Wall Street Journal investigation reveals ICE's internal-affairs office ran surveillance operation to unmask hundreds of online critics

A Wall Street Journal investigation published August 3, 2026 found that ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility -- traditionally the agency's internal- affairs bureau, tasked with investigating wrongdoing by ICE's own agents -- has instead built a round-the-clock operation to identify and track online critics of the agency. The office has issued hundreds of administrative and grand jury subpoenas to social media companies to unmask anonymous posters, and its "threat initiative" calls for monitoring nearly 20 platforms, including Reddit, Discord, Snapchat, and LinkedIn, cross-referencing public records such as DMV files and police reports to identify posters and map their relationships. The office opened at least 131 doxxing or threat investigations between January 2025 and March 2026, according to a court declaration cited by the Journal. ICE spending on surveillance technology and outside contractors rose 57 percent year over year to $258 million during the reporting period, and the pace of subpoenas for information on online critics increased after an $8 million contract took effect between the office and a software firm subcontracted to global consultancy Guidehouse.

The Journal identified ten people who fought subpoenas seeking to unmask them; judges upheld four grand jury subpoenas, no charges have been filed in any of the ten cases, and the government abandoned three of them outright. In one instance, DHS sent administrative subpoenas to Reddit for the identities of 11 accounts that had posted "content critical of federal actions"; Reddit determined the posts were protected First Amendment activity, objected to each request, and the government withdrew them. Both previously reported cases from upstate New York -- including a formal warning notice issued to private citizen David Streever after he emailed then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons criticizing an enforcement operation, which this archive separately recorded -- are, per the Journal's reporting, products of this same Office of Professional Responsibility surveillance program. Streever has since filed a First Amendment lawsuit. Civil-rights attorney Lauren Regan, who has represented people investigated over their online speech, told the Journal: "As far as I can tell, all of this is about people saying naughty things about ICE and immigration enforcement. Nothing that comes close to true threats."