OPINION: Why is ICE policing free speech?

Americans of good faith can disagree about the politics and policies of immigration and deportation, or about the role that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have in carrying out those policies. But all Americans can agree, we hope, that there's no place for secret police in this country and that we are granted the inalienable right to speak our hearts and criticize our government. These principles are foundational. With that in mind, we bring you the experience suffered by Paigelynne Gonyea, a Syracuse woman who, in a January social media post, named and criticized the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. Here's what she wrote on Instagram: "The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in broad daylight has been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Minnesota Star Tribune. I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted!" Pretty mild, really, and hardly threatening. Nevertheless, as initially reported by Syracuse.com, Ms. Gonyea says ICE agents visited her as she worked at a polling place open for last week's primaries. More than six months after her initial post, two officers gave Ms. Gonyea a written notice stating that she may have violated federal laws forbidding the distribution of personal information about federal officers, she said. Later, the Department of Homeland Security said Ms. Gonyea had, in a separate post, used Mr. Ross' address. That's a claim Mr. Gonyea denies, saying she did not "doxx" or in any way threaten the officer. Indeed, available evidence suggests Ms. Gonyea merely posted publicly available information about an officer who is paid by taxpayers, is accountable to the public and should have no expectation that his work is confidential. Again, we have public police in this country, not secret ones, and we have a First Amendment right to say what we want about them, including speaking or writing their names. In this particular case, Mr. Ross' identity was so widely reported that we can only presume ICE was piqued at Ms. Gonyea not for her use of the officer's name but for her frequent criticisms of the agency. That perception was furthered by a second incident, also reported by Syracuse.com, in which federal officers tracked down a vacationing man at a New York City hotel to send a similar warning regarding an email he had sent to Todd Lyons, ICE's former acting director. The email was critical, certainly, but not threatening. The obvious question: Why is ICE actively monitoring the social media accounts of ordinary Americans and attempting to use intimidation tactics to quiet them? This isn't the America we know. This isn't the country that Americans will gather to celebrate this weekend. But that America is alive and well in the hearts of people like Ms. Gonyea, who says she won't be silenced and who has declined to take down the Instagram post that got her in such dubious trouble. She says she is defending a First Amendment that needs, more than ever, to be protected. Maybe Americans can agree about that, too.

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