1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Demand a full investigation into the FBI's warrantless extraction of data from 13 protesters' phones following the June 11 Spokane anti-ICE demonstration. The Supreme Court was unambiguous in Riley v. California: searching a cellphone requires a warrant. The FBI has not confirmed any warrants were obtained before Agent Kevin Loader used Cellebrite software to pull data from seized devices. What makes this worse is the paper trail. A DOJ directive from Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh, issued the morning after the protest, ordered federal prosecutors to aggressively pursue anti-ICE cases. Hours later, the FBI called Spokane police to collect all seized phones. Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall confirmed the transfer happened without his knowledge, and the subpoena that eventually arrived authorized seizure only — not search. Officers were even instructed to hide the FBI's involvement from protesters asking about their phones. The evidence used to indict nine people included Reddit posts and a forwarded Facebook event. That is political speech. The chilling effect on First Amendment activity is real and documented. Congress needs to demand answers: Were warrants obtained before these extractions? What data retention policies governed this operation? This is exactly the kind of federal overreach that oversight exists to check.