DHS Orders Harvard To Hand Over Surveillance Footage Of All Protests “Involving A Nonimmigrant Student”

We regularly tell elected officials that the best way to protect people’s privacy is to not adopt surveillance technologies in the first place. For example, right now, Cambridge City Council is considering whether to allow Cambridge PD to operate drones over protests. We have highlighted to them that no matter what they say about Cambridge values, once they give that permission, they won’t really be able to control what data gets collected, or where that data goes.

Now, that has been vividly brought home by an extraordinary data request to Harvard from the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has suspended Harvard’s ability to admit or to continue teaching already-admitted international students, and is giving Harvard 72 hours to undo that suspension by supplying:

1. Any and all records, whether official or informal, in the possession of Harvard University, including electronic records and audio or video footage, regarding illegal activity whether on or off campus, by a nonimmigrant student enrolled in Harvard University in the last five years. 2. Any and all records, whether official or informal, in the possession of Harvard University, including electronic records and audio or video footage, regarding dangerous or violent activity whether on or off campus, by a nonimmigrant student enrolled in Harvard University in the last five years. 3. Any and all records, whether official or informal, in the possession of Harvard University, including electronic records and audio or video footage, regarding threats to other students or university personnel whether on or off campus, by a nonimmigrant student enrolled in Harvard University in the last five years. 4. Any and all records, whether official or informal, in the possession of Harvard University, including electronic records and audio or video footage, regarding deprivation of rights of other classmates or university personnel whether on or off campus, by a nonimmigrant student enrolled in Harvard University in the last five years. 5. Any and all disciplinary records of all nonimmigrant students enrolled in Harvard University in the last five years. 6. Any and all audio or video footage, in the possession of Harvard University, of any protest activity involving a nonimmigrant student on a Harvard University campus in the last five years.

Harvard is suing, and we hope they win.

But this is also a red alert to colleges and to municipal governments alike, that they can’t assume that any data they collect and retain, will be safe from a government intent on obtaining it. If Harvard or Harvard PD has retained “audio or video footage” of protests going back “five years”, they shouldn’t have done so, except for specific excerpts that are being retained in relation to still-ongoing disciplinary proceedings. College police departments should in general not conduct surveillance of on-campus protests, because this is exactly where it leads.

As a group, we don’t have expertise in how to solve conflicting land claims in the Middle East. But we do know surveillance and privacy, and we have been meeting and working on that issue in Cambridge since 2012. Everybody, including foreign students at U. S. colleges, has the right to peacefully petition for a redress of grievance. That’s a vital part of the First Amendment. As a consequence of the fact that peaceful protest is Constitutionally protected, the Fourth Amendment protects them from the government unreasonably seizing their person for protesting, or from seizing their location data showing they were at a protest, or seizing an image of them being at a protest and using it to sure they lose their place at a college, or their job at a college, as a result of being at a protest. Harvard also has its own rights, to keep its own records private, provided it is complying with the laws and regulations that govern its operation as a university. The government has not alleged that Harvard has violated any regulation or law relating to the operation of the student visa program, and even if they were to allege or even prove that Harvard did, the government should not have the power to obtain footage of this kind.

We claim proudly to be free. But freedom isn’t a theory. It’s a practice, made up of whether we choose day by day to prioritize freedom over other things. Colleges and municipal governments should review what they choose to collect with this principle in mind.

UPDATE 05/23/25, 12:30pm: Temporary restraining order granted, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-23/harvard-gets-temporary-block-of-trump-s-foreign-student-ban