POLITICS: Free speech groups push back as FBI investigates Signal protest chats – USSA News

A battle is brewing in Minnesota between federal law enforcement and the First Amendment as the FBI opens a criminal investigation into encrypted group chats on the Signal messaging app used by protesters tracking the movement of immigration agents.

FBI director Kash Patel announced the investigation Monday, two days after federal officers shot a protester, 37-year-old Alex Pretti, to death on a Minneapolis street. Pretti’s killing came less than three weeks after another immigration agent killed Renee Macklin Good, 37, amid an aggressive enforcement surge in the Minneapolis area.

Speaking to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson on Monday, Patel said the investigation was a response to social media posts claiming protesters were organizing to impede or harm federal officers.

“We immediately opened up that investigation because that sort of Signal chat being coordinated with individuals — not just locally in Minnesota, but maybe even around the country — if that leads to a break in the federal statute or a violation of some law, then we are going to arrest people,” Patel said. “You cannot create a scenario that illegally entraps and puts law enforcement in harm’s way.” 

But free speech advocates say the investigation is an affront to the First Amendment, part of a larger trend by the Trump administration to silence critics. 

“This investigation appears to be another failure of the administration to distinguish protected speech from criminal conduct,” Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom (FIRE) told Straight Arrow News. “The result will be a predictable chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights by those who oppose the administration’s immigration agenda.”

Patrick G. Eddington, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote on the libertarian think tank’s website that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1999 that government efforts to restrict encrypted communication could equate to an unconstitutional search and could impede an individual’s right to speak anonymously.

But, he wrote, “I suppose it was just a matter of time before a Trump administration official would suggest that the use of public key encryption — protected by the First Amendment — to monitor federal agent misconduct was itself allegedly a crime.”

Right-wing personality prompts investigation 

A social media post by far-right personality Cam Higby, who describes himself as “an America-first independent journalist,” spawned the FBI’s investigation.

“MINNEAPOLIS SIGNAL INFILTRATED,” Higby wrote on X Saturday morning, barely an hour after Pretti’s killing. “I have infiltrated organizational signal groups all around Minneapolis with the sole intention of tracking down federal agents and impeding/assaulting/and obstructing them. BUCKLE UP ALL WILL BE REVEALED.” 

He said he had gone “undercover” in protesters’ group chats and found that they were coordinating efforts to observe immigration agents’ activities. He also said protesters were maintaining a database of the license tags on vehicles used by immigration officers.

Both of his purported revelations had been widely reported.

Higby appeared on Johnson’s podcast before Patel. 

“This is clearly a coordinated infrastructure,” Johnson said, “and we’d like for the feds to take a crack at trying to get rid of this infrastructure the way they approach the mob or cartels or other terrorist networks, right?”

Minutes later, when Patel joined Johnson, he said that “as soon as Higby put that post out, I opened an investigation on it.”

Patel told Johnson the FBI would respect protesters’ constitutional rights, to a point.

“Now, we will balance the First and Second Amendment constantly, but we have to let the community know that we will not tolerate acts of violence and an escalation and a violation of the federal code,” he said. “There has to be a break point, and you’ve seen it broken in Minneapolis time and time again.

The Department of Justice did not respond to SAN’s request for comment.

Terr told SAN that the FBI seems to have little basis for an investigation.

“The First Amendment has narrow exceptions for true threats and speech intended and likely to provoke imminent unlawful action, but the government cannot trigger those exceptions simply by claiming that speech puts officials in harm’s way,” Terr said. “The First Amendment also does not protect criminal conspiracy, but that requires evidence of an agreement to commit a specific crime and a substantial step toward carrying it out. No such evidence appears in the Signal messages that have been made public.” 

Other free speech advocates agreed.

“I got the sense the [Signal chat] group has been organized for purposes that are fully protected by the First Amendment: to observe, to speak and to alert others of possible dangers,” Kevin Goldberg, vice president at the Freedom Forum told the Guardian. “I didn’t see anything that impedes or obstructs justice. The claimed ‘doxing’ of law enforcement is not necessarily illegal.”

Signal users and their privacy rights 

The Signal Foundation, which offers its messaging app for free, is a nonprofit that says it aims to protect freedom of expression. Its app says it allows for secure communication across the globe using open source privacy technology.

Signal did not respond to a request for comment from SAN. It has made no other public statements since Patel announced the investigation.

On its website, Signal says it is subject to lawful court orders, warrants or subpoenas asking for data. However,  it may have very little information about users to turn over. 

“Because everything in Signal is end-to-end encrypted by default, the broad set of personal information that is typically easy to retrieve in other apps simply doesn’t exist on Signal’s servers,” Signal says.

In response to a 2021 subpoena in California, Signal said it does not have access to messages sent through its app or the names of people in group chats. All it could provide, it said, was a timestamp for when an account was created and the last date it was connected to the Signal service.

“Signal has no obligation to assist the FBI unless the government can point to a valid criminal investigation and obtain lawful process, such as a subpoena or warrant, for information the company actually possesses,”  FIRE’s Terr said.

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