Federal judges doxxing wave — 126 federal threat prosecutions in 2025, 400+ threats tracked by SU4J

What happened

The federal judiciary is in the middle of a sustained doxxing and threat wave. CBS News reported on February 19, 2026 that federal prosecutors brought 126 cases in 2025 prosecuting threats to public officials, a sharp jump over prior years. Many of those cases involved doxxing as the precursor — the address was posted, the threats followed.

The Speak Up for Justice (SU4J) coalition, an advocacy group founded by federal and state judges and their families after the Salas family attack, tracked more than 400 threats to judges through mid-2025.

Specific incidents documented in public reporting:

• US District Judge Brooke Jackson of the District of Colorado was doxxed when his name and home address were posted online in connection with an ICE-related case. He subsequently allowed ICE agents appearing in his courtroom to testify under initials only, on the record citing the threat environment.
• Newsweek reported in February 2025 that the count of federal employees and judges being doxxed online was soaring following information leaks tied to a DOGE-related case.
• The federal judiciary accelerated an upgrade to its case management system on March 10, 2026, partly in response to a July 2025 hacking disclosure that exposed sealed filings.

How it started

Each documented doxxing followed the same pattern. A judge was identified by name from a public docket. The home address came from a broker page or a property record. The address was posted on social media or a politically aligned site. The threats arrived after.

The federal Lieu Act — the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act — was signed in December 2022. It gives federal judges, their spouses, and their children the right to require data brokers to remove home addresses, phone numbers, and other covered information. The AOUSC runs the central removal program. Some judges had enrolled. Others had not. Compliance from brokers was inconsistent and re-listing was common across the cases that produced public threats.

Why this case matters

The Lefkow family killings in 2005 and the Salas family attack in 2020 were the precedent cases that drove federal judicial security legislation. The 2025 wave is the demonstration that the legislation is the floor, not the ceiling. The numbers SU4J and CBS report — 400+ threats, 126 federal prosecutions — describe a threat environment the existing protections have not closed.

For sworn officers and other officials reading this, the federal judiciary's situation is the canary. Federal judges are the most legally protected category. State court judges, prosecutors, and federal LE have less protection. The pattern that produced the Jackson and DOGE-case doxxings runs identically against any official whose name appears on a high-profile docket.

What this means for you

If you're a federal judge, the Lieu Act is the legal mechanism. The AOUSC program is the channel. Continuous broker removal is the defensive layer that operationalizes both. Removal demands have to be filed and re-filed. The listings come back.

If you're a state court judge, prosecutor, or federal LE: state analogs to Daniel's Law sometimes cover you and sometimes don't. The defensive layer that always works is broker removal across every commercial site that resells residences. We file opt-outs across 200+ sites and re-run them every two weeks.

For more on the doxxing threat shape and what to do if you've been doxxed, see /doxxing and /doxxing/recovery.

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