Two Cases Raise Concerns About Civil Liberties in the U.S.

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Temperatures in the city are returning to summertime norms after a steady downpour ended a stretch of extreme heat. Today, we look at two legal cases that test the bounds of free speech when it comes to student privacy and government protest.

For government officials, receiving angry emails from the public is an ordinary occurrence. But what happened in January after the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement received one from a Rochester, N.Y., man was highly unusual: Federal agents showed up at his home and accused him of threatening a public official.

The man, David Streever, 45, was not at home, so they left a warning letter with his wife and later tried to intercept him at a hotel where he was staying with his 7-year-old daughter on his way back from a trip abroad.

A free-speech watchdog filed a lawsuit on Streever’s behalf on Monday, accusing the government of using intimidation to discourage criticism of the Trump administration’s actions, my colleague Matthew Haag writes. The case, and another lawsuit involving a news outlet that published a video from a school lockdown in New Jersey, have raised concerns that federal and local governments are encroaching on individual rights to criticize government and to report newsworthy events.

Criticism or threat?

My colleague David Andreatta reported that Streever, a former journalist who works in the tech industry, sent his email to the ICE official, Todd Lyons, after federal agents shot and killed two demonstrators, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

In the email, Streever called Lyons a “monstrous human being” and likened him to a Nazi security chief who is considered to be a principal architect of the Holocaust.

Adam Steinbaugh, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the organization behind the lawsuit, said the email amounted to a moral condemnation, not a threat.

“This is pleading with a government official to listen to his conscience and warning that his conscience is not going to give him peace in the future,” Steinbaugh said. “That’s a rhetorical appeal. That’s not a threat.”

The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, declined to comment on the case but said it investigated all credible threats against its employees and officers.

Mr. Lyons resigned in May, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

The episode is one of several that have raised concern among free-speech advocates who say that the immigration agency is trying to silence its critics. The lawsuit also cites another episode that occurred the same day. It involved Paigelynne Gonyea, 40, who was working at a voting location in a library during New York’s primary elections when the same agents arrived to give her a warning.

She said that she believed her warning stemmed from a post she made on social media in January calling for Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who shot Good, to be indicted. But a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said Gonyea was targeted because she made a post on social media revealing Ross’s home address.

Under federal law, posting someone’s personal information, commonly known as doxxing, is a felony when done to target certain groups with the intent to threaten, intimidate or commit an act of violence. The protected groups include law enforcement officials, jurors and witnesses.

Student privacy and local news

In New Jersey, an independent news outlet is challenging a judge’s ruling that bars it from reporting further on a lockdown at New Brunswick High School that took place in May. The outlet, New Brunswick Today, had published surveillance footage of officers arresting a tardy 16-year-old 10th grader and taking a BB gun from him as he tried to enter the school, prompting the lockdown.

A state judge issued a temporary restraining order against New Brunswick Today, siding with the local school board. The board had filed a lawsuit against the news outlet, arguing that publishing the footage, in which the student’s face was visible, had violated his privacy rights.

Charlie Kratovil, the editor and founder of New Brunswick Today, did not reveal how he obtained the footage. But the outlet exposed the truth behind an episode that officials had previously described as a routine drill. In a notice to parents, school officials had not mentioned that a gun had been confiscated or that a student had been arrested.

“I don’t see what purpose it serves other than to protect the school district from negative publicity and to infringe on my rights and silence me,” Kratovil said of the judge’s ruling.

Free press organizations and activists say that laws protecting student privacy do not apply to journalists. They have criticized the judge’s use of prior restraint to block journalists from covering a newsworthy event as blatantly unconstitutional.

Jonathan Gaston-Falk, a staff lawyer at the Student Press Law Center, an organization that defends the rights of student journalists, said it was the school district’s responsibility to safeguard the footage. Officials’ failure to do so has left the door open for the 10th grader’s family to file a formal complaint with the Education Department, he said.

“The fact that there was any sort of leak of this video means the school district dropped the ball,” Gaston-Falk said. “The school district would need to answer for that.”

Weather

Today, expect mostly cloudy skies, a chance of showers and temperatures near 76. Cloudy conditions will continue tonight with a low around 66.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until July 23 (Tisha B’Av).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“You have to keep trying new combinations. Sometimes, the flavor may surprise you.” — Jeffrey Wang, co-owner of Not as Bitter, a two-year-old cafe in the East Village, on making banana-flavored beverages.

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METROPOLITAN diary

Small sushi counter

Dear Diary:

One night in December 2012, I slipped into a small sushi counter in the West Village and took a seat.

I’ve always been drawn to Japanese cuisine, to the discipline and restraint it involves. Sitting at the counter, you surrender. The chef sets the pace, and communication is wordless.

And then there is the singular pleasure of being alone in New York. I think it’s the opposite of loneliness. When you’re alone, you can really listen to the city in a way that it sticks to you.

“The ebi is insane,” the man next to me said. He was slim and wearing a black suit and Vans. “Winter is when it’s best.”

We talked about food, the pizza at Lucali and music. We both loved Radiohead.

I told him about moving here from Switzerland, my first year in New York, trying to build something at Eleven Madison Park, trying to find my place.

We exchanged names: Daniel. Daniel.

Near the end of the meal, he mentioned that he was a musician.

What kind of music? I asked.

I play guitar, he said. I write songs. I have a band.

What’s the band called? I asked.

Interpol.

I stopped.

“‘Turn on the Bright Lights’!” I blurted out. At that moment, I had zero cool.

That album carried me through the exact years I had been describing, my first in America. Thinking of it also took me back to Switzerland — to being a teenager, playing bass in my own band, not yet knowing who I was.