A federal judge ruled a Brown County man and Chicago woman are likely to succeed in their First Amendment lawsuit alleging the federal government pressured Apple and Facebook to remove platforms tracking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Illinois, alleges former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem censored platform creators by threatening Apple and Facebook to remove applications that document or “doxx” ICE operations.
U.S. District Court Judge Jorge L. Alonso granted a preliminary injunction late Friday evening for Kassandra Rosado and the Kreisau Group, finding the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE, filed the lawsuit in February.
Judge finds evidence of government censorshipApple removed Eyes Up ICE — a mobile application created by Brown County resident Mark Hodges through his company, the Kreisau Group — and several other ICE trackers from the App Store in October.
Days later, Facebook removed Rosado’s Facebook group documenting ICE activity in Chicago.
In both cases, Alonso found Apple and Facebook independently determined the platforms met content requirements until defendants contacted the companies.
Apple informed Hodges of its decision after receiving “information” from “law enforcement” indicating the application violated the company’s guidelines for “defamatory, discriminatory or mean-spirited content,” according to the ruling.
The judge found Apple made no mention of these alleged violations when it independently reviewed and approved Eyes Up ICE months earlier, flagging only “unrelated” issues the Kreisau Group resolved.
He cites public statements Bondi and Noem made last October, suggesting the Department of Justice pressured companies to remove platforms suspected of “doxxing” ICE agents as evidence of possible government censorship.
“They reached out to Facebook and Apple and demanded, rather than requested, that Facebook and Apple censor Plaintiff’s speech,” Alonso wrote.
The federal government “intimated that Facebook and Apple may be subject to prosecution for failing to comply,” he concluded.
“FIRE is extremely encouraged by this ruling,” senior attorney Colin McDonnell said in a statement Saturday. “Even though it’s not the end of the case, it bodes well for the future of our legal fight to ensure that the First Amendment protects the right to discuss, record and criticize what law enforcement does in public.”
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