Poll Worker Gets a Visit From Feds for 'Doxing' ICE Officer

A poll worker said two federal officers visited her at a voting location during New York's primaries to confront her about a social media post she'd written criticizing the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. Paigelynne Gonyea said the confrontation happened on Tuesday while she was working at a polling place in Syracuse, per the AP. Two officers gave Gonyea a written notice stating she might be in violation of federal laws that prevent publicly posting personal information about federal officers, she said. Gonyea said the warning stemmed from a post she made on social media in January, in which she posted a picture of Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer who shot and killed Good in Minneapolis during anti-ICE demonstrations that month.

In the post, Gonyea wrote: "I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted." Gonyea's post—which she made after Ross had already been identified by the news media—is still up. She said she has no intention of taking it down. "I plan on using this experience to defend and support our First Amendment right," Gonyea said. "[Those] rights definitely need to be protected now more than ever." Homeland Security considered the post "doxing." Gonyea "committed a federal crime by posting the address of an ICE law enforcement officer online" and "if you dox our officers, we will investigate you, and you will be brought to justice," says spokesperson Lauren Bis.

Bis shared a different social media post from the same Gonyea account in which she said Gonyea shared Ross' address; part of the post was redacted. Another worker at the polls on Tuesday recorded the encounter on her phone. The video shows two uniformed people coming into the polling place and talking briefly with Gonyea, who refuses to sign a warning letter. Gonyea later posted the letter on social media. The unsigned letter states that it's from ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, whose primary mission is investigating allegations of misconduct by ICE personnel and contractors.

The poll worker who shot the video, Sheilia Milledge, says workers were shaken by the incident. No voters were present at the time of the confrontation, Gonyea notes. A representative for the New York Attorney General's Office said the office is aware of the situation and is reviewing it, while a rep for Gov. Kathy Hochul's office said they hadn't heard of other similar incidents in the state. Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said if officers are giving residents "a formal complaint about their protected speech, we're in trouble." More here.