Lawsuit: DHS agents may have compiled dossiers on ICE protesters via Palantir — Engadget

In the United States, agents of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit, may have created dossiers on people accused of monitoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents or protesting against them. The data are linked to an ICE operation in the state of Maine in January.

Data in the Palantir system

As Engadget reports, the information became known from partially unsealed court documents. According to the lawsuit, the files may have contained photographs and vehicle license plate numbers. They were allegedly stored in the Investigative Case Management database created by Palantir.

The lawsuit also alleges that DHS agents tracked and intimidated observers and protesters, including by driving past their homes. Some people, according to the plaintiffs, were assigned a label characterizing them as a threat to law enforcement officers and professional protesters.

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Positions of the parties

In one of the cases cited in the lawsuit, an agent allegedly called one of the plaintiffs and suggested that she tell her husband not to do this again, since people who do so may be added to a domestic terrorism watchlist.

The plaintiffs' lawyers said that such a database creates a chilling effect on protesters' rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A DHS representative called the lawsuit baseless and denied the existence of a database that flags and tracks “domestic terrorists.”