A federal lawsuit filed in late July 2026 accuses the Department of Homeland Security of photographing, scanning, and identifying U.S. citizens who peacefully observed or protested immigration enforcement, then retaliating by stripping them of their Trusted Traveler benefits, Global Entry and TSA PreCheck.
The 55-page complaint was brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center on behalf of three citizens. They allege DHS adopted an undisclosed policy letting ICE and CBP personnel create and keep records on people recording or protesting federal operations, even when those people had committed no crime, and then used those records to revoke their travel privileges.
One plaintiff, Nicole Cleland, was observing federal agents in Minnesota in January when an agent approached her, addressed her by name, and told her he was using facial-recognition technology. Three days later she lost her Global Entry.
The machinery here is what makes it more than a travel-perk dispute: a face scanned at a protest, matched to a name in a government database, and converted into a penalty. Using surveillance of lawful, First Amendment-protected observation to impose a consequence is retaliation against protected activity, carried out quietly through an administrative benefit most people never think of as leverage.