with comments threatening the companies unless they “remove disfavored ICE-related” platforms.
Parties in the lawsuit include Brown County resident Mark Hodges, who said he started the Eyes Up website and app last year through his company Kreisau Group to preserve videos documenting possible abuse of governmental powers.
Lawsuit claims pressure campaign
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Illinois by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, cites statements that Bondi and Noem made in social media posts and to Fox News. The suit claims the comments prompted Apple to remove Eyes Up from its app store and Facebook to disable an “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland” operated by another plaintiff.
“Apple reasonably understood Bondi and Noem’s course of conduct to convey a threat of adverse government action against Apple in order to suppress Kreisau Group’s speech,” the lawsuit said. “Bondi and Noem are not suppressing laudatory speech about ICE’s operations, but only such speech, like with Kreisau Group’s Eyes Up app, that shares information about ICE operations in ways that are critical of those operations or that defendants perceive as such.”
Hodges said Eyes Up has close to 1,000 videos of actions by ICE agents and other law enforcement officers, including some incidents from the Indianapolis area.
“My original goal was simply a tool for lawful civic reporting and it’s something that people find valuable, something that is protected by the Constitution,” Hodges told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “So when the government was pressuring companies to remove it, I essentially had a choice. I could stay quiet and move on, or I could stand up for principle.”
The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately reply Wednesday to a request for comment about the lawsuit.
Government action “silenced” voices
The lawsuit also includes claims that Facebook was pressured to take down the page started by Kae Rosado of Cicero, Illinois, where group members submitted thousands of posts that included photos and videos of ICE activities.
“By censoring our group, the government continues to erode our trust,” Rosado said in a statement released by FIRE. “They silenced not only my voice, but the voices of nearly 100,000 other community members.”
Hodges, who said he grew up on the north side of Indianapolis, said he was surprised Eyes Up became a target of senior Trump administration officials because other apps tracking ICE activities were more high profile.
“I didn’t expect something that was a little bit more niche and had a more archival, more government accountability purpose to be targeted, because it’s clearly protected,” Hodges said. “It’s about ‘do you respond?’ and I chose to stand up rather than sit down.”
FIRE, a nonprofit civil liberties organization that advocates for academic freedom and free speech, also annually surveys college undergraduates nationwide about perceptions of their First Amendment Rights on campuses.
This article was written by Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter Tom Davies.
