A new lawsuit alleges that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using artificial intelligence to identify bystanders who are recording federal immigration enforcement operations and then adding those people to a secret database.
Two women from Maine filed the lawsuit and claim that federal agents threatened to add them to a database of domestic terrorists because they were legally recording the agents.
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In a video included in the lawsuit, a woman behind the camera tells a federal immigration agent that "it's not illegal to record" and questions why he is apparently documenting her information. The agent responds by saying "we have a nice little database. And now you're considered a domestic terrorist, so have fun with that."
That entire encounter is detailed in the lawsuit along with another where the plaintiff was told "if you keep coming to things like this, you are going to be on a domestic terrorist watch list. Then we're going to come to your house later tonight."
Both plaintiffs in the case allege the federal agents retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment right to observe and protest against federal immigration operations.
The Department of Homeland Security has denied that any such database exists, but did say that the agency monitors and investigates any threats. However, what constitutes a threat remains uncertain as there have been numerous cases where people who were protesting the Trump administration's immigration crackdown were referred to by federal officials as "domestic terrorists" even if they weren't doing anything illegal.
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Scripps News spoke with one organizer from Minneapolis and she said people are aware that their personal information is being tracked by the federal government.
"There have been reports here in Minneapolis of federal agents stopping someone and calling them by name," said Irna Landrum, senior campaigner on AI at Kairos Fellows. "... It absolutely creates this sense that I'm being watched, I'm being monitored. And I'm being watched and monitored as a potential threat and being named as a potential threat by my own government."
The lawsuit comes as the DHS is rapidly expanding on its use of AI-powered surveillance tools, including technology that lets agents scan faces, license plates and social media posts in real time. It's cause for concern considering what was originally meant for tracking non-citizens is now also being used to monitor U.S. citizens, including protesters and bystanders, without a warrant.
