Journalist Seth Harp was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last week after Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, accused the author of “doxxing” a Delta Force commander and “leaking classified information.” Luna has even made a criminal referral to the Justice Department. The incident has stirred a debate online about the meaning of “doxxing,” a term that Luna doesn’t seem to understand.
In fairness, Luna isn’t the only one confused about the definition of doxxing. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security keeps insisting that ICE agents are getting “doxxed” when masked federal agents are simply being identified as they storm the country, rounding up anyone who isn’t white.
The day after the U.S. government kidnapped Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Harp shared a photo and online biography of a U.S. military officer. X quickly locked his account and demanded that he delete his tweet for it to be restored, according to Harp. Luna issued a subpoena to force Harp to testify about the incident, something that press freedom groups have said is an attempt to intimidate reporters who publish information about the Trump regime.
“I have made a motion to subpoena Seth Harp before Congress to face accountability for leaking classified intel about Operation Absolute Resolve, including doxxing a Delta Force commander,” Rep. Luna tweeted on Jan. 7. “The media has gotten away with too much for too long, and I’m sick of it. Bring him in.”
Gizmodo reached out to Harp, the author of the 2025 book The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, who explained the situation.
“It is not ‘doxxing’ to identify by name government officials involved in breaking news events,” Harp told Gizmodo. “Actual doxxing is publishing someone’s nonpublic personally identifying information, such as their social security number, home address, home phone number, personal email, the names of their family members, or photos of their house.”
Harp acknowledges that “true doxxing can be a crime,” depending on the circumstances.
“For example, 18 USC s. 119 criminalizes publishing restricted personal information about certain government officials, informants, and witnesses with the intent to incite a crime of violence against them. There are state laws against doxxing as well,” Harp continued.
The information Harp shared is not doxxing by any normal definition of the word in a liberal democracy. Harp believes that Rep. Luna’s use of that term is actually inspiring actual doxxing behavior against the journalist.
“It was deeply irresponsible of Rep. Luna to throw around allegations of ‘doxxing’ in her wild accusations against me, when all I did was identify by name a highly ranking military officer at the center of a major breaking news story, which is inherently newsworthy information that the public has a right to know,” Harp wrote. “Ironically, her hateful rhetoric has incited scores of internet trolls to actually doxx me, by publishing my address, phone number, pictures of my house, my parents’ names, and pictures of their house, together with threats to commit acts of violence.”
Standards of privacy evolve with each generation, but there was a time when a physical phone book would be delivered to every house in a given community. The phone book contained all the phone numbers and addresses of those people. But Harp didn’t even share any information, like an address or phone number. He shared biographical information that was listed on a public website. And simply sharing the identity of a high-ranking member of the military is not doxxing.
A protester holds a sign that reads “Arrest Jonathan Ross for Murder Now!” at a protest in downtown San Diego, California, on Jan. 8, 2026. © Gizmodo / Matt NovakRight-wingers don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word doxxing in the current environment. Gizmodo reached out to the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 8, the day after Renee Good was killed in Minneapolis by an ICE agent. We asked for confirmation that the agent involved was named Jonathan Ross, a simple fact first reported by the Star Tribune that we wanted to verify. DHS said that confirming the identity would be doxxing.
“We are not going to expose the name of this officer. He acted according to his training,” DHS said in a statement, explaining that he is a “longtime ICE officer who has been serving his country his entire life.”
The email also described him as an ICE deportation officer with 10 years of experience and included a long list of requirements he had to meet to get an ICE Special Response Team. Oddly, that long description could have been used to identify him in the first place. Local news outlets reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s description of a previous incident with Ross in June, where he was dragged by a car, is probably what allowed the Star Tribune to identify him from court documents.
DHS went on to insist that naming the agent was an act of doxxing, while claiming that their officers were under threat:
DHS will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers. Doxxing our officers put their lives and their families in serious danger. Our law enforcement officers are on the frontlines arresting terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists. Now, thanks to the malicious rhetoric of sanctuary politicians, they are under constant threat from violent agitators. They are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, a 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks against them, and an 8,000% increase in death threats against them. Publicizing their identities puts their lives and the lives of their families at serious risk. The Star Tribune should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for their reckless behavior, and they should delete their story immediately.”
But is it doxxing to just identify a federal agent who has allegedly killed someone? Ross is involved in an event with not just national attention but international significance. The whole world is on edge about America’s slide into fascism, not to mention Trump’s threats to invade allies like Greenland, Canada, and Panama.
People magazine has since reported that Ross lived in the suburb of Chaska, Minnesota, but even that isn’t really doxxing. If reporters weren’t able to describe basic biographical information in news stories, it would be impossible to report on anything accurately. There’s no law that criminalizes identifying the city where an ICE agent lives.
Ross reportedly told his neighbor in Chaska that he worked as a botanist, a lie that seems to suggest he was afraid of being judged for working as a member of a brutal secret police force. And that’s unsurprising. ICE and its other sister agencies, like CBP and Border Patrol, are acting outside the law to harm Americans right now. It’s vitally important that we at least have their names so that they can be held accountable one day.
“The public has a right to know the names of the government officials who work for us,” Harp told Gizmodo. “That is part of basic accountability in an open society governed by the rule of law.”
English (US) ·