Unions Sue Trump Administration Over Social Media 'Surveillance' Program
Three labor unions represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the Trump administration on Thursday over a program that is searching the social media posts of visa holders, arguing that the practice violates the First Amendment rights of people legally in the United States.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, asks a judge to block the administration from engaging in “viewpoint-based investigation and surveillance.” It also asks for a court order to purge any records created so far under the administration’s program.
The Trump administration has said it is scouring social media for posts that it deems hostile or threatening and then using that information as a basis to revoke some people’s visas. President Donald Trump announced the basis for the policy in January in an executive order targeting noncitizens in the country who “bear hostile attitudes” or support “threats to our national security,” and the Department of Homeland Security in April said it was screening foreign nationals’ social media activity for antisemitism.
“They’re deploying a variety of automated and AI tools in order to scan and review speech online, at a mass scale that wouldn’t be possible with human review alone,” said Lisa Femia, a staff attorney for the San Francisco-based EFF, a nonprofit focused on digital rights and online civil liberties.