FBI investigating MN Signal groups tracking ICE, Patel says

FBI Director Kash Patel said that he had opened an investigation into the Signal text chats that Minnesota residents are using to share information about ICE.

NBC News
Why? That's unequivocally constitutionally protected speech. Why is our tax money being wasted on this?
They're "investigating", presumably with data gleaned from arrests and CIs; you have a right to speech, and a right not to be prosecuted for speech, but a much, much narrower right not to be "investigated", collapsing to ~epsilon when the investigation involves data the FBI already has.
Yeah whenever people say “the first amendment is not a freedom from consequences” it is only a freedom from certain consequences (and that freedom only goes as far as the government is willing to protect it). It is a freedom from being convicted. They can still arrest you, you can still spend time in jail, prosecutors can even file charges. A court is supposed to throw those charges out. And in extreme cases you can be convicted and sent to prison for years before SCOTUS rules.
Nobody has been charged.