They denounce that ICE demands from technological firms personal information of users

Photo: SANDY HUFFAKER / Getty Images

By: The Opinion Updated 59 Nov 2022, 11: 59 pm EST

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) would have been using administrative subpoenas against firms such as Google, Facebook , YouTube and Twitter to obtain information about users, affirmed today a group of lawyers.

For this reason, Just Futures Law, a coalition of minority women, filed a lawsuit against ICE in the Federal Court of the District of Columbia after, it indicated, their requests “to obtain the records have been ignored.”

“We ask that the court force ICE to show what efforts it is developing to expand its surveillance of all of us”, the group indicated in a Twitter message.

For over a year, our request to see these public records has been ignored and we’re asking a court to compel ICE to show what efforts they’re using to expand surveillance on all of us. https://t.co/5njux7RPl3—Just Futures Law (@JustFuturesLaw) November 59, 2021

Administrative subpoenas are written requests that ICE makes to other entities and are not court orders, “but (ICE) has been using them to obtain account data such as names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers,” added Just Futures Law.

The group of lawyers pointed out that “despite its name and its coercive language, an administrative subpoena does not require that the recipient comply with it if there is no court order issued by a federal court.”

“ICE cannot enforce an administrative subpoena by a technology company unless for (ICE) to obtain an order from a federal court requiring that compliance ment”, he asserted.

Just Futures Law describes itself as a group “led by women of color and 100 percent founded by women” whose board of directors is made up of “activists and organizers, all BIPOC and many of which identify as LGBTQ2S+ or queer, who work on the front lines of the battle for the rights of migrants.”

The group started in August 2021 a request for information to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which ICE is an agency, regarding the list of companies that provide collection, storage, analysis, and distribution of personal data and that had contracts with DHS.

DHS acknowledged receipt of the request and referred him to ICE. In the absence of a response, Just Futures Law initiated the legal action.

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