Judge blocks DHS from acting against a man over a harsh email to an ICE official

David Streever takes a selfie while on vacation with his daughter and a character at Moomin World in Finland. He was contacted by Homeland Security Investigations officers five months after sending an email to Todd Lyons, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. David Streever hide caption

A Tuesday court ruling means David Streever of Rochester, New York no longer has to worry that federal officers may threaten him over a harsh email he sent to the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year.

Streever filed a lawsuit in July arguing ICE agents had violated his First Amendment rights when they tried to track him down at his home , an airport and a hotel to confront him about the email and serve him with a warning notice that said he may have violated the law.

Streever's email compared ICE's former acting director, Todd Lyons, to a Nazi, called him a "monstrous human being" and predicted he would be tormented by his own conscience. Streever told NPR he sent the email after federal immigration officers fatally shot two observers in Minneapolis in January.

The warning notice agents left at Streever's home said "YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW" and lists federal laws that make it a crime to threaten federal officials. "Receipt of this Notice will be taken into consideration, should you continue to be involved in any criminal activities described above," reads the bottom of the form.

Streever, who is represented by the nonprofit free speech group, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), argued the federal agents' actions violated the First Amendment and caused him to self-censor his views.

"Mr. Streever's injury is the loss of his freedom to engage in political speech now because the threat of such an investigation or prosecution looms over him like the sword of Damocles, and he is forced to self-censor under that threat," Contreras wrote in his ruling.

He wrote that because it was likely the federal government had already infringed on Streever's First Amendment rights, he was issuing a preliminary injunction while the case continued so that Streever could continue to speak freely.