WHAT’S THE ISSUE?
Hagens Berman has joined national legal non-profit Democracy Forward in filing a lawsuit challenging the Trump-Vance administration’s alleged unlawful surveillance of those who peacefully observe and document federal immigration enforcement. The lawsuit states that in the face of dramatically increased immigration enforcement, millions of Americans have lawfully exercised their First Amendment right to protest. In response, the lawsuit alleges that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) adopted a secret Protester Surveillance Policy enabling its agents to first collect records on Americans engaging in First Amendment activity and maintain those records in DHS systems, where they can be used to retaliate against those Americans. This violates citizens’ rights under the Privacy Act and their basic Constitutional rights.
ALLEGEDLY UNLAWFUL GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
According to the lawsuit, in recent months, thousands of Americans have gathered to peacefully protest immigration enforcement and to mourn the deaths of members of their own communities, including Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Beginning in 2025, DHS allegedly deployed a dragnet of drones, body cams, face-scanning apps, license-plate scanners, and camera phones to, as one memo instructed, “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form.”
In Maine, DHS agents told multiple observers they were being added to a database of “domestic terrorists,” according to the lawsuit. In Chicago, agents allegedly used facial-recognition scans on members of the public. Across the country, DHS agents have approached observers and addressed them by their full names, even though those observers never identified themselves to the agents or showed them any form of identification. The lawsuit’s three named plaintiffs were allegedly recorded and retaliated against by DHS following peaceful legal observation of DHS agents, including one incident in which agents surrounded a plaintiff’s car and demanded her ID before allowing her to leave.
“It’s bad enough that DHS publicly collected information on Americans engaged in lawful First Amendment exercise,” the lawsuit states. “But worse, DHS also decided to maintain the information in one or more of its systems, enabling it to later retaliate against observers and protestors—including by cancelling Trusted Traveler status (which includes TSA Precheck and Global Entry), a process that is implemented through the continuous monitoring of information on participants through DHS’s omnibus system of records, the Automated Targeting System.”
WHAT ARE PROTESTERS’ RIGHTS UNDER THE PRIVACY ACT?
Federal law prohibits each one of these actions. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies are flatly forbidden from collecting personally identifying information on individuals simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Privacy Act also forbids an agency from maintaining personally identifying records unless it is “relevant and necessary to accomplish” a required agency purpose. The First Amendment prohibits the government from retaliating against Americans for engaging in a constitutionally protected activity.
RESISTANCE VERSUS TYRANNY
Hagens Berman believes in upholding the rights of individuals under the Constitution. The lawsuit claims that DHS’s secret surveillance violates the Privacy Act, and that DHS has retaliated against individual plaintiffs for exercising their First Amendment rights. The firm asks the court to declare DHS’s Protester Surveillance Policy illegal, vacate it and block DHS from acting in accordance with it.
TRUMP PRO BONO TASK FORCE
In March 2025, Hagens Berman joined the effort to stop the blatantly illegal and dangerous acts undertaken by the Trump administration. Despite the risk of making the firm a target, and after due deliberation and consideration of all views, the firm committed the efforts of several attorneys from across the country to vigilantly defend the public’s constitutional rights through the law. Our firm remains dedicated to justice and continues to pursue pro bono opportunities to challenge what it views as the Trump administration’s unlawful acts. Read more about the firm’s pro bono task force to support the rule of law »
