WASHINGTON — The federal government has agreed to permanently end its efforts to pressure Apple and Facebook into restricting online platforms that report Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, the free-speech group FIRE said Friday.
Under an agreement resolving a lawsuit FIRE filed in February, the government agreed to make permanent a preliminary injunction a federal court had entered in favor of the plaintiffs. An order by U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso of the Northern District of Illinois says the government “shall take no actions, formal or informal, to demand or pressure” Facebook and Apple to suppress the two platforms.
The platforms are “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland,” a Facebook group created by Kae Rosado, and Eyes Up, an app created by Mark Hodges for sharing videos of ICE operations. Facebook disabled Rosado’s group and Apple removed Eyes Up from its app store after pressure from federal officials, according to the suit.
FIRE sued then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on behalf of Rosado and Hodges, alleging that the government’s pressure on the companies violated their free-speech rights. The court had twice held that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the government violated their First Amendment rights by coercing Facebook and Apple into censoring them, FIRE said.
“The First Amendment protects documenting and criticizing law enforcement, and it is unconstitutional for public officials to coerce private companies like Apple and Facebook into censoring content on the government’s behalf,” FIRE said. Rosado created the Facebook group to inform the public about ICE activity in the Chicago area, and Hodges runs the Kreisau Group, which aims to preserve evidence of government abuses of power.
