Soon after Donald Trump’s inauguration, persons critical of the president and his administration began creating anonymous Twitter accounts claiming to be dissident members of the federal government, such as the famous “Alt BLM” and “Rogue POTUS Staff” users. Today, Twitter is filing suit against the U.S. government, exposing an attempt to expose and attack one such account.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, says the @ALT_USCIS Twitter account is now being targeted by the Department of Homeland Security:
On March 14, 2017, Defendant Adam Hoffman, an agent within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, transmitted to Twitter by fax a summons, ordering Twitter to produce certain records pertaining to the @ALT_USCIS account. The CBP Summons invoked as authority 19 U.S.C. § 1509. It was signed by Defendant Stephen P. Caruso, a CBP Special Agent in Charge based in Miramar, Florida. A true and accurate copy of the CBP Summons, in the form it was received by Twitter, is attached as Exhibit A.
43. The CBP Summons states that Twitter is “required” to “produce[] for inspection” “[a]ll records regarding the [T]witter account @ALT_USCIS to include, User names, account login, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and I.P. addresses.” The purpose of this request appears to be, and the effect of Twitter’s complying with it likely would be, to enable or help to enable Defendants to pierce the anonymity of the person or persons who established and use the @ALT_USCIS account.
Homeland Security further asked that Twitter keep the very existence of the summons secret, and added that “failure to comply with this summons will render you liable to proceedings in a U.S. District Court to enforce compliance with this summons as well as other sanctions.” When Twitter replied stating that such a demand would require a court order, Special Agent Adam Hoffman of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said, in the companies words, that “no such court order would be obtained.” Strangely, the summons specified a deadline for disclosure of @ALT_USCIS’s user information that occurred the day before the summons was even faxed to Twitter. Regardless of the fact that many of these “alt accounts” appear to be individuals pretending to be members of a given federal agency, removing their anonymity simply because they are criticizing the president would be a devastating blow to Twitter’s ability to facilitate free speech.
Twitter is now asking the court to declare that “the CBP Summons is unlawful and unenforceable because it violates the First Amendment rights of both Twitter and its users by seeking to unmask the identity of one or more anonymous Twitter users voicing criticism of the government on matters of public concern.” Esha Bhandari of the ACLU told The Intercept that the group is personally defending the Twitter account owner, and will be filing “in court shortly to defend the user’s rights, focusing on the user’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously.” Although Bhandari would not comment on whether the account is actually run by a federal employee or employees, she noted that “on the face of the summons the government has offered no reason for seeking this information.”
Senator Ron Wyden, an outspoken online privacy advocate, provided the following statement:
“The Department of Homeland Security appears to have abused its authority and wasted taxpayer resources, all to uncover an anonymous critic on Twitter. The DHS Inspector General should investigate to determine who directed this witch hunt. Twitter deserves credit for standing up for its users against this government overreach.”
Update: April 6th, 2017, 4:48 p.m.
This piece was updated with a comment from the ACLU.
Update: April 6th, 2017, 8:45 p.m.
This piece was updated with a comment from Senator Ron Wyden
Update: April 7th, 2017, 1:57 p.m.
DHS has withdrawn its summons, and Twitter has withdrawn its corresponding complaint.
We don’t normally associate fascism with incompetence, maybe due to the German link, but the people running the US government now are breaking the mold.
Good news! Let’s teach those idiots who shame other people baselessly on twitter hell!
Meh – jus a big organization throwing its weight around – been the subject of this kind of bullying but once you call in other groups they tend to quiet right down.
Twitter should simply threaten back and say they’ll shut down the orange cheese doodle.
“…a devastating blow to Twitter’s ability to facilitate free speech.”
Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos. How can there be any discussion about it and free speech?
Thank you for the important story.???????
I guess my account is next?
the intercept is clearly a US government propaganda outlet, While mass surveillance keeps increasing by the hour, the intercept publishes miselading bullshit like this article that tries to portrait twitter, which is nothing but an arm of the US government/military, as some sort of independent ‘freedom fighters’ .
[[[ the intercept is clearly a US government propaganda outlet, While mass surveillance keeps increasing by the hour, the intercept publishes miselading bullshit like this article that tries to portrait twitter, which is nothing but an arm of the US government/military, as some sort of independent ‘freedom fighters’ . ]]]
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
WTF? Please unmask your identity so we can know for whom you work for…
So much for freedom of speech, and privacy.
King George III approves.
[[[ Twitter is now asking the court to declare that “the CBP Summons is unlawful and unenforceable because it violates the First Amendment rights of both Twitter and its users by seeking to unmask the identity of one or more anonymous Twitter users voicing criticism of the government on matters of public concern.” Esha Bhandari of the ACLU told The Intercept that the group is personally defending the Twitter account owner, and will be filing “in court shortly to defend the user’s rights, focusing on the user’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously.” Although Bhandari would not comment on whether the account is actually run by a federal employee or employees, she noted that “on the face of the summons the government has offered no reason for seeking this information.” ]]]
Why doesn’t Twitter just shut down the account like they did when dealing with the Pedophile Hunters known as Pizzagate?
I guess it’s not OK to hunt DC pedophiles? Maybe Twitter is run by pedos?
Thanks for the report. As a new twtterer, of course I’m concerned, as EVERYONE should be. I’m glad that the ACLU will be fighting this.
Now, a note to whoever picks the photos that go with each article. Would you PLEASE STOP using that ugly mug of our nutjob pres.? He’s doing enough harm as it is and I’m just sick of seeing him, PERIOD!
Ah, I see twitter is filing suit! Good move by them :-) glad to see that the ACLU is defending the user… The First Amendment needs all the support it can get!
Sorry Donald, but actions like these just back-fire on one.
Unleashing the next shit-storm…..
Enjoy Donald !!
Well, it’s good practice to be careful when having an opinion about Donny.
Before you know it he sends some angry and aggressive supporters over to get you beaten-up.
Thanks Donny !!
He is now using Rockets instead of twitter. Poor Amerikans!
Twitter was yesterday:
”
AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA – IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
September 5, 2013″
So Twitter is fighting the summons as it’s a freedom of speech violation? What hypocrites, they filter, delete & freeze people’s Twitter accounts if user’s content doesn’t support Twitter’s political agenda. So then Twitter users should start suing Twitter for violating freedom of speech.
A private company is allowed to censor their contents. The government is not. You should learn the laws before you make comments. I personally like the fact that Twitter takes responsibility for some of the crap that people post
Freedom of speech applies to the government, not private companies.
Freedom of speech is vital everywhere. Censorship is like piss – it doesn’t matter if your salad was pissed in at the farm where they grew the vegetables, at the restaurant where they cut them up, by the waiter who brought it out, or by a federal agent who pulled him aside near the counter and said “this guy ticked off the government, so we piss in all his food now.” At every step we need free speech, yet at least the end-user might have a choice when it comes to where to buy salad, while he doesn’t have choice if he’s targeted by an agent.
Another key thing to bear in mind with private companies is that if someone official is intimidating them all into removing postings, then that’s not even private censorship – it’s just government censorship in a cheap disguise. And usually that’s the case because since when do private companies like to hire a lot of people to do anything, such as “moderating” and reading “reports” about postings?
“Senator Ron Wyden, an outspoken online privacy advocate,”
senator wyden a worthless scumbag who like the rest of the US government and supporters, murder chidlren for fun and cheap oil.
I don’t get it. What good would murdering chilin be if you don’t get some cheap oil and fun out of it?
Your statement confuses and irritates me… ‘MURICA!
There are a lot of people that dont like Trump.But why hide behind a mask or anything.
How much do the scammers at the intercept get paid for publishing garbage twitter adverstising?
About tree fiddy.
Is there any way to turn this Twitter shit into something I can read? I mean, it says there were 8800 postings from this account, and I get to scroll back something like two screens … is there a way to turn this stuff into some kind of flat file, one line of text per tweet, and skim through it by date going back from March 14 to see what might be hot enough to have ticked off the government, without being an FBI agent/Twitter employee?
The federal government seems to be intimidating an individual exactly as Trump would do to some of his critics when he was a private citizen, going so far as to try to squelch the public from finding out about the lawsuit itself. Notice how CBP backed down from Twitter in a cagey way, stating “no such court order would be obtained.” Yeah, I’m not surprised, because the Trump Admin is so disorganized and runs on shooting from the hip. You can bet Twitter’s corporate lawyers are going by the book, and the government’s case right now looks like it lack merit.
The scare tactic upon exercising free speech looks like more terrorism from Trump’s squad on the American people. Sad, indeed.
Wow! Donald complains about intrusive intelligence gathering. I guess that only applies to him and his flying monkeys. Screw the citizen and con the sucker go Liar in Chief!!!
Biddle says “simply because they are criticizing the president”. In fact, @alt_uscis posted locations of upcoming USCIS raids. They crossed the line from dissent to undercutting their agency.
I tweeted Biddle about that, but fat chance of him updating the post with the facts.
Citation? Link?
USCIS doesn’t conduct raids, so I doubt you’re going to be able to back up your claim.
Also, you don’t know who @alt_uscis actually is, now do you?
In fact, that’s rather a central question in the issue under litigation.
Please show a little integrity. I’m not going to include a link because getting this site moderates comments and including a link would decrease the chances they’d approve it. If you take out approximately 20 seconds, you can find me pointing out contemporaneously what @ALT_USCIS was doing.
While you’re showing some integrity, you’ll find out that I’ve been covering the broader topic over thousands of posts since 2002.
So now we have a need for not only a VPN, but also DNSCrypt. They’re pulling hard on the mask. Make sure your zipper doesn’t break.
Imagine the world before twitter arrived. What a beautiful world …
Wow – in all the instances of threats to activists and gamergate doxxing… and only now we’re considering unmasking anonymous twitter users. I’m not really for unmasking, but if I were, it wouldn’t be for this.
It really gets more preposterous with each move by these two-bit totalitarians. Here’s the authority the cite for the subpoena:
19 U.S. Code § 1509 – Examination of books and witnesses
What is 19 USC about? Well, the title is “Customs Duties.”
And what is § 1509 about? Well, as the title suggests, it’s about the authority to examine books and witnesses, in the course of an investigation to determine whether duties are owed/have been or should be paid, etc. It specifically relates to and refers to imported merchandise.
Compared to these guys, Kafka’s Willem, Franz and the Instruction Judge were models of rational justice.
What you say is unfair to Kafka, because while he was writing fiction, this is the sort of stuff you just cannot make up.
;^) or, perhaps, ;^(
Thank you! Clearly, as a provision relating to imports, this has no application to Twitter
ohwell
how about let’s get back on track with the FALSE FLAG SERIN GAS ATTACK by the mossad to drag the US into a war for israel’s Yinon Plan?
The msm is trying to soft pedal that story based on the false fiction they are paid to push. More WMD. We will not be fooled.
So very glad you called attention to this FALSE FLAG SARIN GAS ATTACK in SYRIA. I’m completely gobsmacked by the number of ppl that fall for the MSM … and our elected Representatives LYING about our involvement in Syria and the Middle East. I’m also pleased you are familiar with the, “Oded Yinon Plan,” and the later, “Greater Israel Plan.” Even a cursory view of these 2 Plans makes the picture of the Middle East and it’s ‘conflicts’ very easy to understand. I wish I shared your optimism about us, “not being fooled”…again.