Chicago Sun-Times Demands DHS Stop Using Its Photos in Social Media Posts — Threatens to Sue

Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP

The Chicago Sun-Times is demanding that the Department of Homeland Security stop using its photos in the agency’s social media posts, sending a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem threatening a lawsuit.

Like other federal government agencies during President Donald Trump’s second term, DHS has taken a more aggressive approach to its social media communication, posting memes to promote job recruiting and attack the president’s critics.

The Trump administration has sent National Guard troops and ICE agents into several U.S. cities, claiming it is necessary to crack down on crime and illegal immigration. However, this federal deployment has been done over the objections of many local and state elected officials, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who filed a lawsuit seeking to block it.

The Sun-Times is among numerous local media outlets across the country that have been documenting the activities of federal agents and protests against them, and the paper says that DHS has been using some of the photo and video content produced by its journalists without permission.

Steven Mandell, attorney for the Sun-Times, sent a letter Thursday night to Noem and DHS acting general counsel Joseph Mazzara, the paper reported.

The letter listed three of the newspaper’s photos that DHS had used in its social media posts recently.

“These usages are blatant infringements” of the Sun-Times’ intellectual property rights, Mazzara wrote, and threatened to file a lawsuit for infringement if the agency did not remove the photos immediately from its social media accounts.

Mazzara emphasized the Sun-Times’ view that it was “imperative” as a media organization that it “maintains its independence in order to fairly report on government agencies,” and found DHS’ use of its photos “particularly egregious” because it implied an endorsement of DHS’ activities, specifically its immigration enforcement actions.

This “false implication that CSTM gave permission for its intellectual property to be used in connection with the Department’s publicity campaign damages CSTM’s credibility and interferes with its ability to report on these issues,” the letter continued.

According to Mazzara, the statutory damages for this type of infringement could be “up to $150,000 per violation,” the Sun-Times reported.

Among the photos the paper says DHS used was one of federal agents walking in Chicago taken by Sun-Times photo desk editor Ashlee Rezin that was incorporated into an image resembling a movie poster for 2015’s Sicario.

Another video montage tweeted by DHS used additional photos by Rezin and Sun-Times video journalist Zubaer Khan, wrote Mazzara.

As of Friday evening, those posts with the photos the Sun-Times says are infringement are still up on the DHS account on X.