CBP Chief Says Feds Don't Wear Name Badges Due to Fears of Being 'Doxxed'

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan has said that federal law enforcement officers deployed to Portland have not been wearing name badges over fears of getting "doxxed"—having their personal information shared online.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Morgan refuted claims of federal officers arresting demonstrators in Portland without identifying themselves as police.

All officers, the CBP chief said, are wearing some kind of identification showing that they belong to a federal law enforcement body.

Meanwhile, Morgan said officers' uniforms should have the word "police" emblazoned across the chest as a "baseline" of identification.

Many officers, Morgan said, are not wearing "name tags" due to fears of being doxxed.

Some officers, he said, have already been doxxed.

"That's another thing that's absolutely disgusting," he said. "They're not only jeopardizing the lives of the agents, but they're also jeopardizing the lives of their families as they're putting out their home information and they're suggesting that individuals go to their homes."

In at least one case, a press release put out by the Department of Homeland Security last week asserted that "violent anarchists" had "doxxed members of federal law enforcement."

The incident occurred on July 15, the press release said.

It is unclear whether there have been any other incidents since then. Newsweek has contacted CBP for more information.

During the press conference, Morgan said that he had "authorized and supported removing their names from their uniform."

Agencies, however, still have ways of identifying officers, he said, asserting that each officer had a specific "identifier" that could be traced in an internal database.

"We have each identifier associated with a specific name, so we have all that information internally and we'll share that with the appropriate entities when it's necessary," he said.

"I hope that puts to rest the lies and the false rumors that they're not appropriately marked," Morgan said.

The press conference was held just days before President Donald Trump announced plans to roll out "Operation LeGend," which will see a "surge" of federal law enforcement officers deployed to Chicago and other American cities marked by unrest.

Already, the president has faced widespread backlash over the deployment of officers to Portland.

The deployment came following widespread unrest in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Local and state officials have said that federal intervention is neither necessary nor wanted, however, with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler repeatedly demanding that federal officers vacate the city's streets—to no avail.