Thin-Skinned Government Agents Threaten Yet Another Critic
Politicians who don’t like receiving nastygrams should quit government work.
The Trump administration took office last year promising to reverse the speech-unfriendly policies of the Biden administration, which had pressured social media companies to censor inconvenient stories and ideas. The new White House, we were promised, would "ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen." Efforts to keep that promise aren't going well, as we see from yet another incident of federal agents seeking to intimidate critics of government policies.
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Feds Strong-Arm Critics of the Administration
Last week, two federal agents went to David Streever's home in Rochester, New York, to warn him over a strongly worded email he sent to then-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) interim director Todd Lyons, according to Michelle Breidenbach of the Post-Standard.
As such missives often do, Streever's email evokes the Nazis, telling Lyons: "You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America's Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher." It goes on to excoriate him over the protesters killed by federal agents in Minnesota and predicts, "you will torment yourself until your last day on Earth."
The email is harsh. But at no point is it threatening. It's the sort of message that public figures of all sorts receive and discard every day. Except that federal officials seem to be emulating the thin-skinned current president's attitude towards criticism.
Earlier this week, Reason's Reem Ibrahim covered a similar warning that ICE agents issued Paigelynne Gonyea, also of Syracuse. ICE's warning letter informed her that "it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official" and it is likewise illegal to publicize "restricted personal information about a covered person" with the intent to threaten or intimidate.
But the Instagram post Gonyea believes ICE objects to, and which they demanded she delete, reads: "BREAKING: The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in broad daylight has been identified as Jonathan Ross by the Minnesota Star Tribune. I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted!"
Again, the message contains no threats. And the only personal information is the name of Jonathan Ross, which is perfectly legal to reveal in any case and became a matter of public record when it was published months ago by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
"Free speech is the bedrock of a free society, and the First Amendment squarely prohibits ICE agents from intimidating Americans for nothing more than repeating information from a newspaper report," commented Adam Steinbaugh, senior attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Thin-Skinned Trump Officials Are Acting Awfully European
But if the ability to criticize government officials is an expression of bedrock American values, Trump administration agencies dispatching agents to roust people who send nastygrams to federal officials has a precedent, too—just not one well-founded in this country.
France's "President Emmanuel Macron has initiated legal proceedings against people who have mocked him as a Hitler-like figure," pointed out Jacob Mchangama, executive director of Vanderbilt University's Future of Free Speech think tank, in a November 2025 column. "Trump is not improvising a uniquely American abuse of power; he is copying elements of the European playbook."
The irony is that President Donald Trump entered office vowing not just to reverse the Biden administration's hostility to free speech, but also to battle the creeping censorship imposed by Europe's increasingly authoritarian governments. The U.S. is right to oppose Europe over speech policies, Mchangama emphasizes. But when Trump administration officials are themselves the targets of harsh words, they behave not like tough American free speech warriors, but like pissy little Frenchmen who look to mommy state to punish mean people.
The most obvious example of the current president's thin skin and his desire to muzzle his critics is his repeated calls to strip broadcasters he believes have been unfair to him of their licenses.
"Despite a very high popularity and, according to many, among the greatest 8 months in Presidential History, ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES," Trump complained last year. "IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC. I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!!"
Abolish the FCC and Rein In Government Agents
Since then, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved to review ABC's station licenses. Frankly, FCC head Brendan Carr's open hostility to media outlets that criticize the administration is an ongoing advertisement for stripping the government of broadcast licensing power.
"Recent presidents have not used the FCC as abusively as FDR, JFK, and LBJ did. But the danger remained, and Trump is now exploiting it," George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin commented last year. "The FCC should be abolished."
Short of that, "the First Amendment continues to function as a critical obstacle to Trump's ability to fully implement his most censorious policies," as Mchangama points out. America's constitutional protections for free speech thwart a president who once championed their value just as they stood in the way of his authoritarian predecessors.
But it's dangerous when government agents show up on people's doorsteps to issue bogus warnings over nonexistent transgressions to people who have done nothing but exercise their right to criticize the powerful. Not everybody has Paigelynne Gonyea's determination to keep her post up and tell the agents to get lost. We may never know how many people succumb to pressure and quietly delete strongly worded posts or decide to never again voice their objections to government policy.
Federal agents should be punished for trying to intimidate people who publish or send disapproving messages about government officials and their policies.
Not every criticism directed at government officials is brilliantly written or well-considered. Nevertheless, people have the right to voice them so long as they avoid explicit threats. Officials who don't like receiving harsh messages do have one legitimate recourse beyond simply suffering nastygrams. If it's too much for them to tolerate, they can always quit and take honest jobs in the private sector.
