When two Americans were killed by federal agents during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis this year, David Streever was filled with outrage. On Jan. 26, the Upstate New York resident wrote a brief, caustic email to Todd M. Lyons, then acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Streever called Lyons a “monstrous human being” and “America’s Reinhard Heydrich,” a reference to a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany who oversaw
the regime’s secret police. He says he never dreamed the note would lead to a knock on his own door.
About five months later, Department of Homeland Security agents came to Streever’s house in Rochester, New York, according to
a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court. Streever wasn’t home, but DHS tracked him to a hotel in New York City where he and his 7-year-old daughter were staying overnight after returning from a trip to Finland.
Agents told the hotel front desk they were looking for him, left repeated voicemails and sought to have him sign an
unusual warning notice saying his email could be a crime.
In his lawsuit against DHS officials, Streever says the department’s actions violate the First Amendment, which broadly protects freedom of speech and individual expression.
“Americans have a clear right to criticize government officials,” said JT Morris, deputy director of litigation at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the nonprofit group representing Streever.
“When federal agents come to your door and ask you to stop engaging in political speech,” Morris said, it “is an act of intimidation that the Constitution doesn’t tolerate.”
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