This Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint was filed on Dec. 15, 2017. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for records pertaining to the data collection systems FALCON and Investigative Case Management (ICM). EPIC argued that ICE's use of these systems risked violating the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss.
EPIC is a nonprofit organization that aims to expose new issues related to privacy and civil liberties. The complaint stated that ICE had a contract with Palantir Technologies, a data mining firm, to create and maintain information systems "designed to make determinations about specific, identifiable individuals." FALCON and ICM are two such information systems that ICE used. EPIC argued that Palantir's products provide "the basis for deportation determinations" by collecting "massive amounts of data on individuals and applying, secretive, proprietary techniques [to make] determinations about their fitness for employment, travel, and whether they should be targeted for further investigations." FALCON and ICM specifically enabled ICE to secretly collect personal data from numerous federal databases with information on individuals not suspected of any crimes. The complaint further asserted that ICE sought to make FALCON exempt from several Privacy Act safeguards, while ICM is already exempt from those safeguards.
At an initial scheduling conference held on March 14, 2018, Judge Randal D. Moss directed the parties to file a joint status report every 60 days.
Status reports filed in May through September 2018 indicated that the government was in the process of producing responsive records on a rolling basis. A November 2018 status report indicated the production was complete and that EPIC was reviewing the produced records.
The August 2019 joint status update stated that EPIC had reviewed the document production and identified several issues in dispute, including the agency's withholdings under FOIA exemptions. On July 25, 2019, EPIC raised challenges to these specific withholdings of documents, and ICE released the withheld documents the same day. EPIC reviewed the released documents and, on September 19, 2019, stated that there are no further issues concerning document production. The only issue left to be determined was attorneys' fees.
On January 30, 2020, the parties stipulated to dismiss the case with prejudice, pursuant to the parties' settlement agreement, with EPIC receiving attorneys' fees. On January 31, the court ordered the dismissal.
There have been no subsequent docket entries and the case has closed.
Virginia Weeks - 01/23/2018
Virginia Weeks - 11/17/2018
Aaron Gurley - 11/21/2019
Lauren Yu - 03/30/2021
compress summary
