When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested four individuals outside the immigration court in downtown San Francisco, the incident drew media attention, particularly from reporter Tomoki Chien of the San Francisco Standard.
Chien was present at the scene, capturing photos and videos of the officers, who concealed their identities with sunglasses and masks.
However, after Chien’s story was published, he received a surprising request from ICE to blur the officers’ faces in the images he reported.
Chien expressed his astonishment, stating that the interaction between the reporters and ICE officers was non-confrontational, without any animosity during their encounter.
In an email to Chien, ICE spokesperson Richard Beam explained the agency’s request, citing concerns for the safety of their personnel.
“I fully respect the media’s right to take and use photos taken in a public space and would normally not make such a request,” Beam clarified.
Yet, he emphasized the agency’s apprehension regarding officer safety, prompting the request to obscure their identities.
San Francisco Standard managing editor, Jeff Bercovici, viewed the request with skepticism.
He emphasized that a stronger justification was necessary for the Standard to consider altering the images.
Bercovici expressed concern over setting a dangerous precedent that could lead to further requests from law enforcement officials, politicians, or tech industry leaders seeking to avoid public scrutiny.
To Bercovici’s knowledge, this marks the first instance of ICE making such a request to the Standard.
While it remains unclear how frequently ICE approaches media organizations with similar requests, Beam indicated in an interview with KQED that the agency does so “routinely.”
David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, reinforced that government officials can request media outlets to blur images, but no laws prohibit publishing identifying information of officers performing their duties in public.
Loy stated, “If it’s just a polite request, the government has the right to ask,” clarifying that coercive or threatening tactics in these requests are unacceptable.
An examination of emails exchanged between ICE and the Standard revealed no signs of coercion or intimidation in this specific case.
In contrast, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been scrutinizing KCBS, a San Francisco radio station, following their coverage of an ICE operation back in February.
Loy described this investigation as a chilling effect on the coverage of immigration enforcement issues.
“The FCC claims they’re ‘investigating’ to leave this threat dangling over the station’s head, and that’s very pernicious,” Loy remarked, labeling it a direct attack on freedom of speech.
While California mandates that uniformed law enforcement officers display some form of identification, like badges or name tags, this law does not apply to federal agents.
As a result, ICE officers often carry out operations in plainclothes, obscuring their identities.
During the arrests reported by Chien, all officers were in plainclothes, and only one displayed an ICE badge.
Journalistic ethics traditionally oppose altering images or videos, leading to a divergence in practices among media outlets.
In a follow-up report, the Standard noted that other organizations, including NBC Bay Area and KTVU, had blurred the faces of ICE agents in their broadcast segments earlier that week.
Bercovici articulated a strong position against contributing to a culture of unaccountability for government actions.
He stated, “We as journalists should not slide into a new norm of helping these agencies create a zone of unaccountability around their actions.”
Bercovici also insisted that if ICE plans to make such requests more frequently, they should do so in a more transparent manner.
“If we can be convinced that there is a very specific threat, then we will consider that and might make a different decision,” he commented, reaffirming that the Standard’s current course of action is appropriate given the situation.
image source from：https://www.kqed.org/news/12042197/an-sf-journalist-took-photos-of-ice-officers-then-he-was-asked-to-blur-their-faces
