Americans Have the Right to Be Anonymous Online

United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wants to know who is making ICE agents feel bad online. Since an ICE agent shot Renee Nicole Good in the face three times, Noem and the Trump administration have been clear that, to them, the problem isn’t with ICE agents running amok in American cities; it’s all the people documenting ICE activities and sharing them on social media. Noem has said that documenting ICE activity is “violence” and argued that it amounts to harassment.

In an effort to intimidate activists armed with cameras and cell phones, DHS sought to unmask the users behind anonymous accounts posting videos it disapproves of. That effort, particularly its attack on anonymous speech, flies in the face of the First Amendment and American history extending back before the founding of this country. The success of efforts to intimidate and muzzle documentation of ICE activities would encourage misconduct and endanger countless individuals’ rights and safety.

Throughout the revolutionary and founding period of the country, debate was routinely conducted under pen names designed to anonymize (or semi-anonymize) the writers’ identities. Most famously, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay published the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym “Publius,” but literally dozens of other important authors, from Patrick Henry to Noah Webster, did the same. Since then, the Supreme Court has defended the right to anonymity for pamphleteers, door-to-door missionaries, and members of political organizations subject to racist violence.