From a decision last week in Smith v. Solomon, by Judge André Birotte Jr.:

Plaintiff files the [application] in a case voluntarily dismissed on January 28, 2026. Plaintiff now requests an order directing the “immediate redaction and removal of all personal identifying information (“PII”)—including Plaintiff’s legal name, address, or any identifying data” from PACER, PacerMonitor, CourtListener, any automated third-party docket-aggregation websites, any public-facing pages generated by the Court, or any publicly viewable filings in this matter. Plaintiff argues that the appearance of his full legal name in court documents threatens his safety, privacy, and well-being.

First, Plaintiff asks the Court to redact certain documents pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2. As an initial matter, it is not clear to the Court that any of the information Plaintiff seeks to have redacted falls within the scope of information that may be redacted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2. Moreover, as stated in the Local Rules, “[i]t is the responsibility of the filer to ensure full compliance with the redaction requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2.” Plaintiff himself filed the information at issue without redactions. Thus, the Court cannot retroactively redact any information.

Next, Plaintiff argues the Court has the authority to protect litigants that file cases under pseudonyms. While the Court does have authority to permit a party to file under a pseudonym, the Court will exercise that authority only once a moving party has met their burden pursuant to a motion to use a pseudonym. The “normal presumption in litigation is that parties must use their real names.” To overcome this presumption, a moving party must demonstrate that the “party’s need for anonymity” outweighs the “prejudice to the opposing party and the public’s interest in knowing the party’s identity.” Again, Plaintiff has not filed any motion to file the case under pseudonym nor has he made any argument overcoming the presumption against anonymity in his [application]….

Plaintiff’s [further] argument that his information should be redacted pursuant to the California Safe at Home confidentiality program is also not persuasive. The California Safe at Home program is administered by the California Secretary of State’s Office and offers a substitute mailing address for certain individuals who are in fear for their safety. While the Court recognizes the value of this program and Plaintiff’s membership, he has not provided any explanation as to why this program requires or merits retroactive redaction of documents filed by Plaintiff himself.

Plaintiff’s final argument that redaction is within the Court’s discretion fails for similar reasons. Plaintiff has provided no explanation as to why the Court should exercise its discretion in a manner inapposite to the general presumption against anonymous court filings….

The Court observes that, while it cannot redact these documents, Plaintiff may move to seal portions of the court documents on the record. For any application to be granted, Plaintiff is required to comply with all applicable Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Local Rules, and this Court’s Standing Order. Failure to do so may result in denial of any subsequent applications.

I’ve been following for some time how the California Safe at Home program affects public access to court records, which is especially important when it comes to tracking repeat litigants. (Smith apparently also filed, as a John Doe, an Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit against California Southern University just a few days after filing the now-dropped Smith v. Solomon.) Here’s a slightly modified version of a post I wrote about it in 2021, which is still mostly current (though see also this 2023 follow-up):

The California “Safe at Home Confidential Address Program” provides for special forwarding addresses for people who swear that they are “attempting to escape from actual or threatened domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, or elder or dependent adult abuse,” and need to “establish new names or addresses in order to prevent their assailants or probable assailants from finding them” (and possibly provide some corroborating evidence).

And Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 367.3, enacted in 2019, adds to that:

A protected person who is a party in a civil proceeding may proceed using a pseudonym, either John Doe, Jane Doe, or Doe, for the true name of the protected person and may exclude or redact from all pleadings and documents filed in the action other identifying characteristics of the protected person.

Such litigants must confidentially inform the other parties and the court of their true identity, but the identity may not appear in the court records. No showing is required of any specific reason for pseudonymity, beyond the person’s participation in the Safe at Home program.

Does this mean that a person, just by joining the Safe at Home program, may also retroactively reopen his past cases, and then get them sealed or pseudonymized? Several recent federal decisions, all apparently involving one litigant (a self-described “avid blogger on record sealing expungement, and First Amendment issues”), deal with the subject.

[1.] The cases make clear that § 367.3 isn’t binding in federal courts: A federal court “is bound by Ninth Circuit precedent regarding public access to court records rather than the California Code of Civil Procedure.” “California’s Government Code and Code of Civil Procedure inform the Court’s exercise of [its] power [to determine whether to make information in the record confidential], but they do not bind the Court because they provide procedural protections in dealing with California’s state government and for litigants in California state courts.” (One court seemed open to the possibility that § 367.3 might apply to cases involving California substantive law, but didn’t reach the issue because the case involved only federal law and Nevada law.)

[2.] Even federal courts seem willing to use their discretion to redact street addresses and e-mail addresses of people covered by § 367.3. See here and here.

[3.] But when it comes to pseudonymization, the record is mixed. For instance, from Chaker-Delnero v. Nevada Federal Credit Union, decided by Magistrate Judge Elayna Youchah (D. Nev.):

The Ninth Circuit held that “the identity of the parties in any action, civil or criminal, should not be concealed except in an unusual case, where there is a need for a cloak of anonymity.” When determining whether pseudonymity is necessary, the Court will balance the need to protect a person from injury or harassment against the presumption that the identity of parties is public information. However, Plaintiff fails to explain how redacting information contained within public filings in this case, available throughout this dispute that began in 2006, will protect him from some current or future harm or harassment. Plaintiff has not introduced any additional evidence that he is currently a victim of harassment.

And from Del Nero v. NCO Financial Systems, Inc., decided by Judge Joshua Wolson (E.D. Pa.):

The public’s common law right of access extends to the true names of the parties involved in litigation. Under Third Circuit law, litigants may proceed anonymously in exceptional cases where a reasonable fear of severe harm exists. To make that determination, courts consider a lengthy, non-exhaustive list of factors. Most importantly, sealing Mr. Del Nero’s identity will not shield him from further harassment, and leaving his name on the public docket will not subject him to additional harassment. The people who have targeted Mr. Del Nero know who he is, and their harassment has nothing to do with his involvement in this case. Thus, considering the unique facts of this case, the Court will not permit Mr. Del Nero to use a pseudonym in this matter.

Del Nero v. Allstate Ins. Co., decided by Judge Philip Gutierrez (C.D. Cal.), takes the same view, and adds this about the plaintiff’s attempt to seal the entire case based on the supposed identifying information in the record: “The Court has reviewed the record and Plaintiff’s address does not appear anywhere. Although the twenty-one-year-old complaint mentions the name of the city that Plaintiff lived in at the time, Plaintiff has not shown that the Safe At Home program protects the name of the city he lived in over twenty years ago.”

On the other hand, Doe v. Collectco, Inc., decided by Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts (D. Nev.), rejected the request to “seal the entire record” but allowed pseudonymization:

Here, the Court finds good reason to redact Plaintiff’s address and email and replace his name with “John Doe.” Plaintiff has provided evidence of his participation in the Safe at Home Program, of a threat, and of his connection with a criminal event. And through his motions, Plaintiff seeks to follow the recommendations of the Safe at Home Program, asking—in the alternative to sealing—for the Court to replace his name with “John Doe” and redact his addresses. The Court finds the Southern District of California’s approach to Plaintiffs’ similar requests persuasive ….

And in Doe v. Winn & Sims, decided by Judge Marilyn Huff (S.D. Cal.), the court likewise rejected the “request to seal the entire record” but allowed pseudonymization:

That being said, sufficient cause supports Plaintiff’s supplemental request to redact his name from the docket and allow him to proceed under the pseudonym “John Doe.” The Ninth Circuit allows parties to proceed anonymously when the party’s “need for anonymity” to avoid physical injury outweighs the “prejudice to the opposing party and the public’s interest in knowing the party’s identity.” That is the case here. Additionally, redacting Plaintiff’s name from the record would not prejudice any party because Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the action over fifteen years ago. Further, the public’s interest in this case primarily centers around the underlying nature of the action, a class action against a debt collection service, not Plaintiff’s identity.

But in a different federal case, in Arizona, the judge did completely seal a case on the same litigant’s request.

The nature of this particular litigant’s case-specific justification for pseudonymization—which federal courts require, given that they aren’t bound by the automatic pseudonymization required by the California statute—is hard to piece together, since some of his motions to seal and many of the exhibits accompanying them are themselves sealed. The best I could see from the documents that haven’t been sealed is that “Plaintiff states that he enrolled in the program because he escaped two near death experiences and received several threats.”

[4.] What about in California court? There, § 367.3 does apply, but the record there too is mixed. The same litigant apparently got the San Diego Superior Court to pseudonymize a lawsuit against him by Scott McMillan—as it happens, a lawsuit that indirectly stems in part from an attempt to get McMillan to remove a case mentioning the litigant from a caselaw repository that McMillan operates. The litigant has moved to do the same as to the appeal of that lawsuit (that motion is pending). Likewise, in a case involving an entirely different litigant (B.M.M. v. Baca, Contra Costa County), there was at least a tentative decision allowing pseudonymity on the strength of § 367.3, though there was also another traditional basis for pseudonymity present—plaintiff was alleged to be a sexual assault victim:

Although this action was filled prior to the enactment of CCP §367.3, Plaintiff qualifies as a “protected person” entitled to use a pseudonym since he is an active participant in an address confidentiality program under Gov. Code §6205. In order to comply with the requirements of CCP §367.3, however, Plaintiff shall file and serve “a confidential information form for this purpose that includes the protected person’s name and other identifying characteristics being excluded or redacted.” CCP §367.3(b)(1). The Court will keep the confidential information form confidential as required by that section of the Code.

Even if Plaintiff did not qualify for the protections of this statute, he still would be entitled to the use of a pseudonym given the sensitive, personal nature of the claims made in this suit since they involve allegations of sexual assault. The Court finds that any prejudice to Defendant from the use of the pseudonym is slight. California courts have frequently recognized the appropriateness of the use of a pseudonym in such circumstances.

On the other hand, in another case involving another litigant (Danon v. Johnson, Los Angeles County), there was at least a tentative decision concluding that § 367.3 wouldn’t ordinarily call for retroactive pseudonymization; the court took the view that such requests remain subject to the standard California sealing rules, Cal. R. Ct. 2.550 & 2.551:

Defendant identifies an overriding interest in Plaintiff’s safety or confidentiality that overcomes the right of public access to the records in this proceeding. In support that a substantial probability exists that the overriding interest will be prejudiced without sealing, Defendant attests to being a victim of sexual crimes by the Plaintiff; that Plaintiff has threatened to track and kill Defendant; and that the public would have access to sensitive details of actions committed against her as a matter of public record. The foregoing supports an interest in Plaintiff’s safety or confidentiality that Code of Civil Procedure section 367.3 supports is an overriding interest, by providing that participants are entitled to proceed pseudonymously.

However, in this case, the court does not find that a substantial probability exists the overriding interest will be prejudiced without redaction and supporting sealing the record. Defendant requests retroactive redaction of Defendant’s name and address from numerous documents in this action over the course of approximately eighteen months. “[T]here is no justification for sealing records that contain only facts already known or available to the public.” (H.B. Fuller Co. v. Doe (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th 879, 898.)

Prior to Defendant’s first motion to redact documents, the parties proceeded for over thirteen months, both sides filing documents without anonymity…. As a practical matter, Defendant’s identity has been publicly available in this action for a significant time, as well as in the other action.

Next, the court notes that the primary purpose of the Safe at Home program is to provide a means for the victim to keep a new residence address confidential; and the Defendant has not brought facts to the court’s attention that a new residential address used by Defendant has been disclosed in the filings. These facts undermine Defendant’s argument that Defendant’s interest in safety and confidentiality under the Safe at Home program would be prejudiced if the record is not sealed or redacted, as the information disclosing the Defendant’s identity have been public for at least this time, and there is no showing that a new residential address has been disclosed. (Cf. Savaglio v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 588, 600 (unsealed documents filed before obtaining order to seal inconsistent with intent to enforce rights to obtain sealed records).)

And, returning to the litigant in the federal cases I began with, the California Court of Appeal in April rejected (without detailed explanation) a § 367.3 motion to pseudonymize the litigation in Chaker v. Superior Court.

[5.] And the cases I outline above help show, I think, the value of having people litigate under their own name. Among many other reasons,

• Knowing a party’s name can help writers who cover court cases (like me) see if a lawsuit is part of a broader pattern of litigation, and show readers any patterns that might emerge.
• It can help us figure out whether one of the parties had been found to be a vexatious litigant.
• It can help us figure out whether one of the parties had been adjudicated to have done things that may suggest that he’s not trustworthy.
• It can also help us see if the party had actually been successful in interesting and important past cases (see this First Amendment case and this First Amendment-adjacent case).

And open court records can help courts and opposing parties as well. For instance, in Chaker v. Superior Court, the court apparently searched for past filings by the petitioner to verify certain statements in the petition; that would have been at least much harder if those past filings had been pseudonymized. (It’s possible for a court to keep its files indexed not just by the party’s public identified name, but also by the otherwise sealed actual name, to facilitate such searches by judicial system insiders; but I’m not sure that courts generally do that, and it would be especially difficult if the search requires reviewing files from multiple courts.) Likewise, opposing parties may search for past filings by a party and see whether any are related to the current case, and whether such filings make any admissions or arguments that may be relevant to this case.

The general First Amendment rule, and the general rule under California common law principles, is that parties to lawsuits aren’t pseudonymized unless there’s a real factual basis to justify the pseudonymity (with the substantial exception of cases involving minors):

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require plaintiffs to disclose their names in the instrument they file to commence a lawsuit. Public access to this information is more than a customary procedural formality; First Amendment guarantees are implicated when a court decides to restrict public scrutiny of judicial proceedings.

I’m therefore inclined to say that being in the Safe At Home program shouldn’t by itself be a categorical exception from this rule, and that there should at least be a specific showing of exactly how including the protected party’s name in a court filing—especially in an old case, but even in a new one—would actually create a material risk of harm to the party. In any event, I’m writing a law review article about pseudonymous litigation for an upcoming symposium, and I hope to consider such matters in more detail there.

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From Thursday’s Report and Recommendation in Virgil v. Experian Info. Solutions Inc. by Judge Mark Dinsmore (S.D. Ind.):

[T]his is the third time in the last year that the Undersigned has faced a similar issue. We live in a world of rapid technological advancement. A world in which many individuals have concerns that their jobs may be replaced by increasingly educated machines.

The practice of law is not just a job, it is a profession; a profession with standards and ethical responsibilities. One of the most troubling aspects of these situations is the lack of respect for the profession, and the lack of respect by the offending attorneys for their own personal capabilities, that these situations represent.

One would expect that, when individuals choose this profession, they do so in part because they believe they have some talent for the work. One would expect that, after several years of law school, and more years of practice, those attorneys believe they bring some level of value to their clients beyond that of a machine. Yet these situations represent an abdication of those personal and professional responsibilities to those very machines, which to date have not proven themselves up to the task.

While the Undersigned has long recognized the value of the proper and efficient use of technology, my confidence in the profession and the generations of lawyers who have shaped it prevents me from believing that it can ever be replaced by a machine, no matter how advanced. However, the preservation of that profession requires ever increasing levels of diligence and vigilance from each and every attorney and judge involved in the process. Absent that, someday clients may well be better off accepting advice from a machine as opposed to a careless and inattentive attorney. That is a day the profession of law must not allow to come to pass….

Some more details on the particular transgressions in the case:

At the hearing, Mr. Policchio acknowledged that he was fully responsible for the errors in the [five] briefs that he signed and filed. Mr. Policchio was contrite and did not attempt to excuse his lapses in any way; indeed, his reaction to his own failures is best described as mortification. By way of explanation—but not as an excuse—Mr. Policchio explained that he had grossly underestimated the time that litigating this case against dozens of defendants would require and that he was overwhelmed by the workload. In addition, for monetary reasons, Mr. Policchio had terminated his access to LEXIS, which he was accustomed to using for legal research and cite-checking. The Undersigned believes Mr. Policchio’s representation that he has now taken appropriate measures to ensure that no such lapses will occur in the future.

Mr. Policchio’s response to the position he finds himself in is commendable. However, that does not change the fact that Mr. Policchio finds himself in this position because he failed to take the most basic of actions—checking the citations in his own briefs before filing them. As discussed below, this failure constitutes a failure to satisfy a fundamental obligation of an attorney to his client and to the Court.

{The Court notes that most of the cases cited below involve AI-generated hallucinated citations. Mr. Policchio’s explanation for the errant citations in his briefs does not involve the use of AI. Rather, Mr. Policchio stated that the errors were the result of cutting and pasting from documents Mr. Policchio had saved into a case management program when working on prior cases. It is unclear to the Court how that process could have resulted in non-existent citations being created, but the distinction is irrelevant. The issue in this and the cited cases is not the use of AI to assist in legal work; it is the failure to review the validity and content of the cases cited in briefs filed with the Court.} …

The Undersigned, regrettably, has faced this issue in two other cases in the past year. In the first, monetary sanctions of $6,000 were imposed for three briefs containing hallucinated citations. {The Undersigned recommended a $15,000.00 sanction in that case: $5,000 for each of three briefs that contained non-existent citations. The District Judge reduced the sanction to $6,000, taking into account “the steps [the sanctioned attorney] has taken ‘to educate himself on the responsible use of AI in legal practice’ and adhere to ‘the highest standards of professional conduct moving forward.'”} In the second, the Undersigned has recommended a $7,500 sanction for a brief containing hallucinated citations. The attorney’s objection to that recommendation remains pending…. A multitude of other cases around the country have dealt with the same issue….

Given the distressing number of cases calling out this conduct—citing to cases in court filings without checking the accuracy of the citations—it is clear that the imposition of modest sanctions has failed to act as a deterrent. Accordingly, the Undersigned RECOMMENDS that Mr. Policchio be sanctioned $10,000.00 for his Rule 11 violations in this case. The Court finds that no lesser sanction will serve the necessary deterrent purpose…. In addition, the Undersigned REFERS the matter of Mr. Policchio’s misconduct in this case to the Chief Judge pursuant to Local Rule of Disciplinary Enforcement 2(a) for consideration of any further discipline that may be appropriate. Mr. Policchio is ORDERED to provide a copy of this order to his client, … and to file a certification that he has done so within seven days of the date of this order.

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2/16/1833: Barron v. City of Baltimore decided.

 

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If the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) wants to scrutinize a person or organization, it must meet certain legal standards demonstrating evidence to support suspicion of criminal activity before opening an investigation.

Well, sort of. It turns out that if the feds can’t meet the bar to justify an investigation, they can move ahead by calling their surveillance efforts “assessments.” Then, they can use the assessments to justify full investigations—assuming FBI agents care to follow the rules to begin with, which is not always the case. That’s led to the feds snooping on roughly 1,100 religious figures, journalists, activists, and public officials in recent years.

Assisted by the Cato Institute, about four years ago, Reps. Jamie Raskin (D–Md.) and Nancy Mace (R–S.C.) asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to look into the use and abuse of FBI assessments as end-runs around restrictions on investigative authority. Cato then sued for more information about assessments. The lawsuit proceeds, but the GAO did produce a “for official use only” report intended to be read and destroyed by recipients. Fortunately, Racket News‘s Ryan Lovelace got hold of a copy and wrote it up—and the Cato Institute posted the report to the internet.

Snooping ‘Without a Particular Factual Predication’

According to the GAO, “the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can open assessments with an authorized purpose and clearly defined objective and without a particular factual predication.” That’s a pretty low bar for delving into people’s lives. By contrast, “initiating an investigation requires predication, such as allegations, reports, facts, or circumstances indicative of possible criminal or national security threatening activity.” According to the Attorney General’s Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations, published in 2008, “assessments may be carried out to detect, obtain information about, or prevent or protect against federal crimes or threats to the national security or to collect foreign intelligence.” But they can also be used as a gateway to higher threshold investigations.

Assessments come in several forms. Per the GAO report, Type I/II are targeted at individuals and organizations “relating to activities…constituting violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security.” Type III look at “actual or potential threats within a field office’s area of responsibility,” Type IV at “internal FBI information gaps,” Type V assess targeted individuals’ suitability and credibility as sources, and Type VI seek information regarding foreign intelligence. Type I/II and III are considered the most concerning categories and “the FBI opened approximately 127,000 Type I/II and Type III assessments, comprising about 124,000 Type I/II and 2,800 Type III assessments from calendar year 2018 to 2024.”

Assessments Become Investigations for Half of Cases Targeting Religious and Political Figures

According to the GAO, “about 14 percent of Type I/II assessments were converted into an investigation, which has different requirements to open.” But that conversion rate can go higher when it involves domestic political concerns: “Assessments concerning categories of individuals or organizations specified in the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (e.g., domestic political candidate or religious organization) are designated as sensitive investigative matters (SIM.)” Also included in the SIM category are public officials, political organizations, and journalists. “Among the approximate 1,100 Type I/II assessments with SIM designation, the FBI converted 48 percent into investigations in contrast to 14 percent of all the approximate 124,000 Type I/II assessments into investigations.” In short, “sensitive” assessments are much more likely than others to become full investigations.

Between 2018 and 2024, according to the GAO report, “the FBI designated approximately 1,100 Type I/ll and 100 Type III assessments as SIMs.” Those numbers included members of the news media, political candidates, political organizations and prominent members thereof, religious figures, academics, and (the largest category) public officials.

‘The FBI Can Gather a Dossier on Anyone They Choose’

“Today, the FBI can gather a dossier on anyone they choose. And the amount of information available is so much broader than anything J. Edgar Hoover could have imagined,” Mike German, a former FBI special agent, told Racket News’s Lovelace.

The FBI occasionally reviews its internal performance and its agents’ adherence to guidelines. It’s not surprising to learn that a government agency that found the rules for initiating formal investigations too restrictive sometimes has difficulty coloring within the lines when it comes to the looser standards for assessments. “Of the 988 Type I/II assessments and ‘information only’ incidents reviewed from 2018 through 2024, approximately 5 percent included instances of insufficient authorized purposes and approximately 7 percent included instances of unauthorized investigative methods,” according to the GAO report. Abuses weren’t confined to a few agents or rogue offices. Twenty-four of the 56 FBI field offices reviewed from 2021 to 2024 had at least occasionally used unauthorized investigative methods for “information only” purposes used to decide whether to open assessments.

When reviews found evidence of such abuses, the results weren’t shared with other offices to discourage similar transgressions. That’s a problem because “of the 15 FBI field offices that received a National Security Reviews in 2023, eight received an identical recommendation pertaining to noncompliance with the requirements for an authorized purpose.” FBI agents far and wide aren’t just violating restrictions on assessments, they’re breaking the same rules in the same ways.

Worse, observes the GAO report, “The FBI relies on staff to self-report noncompliance with assessment policy requirements. The FBI noted that self-reporting likely undercounts actual noncompliance, but has not assessed if other tools could identify it.”

Assessments are ‘a Bill of Rights-Related Crisis’

So, we know the FBI created a looser set of rules for scrutinizing the public and it admits that its agents are abusing even those eased restrictions. But that’s probably only the tip of the iceberg.

“What should be obvious now is that the FBI’s misuse of Assessments represents a Bill of Rights-related crisis of far greater proportions than the equally objectionable Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 electronic surveillance power, which is set to expire on April 20, 2026,” warns Patrick G. Eddington, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former CIA analyst. “Now would be an excellent time for Congress to initiate a Church Committee-style review of every single existing surveillance program being employed by executive branch elements.”

The FBI has frequently been caught spying on Americans. It’s obvious the feds are dedicated to continued domestic snooping, even if that requires working around restrictions on their activities.

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In a video of a late-January incident in Minnesota, federal immigration officers sped past an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) observer’s vehicle and swerved to box her in. While the driver called someone and asked them to dial 911, agents approached with weapons drawn and ordered her out of her car. She was taken into custody, only to be released later after an agent received a phone call and diverted to meet the local police chief.

From a citizen’s perspective, the encounter is frightening and tense. From the perspective of someone who spent years wearing a badge and operating within jurisdictional limits, it raises deeper concerns. The issue isn’t that enforcement occurred, but that it appears to have taken place without clear authority, restraint, or purpose.

The video is not an outlier. A growing body of footage shows similar patterns in federal immigration enforcement. Many of these encounters are initiated without a clear legal basis, then escalate rapidly, with agents using force that conflicts with widely accepted law enforcement standards. In one case, an agent punches an individual in the face during an attempted detention, even though the person does not appear to pose an immediate threat. In others, chemical agents are deployed on individuals already pinned to the ground by multiple officers, sometimes sprayed directly into the face at close range. People are being struck by canisters or other objects. Pepper-ball munitions are fired at distances that appear to violate use-of-force protocols.

Modern law enforcement training is explicit about these risks. Force stacking, prolonged prone restraint, and unnecessary escalation with chemical agents are repeatedly identified as dangerous and, in some cases, deadly. These are core principles taught across agencies because their value is clear and unambiguous.

Taken together, these encounters suggest more than isolated judgment errors. They point to a broader pattern of authority being exercised without sufficient legal grounding or professional discipline. 

A federal badge does not confer universal authority or “absolute immunity,” as some wrongly claim. Authority is contextual; it must be tied to a lawful mission, jurisdiction, and conduct. When those elements are absent or unclear, it is not sufficient to dismiss the resulting conduct as an unfortunate mistake. Many of these encounters appear to involve agents operating outside their authority, in ways that should demand discipline and accountability.

In many of these videos, encounters are initiated with U.S. citizens engaged in constitutionally protected activity: filming, speaking, standing nearby, or questioning authority. Those actions do not create detention power. Filming officers is not interference; verbal criticism is not obstruction; refusing an unlawful command is not resisting.

Every police academy teaches the same foundational rule: If you do not have lawful authority to detain, you cannot use force. Escalating force does not create authority where it did not exist before. It cannot be a substitute for legal justification. Yet in these encounters, escalation often appears to come first, followed by claims of resistance that are then used to rationalize the force that followed.

Officers are trained to avoid this dynamic. We are taught about officer-created jeopardy—the idea that officers are responsible for decisions that unnecessarily create danger. Initiating physical contact when disengagement is available, escalating verbal encounters without tactical need, or inserting oneself into a situation without a lawful purpose all increase risk. Courts understand this. They do not freeze the frame at the moment force is applied. They examine how that moment came to be; the totality of the circumstances.

Use-of-force policy also makes clear that officers must de-escalate after control is achieved. Earlier resistance does not justify continued force. Spraying chemical agents into the face of a restrained individual is not de-escalation. Holding someone prone while layering force tools is not decisive enforcement. This is exactly how people get seriously injured or killed.

Any working officer watching these videos should ask a simple question: What would happen if I handled an encounter this way? What if I deployed chemical agents on someone already prone and pinned? What if I escalated without clear detention authority? Would I be praised, or would I be investigated, disciplined, or fired?

The glaring violations and contradictions present in these incidents take a toll on local law enforcement, who must respond to everyday calls against a backdrop of renewed fear and distrust. The public does not distinguish between badges or agencies. They remember the coercion, not the jurisdiction. 

None of this criticism is meant to be anti-law enforcement. It is pro-professionalism. Policing depends on legitimacy. Patterns of agents overstepping, escalating unnecessarily, or treating force as a shortcut to control weaken the legal and moral foundation that allows law enforcement to function at all. Many officers see what is happening and know it is wrong. Now is the time to speak up.

It is not too late for federal immigration agencies to correct course, but doing so will require clear policy enforcement, real accountability, and a recommitment to disciplined, improved training and lawful policing. If the current trajectory continues, they may do irreparable damage not only to public trust, but also to the credibility of law enforcement more broadly.

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In Indonesia’s Aceh province, which enforces strict Islamic sharia law, a woman and her partner were each publicly caned 140 times in a town square for having sex outside of marriage and drinking alcohol. They received 100 lashes for the premarital sex and 40 for the alcohol, marking one of the harshest sentences in the 25 years since sharia was introduced in 2001. The woman collapsed during the flogging and had to be carried on a stretcher to an ambulance afterward. They were among six people punished that day, including a sharia police officer and his female partner who were each caned 23 times for being close to each other in a private place.

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2/15/1790: Justice John Rutledge takes oath.

 

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Are the products you’re buying BPA-free? Nut-free? How about GMO-free? If the European Union (E.U.) has its way, we’ll soon be adding a new label to our shopping list vocabulary: “deforestation-free.”

Far from being another joke at the expense of Europe and its regulatory self-sabotage, this is precisely the aim of the E.U.’s 2023 Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which began applying to large companies last December, and will extend to small and medium-sized firms in June. 

As with many regulations out of Brussels, the intention sounds noble: To stop the cutting down of forests elsewhere in the world, the new rule forces companies selling products in E.U. member states to certify that they didn’t source materials from lands classified as forests before 2020. 

In practice, this means everything from paper products to furniture and even beef will be more expensive for consumers. More hurdles and fewer options for manufacturers necessitate higher prices.

Take IKEA’s best-selling KALLAX shelf unit—a particleboard bookcase made from wood-derived materials covered by the EUDR, which currently retails for around $80. With only 15 percent of what IKEA sells in the U.S. actually made domestically, this means that many IKEA products imported from Europe (including the KALLAX) must comply with expensive E.U. sourcing rules. Stack deforestation paperwork on top of tariffs, and the affordable furniture Americans count on starts looking a lot less affordable.

Compliance isn’t limited to European producers, but American ones too. Companies exporting to Europe must prove through a granular process of geolocation tracking and paperwork that their products weren’t sourced from deforested land. If European consumers want to buy or access any product, they need legal assurances that no forests were touched in the process.

For a trading partner like the U.S., which exported nearly $400 billion in goods to Europe in 2024, the burden will be significant. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson L. Greer flagged EUDR as a significant foreign trade barrier in April 2025, giving President Donald Trump’s trade negotiation team yet another bone to pick with Europe. 

The E.U. acknowledged in last year’s U.S.-E.U. trade framework that it would have to “address the concerns of U.S. producers and exporters” to avoid “undue impact on U.S.-EU trade.” But nothing has yet changed.

All this comes even though the U.S. poses a negligible risk to global deforestation thanks to robust forest management that has sustained our country for decades and is only improving.

Yet American producers are still facing a regulatory regime that treats responsibly managed U.S. forests the same as high-risk tropical supply chains in developing nations. The geolocation and data-sharing requirements—which demand latitude and longitude coordinates to six decimal places for every single plot—are completely disconnected from how U.S. forest product value chains actually operate. 

For harvests larger than four hectares, or about 10 acres, the mandate to provide precise digital polygons essentially forces foresters to act as amateur cartographers before a single log can move. 

Consumers from IKEA weekend shoppers to Costco bargain hunters will pay more for the added labor required to document each log that goes into a TV stand or the legs of a chair. 

The absurdity of the rule becomes clearer when looking at some of Europe’s own energy choices. Since ridding its territory of emission-free nuclear energy, Germany now relies on burning mostly wood-based biomass for nearly eight percent of its total electricity production. Wood accounts for nearly 55 percent of Germany’s “renewable” energy generation, and U.S. exports are one of the key providers. 

So while European nations continue to use wood to heat their homes and industries, they plan to coerce American timber producers into complex track-and-trace programs and sustainability paperwork. Critics argue they are doing this for the same reason social media firms are being shaken down for billions in fees and penalties: to have Americans subsidize their lifestyles and strained government budgets. 

If the goal is truly to reduce risk rather than punish low-risk producers, a compromise must be found that works for both sides of the Atlantic.

The E.U. could allow low-risk countries like the U.S. to designate a single government agency, such as the U.S. Forest Service, to produce forest data and issue a single due diligence statement that complies with European regulations—simple, practical, and honest about where the actual risks lie. 

It would place less burden on consumers whose main concern is affordability. American families are already facing high prices on everyday goods thanks to a global trend toward protectionism. 

Free trade is the foundation of prosperity for consumers everywhere. Congress, the administration, and U.S. trade negotiators should be pushing back—hard—before this becomes the new normal.

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