During Billie Little’s roughly two decades at Thomson Reuters, she took pride in the company known for Westlaw, the Reuters news wire and its data services. That changed this year when Little and colleagues grew alarmed about the company’s contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid a surge of immigration enforcement and high-profile deadly encounters in Minneapolis.
Little, who worked in legal publishing, joined about 170 coworkers in a group called the “Committee to Restore Trust.” On Feb. 20 the committee sent management a letter expressing concern that Thomson Reuters products — in particular its CLEAR investigative platform, which aggregates billions of data points and can include images from license plate readers — could be enabling activities that violate constitutional protections and local laws in sanctuary jurisdictions. The group asked for greater transparency and an all-hands meeting about oversight of contracts with DHS and ICE.
Employees had learned that Thomson Reuters had held tens of millions of dollars in contracts with ICE in recent years, including an almost $5 million contract from May 2025 for license plate reader data. Colleagues in the Twin Cities reported fear — of being followed, of being identified from vehicles, of threats to their children’s safety — after ICE operations in Minnesota and reports that agents appeared to know protesters’ names and addresses. Little said she worried CLEAR could be used more broadly than company descriptions suggested, and that its integration with other tools used by ICE raised additional risks.
Thomson Reuters says its tools support investigations into national security and public safety areas such as child exploitation, human trafficking and narcotics, and that it maintains safeguards and contractual terms to ensure products are used lawfully. The company has also said CLEAR was not intended for mass immigration inquiries or deporting non-criminal undocumented persons. Company terms have included provisions that vehicle registration data shouldn’t be used for immigration enforcement. Thomson Reuters declined to comment on individual employment matters and said it disputes the lawsuit and will robustly defend the case.
After the employees’ concerns were reported in the Minnesota Star Tribune and The New York Times in March, Little was called to an HR meeting and told she was being investigated for violating confidentiality and data-sharing policies, according to her lawsuit. A few days later she was fired. Her suit says she was not given written findings or a specific explanation of which code of conduct provisions she allegedly violated and that she had no prior negative reviews or discipline. Little has sued under Oregon law that bars employer retaliation against whistleblowers, seeking reinstatement, lost wages and compensatory damages. Her attorney, Maria Witt, says Little reported conduct she reasonably believed was unlawful and was fired for it.
The company’s response to employee concerns has also prompted shareholder action. The British Columbia General Employees’ Union, a Thomson Reuters shareholder, filed a proposal seeking an independent evaluation of whether company products may contribute to adverse human rights impacts when used by law enforcement and immigration authorities. The union said the issue warrants renewed scrutiny and more disclosure after the escalation in Minnesota and employee complaints. Thomson Reuters’ board opposes the proposal, arguing the company already completed an independent human rights impact assessment in 2025 and will publish key findings; the union countered that the assessment predated recent events and employee concerns and that further due diligence is not duplicative.
Privacy and civil liberties advocates have long warned about governments purchasing detailed data from data brokers like Thomson Reuters without stronger guardrails. Researchers say aggregating enough public and proprietary data can allow inferences and access to personal information that traditionally would require a warrant. Reporting has also found CLEAR being integrated with other tools used by ICE, raising concerns among activists and legal observers. Civil liberties groups and activists who monitor enforcement operations say federal agents have sometimes used information such as license plates to identify and intimidate observers, and some have filed lawsuits alleging First Amendment and other rights violations.
Former and current employees told NPR they felt stonewalled or dissatisfied by how the company responded. One former employee said they left in part over the company’s handling of employee concerns and feared retaliation. Little said she feels a moral obligation to pursue the lawsuit and that the case is about protecting privacy, ensuring law enforcement abides by constitutional limits, and defending civil liberties — an issue she says is bigger than her individual termination.