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An Indiana man has sued U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem for allegedly targeting an app his company developed to track and store videos of federal law enforcement operations.
Brown County resident Mark Hodges is the founder of Kreisau Group, a New Mexico-based company that describes itself as aiming to preserve evidence of governmental abuses of power.
Hodges argues Bondi and Noem violated his constitutional free speech rights after they allegedly “strong-armed” Apple into delisting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement monitoring app he developed called Eyes Up, which allows users to store and view videos of ICE activity nationwide.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization emphasizing individual rights, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that Bondi and Noem violated the First Amendment and requests that the court halt them from taking similar actions in the future.
“As U.S. citizens, we have the right to keep each other informed about what our government officials are doing and how they’re doing it,” Hodges said in a press release from FIRE. “Government transparency and accountability are fundamental in a free society.”
The Eyes Up app, which became available online and through the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in August, allows users to upload, record or access stored videos of ICE activity and police encounters, according to Kreisau Group. Uploaded videos are location- and time-stamped, providing a detailed map to view each incident. (The name of Hodges’ company is a reference to a group of dissidents in Nazi Germany known as the Kreisau Circle.)
According to the lawsuit, some videos on the app have depicted various incidents involving ICE officers, including videos allegedly showing officers pulling a U.S. citizen from a car and throwing him to the ground; officers aiming guns at a vehicle and smashing in its window; and officers shooting a protesting pastor in the head with a pepper ball.
“As we’ve seen across the country, especially in Minneapolis, citizen videos have informed discussion and debate about ICE’s operations and tactics,” Colin McDonell, a FIRE attorney in the case, said in a press release. “The right to share information about our government is essential to a free society. If someone goes out and commits a crime, they can and should be punished for their actions. But in a free society, we don’t punish protected speech.”
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told The Indiana Lawyer on Wednesday that ICE tracking apps are a method to “interfere with law enforcement activities and harbor illegal aliens, both of which are separately illegal.”
“ICE tracking apps put the lives of the men and women of law enforcement in danger as they go after terrorists, vicious gangs and violent criminal rings,” McLaughlin said in a written statement, adding that these officers are facing significant increases in assaults and threats.
Bondi and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to The Lawyer’s request for comment.
The Eyes Up app joined a host of other efforts to monitor federal law enforcement activity, including social media groups such as the one Kae Rosado, a Chicago jewelry business owner and another defendant in FIRE’s lawsuit, created on Facebook early last year. The group page allows other small business owners, friends and family to share information about ICE operations in the city, according to FIRE.
FIRE now alleges that Bondi and Noem pressured Apple to remove Hodge’s Eyes Up app from its online store and Facebook to take down Rosado’s group, saying the actions were “blatantly unconstitutional.” (As of Wednesday afternoon, the Eyes Up app appeared to still be available via the Google Play Store.)
On Oct. 2, 2025, Bondi told Fox News that DHS had reached out to Apple demanding the removal of another app called ICEBlock, which is designed to allow users to track ICE movements in real-time. According to FIRE, Apple also removed several other ICE-related apps, including Eyes Up — which FIRE argues is “not useful for tracking ICE location or movement in real time.”
Less than two weeks after her statement to Fox News, Bondi also claimed credit for Facebook disabling Rosado’s Facebook group.
“The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement,” Bondi said in a post on the social media platform X.
The case is Kassandra Rosado and Kreisau Group LLC v. Pamela Bondi, in her official capacity as Attorney General, and Kristi Noem, in her official capacity as Secretary of Homeland Security (1:26-cv-01532). The complaint can be viewed via FIRE here.
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