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The Felon's Regime Wants to Silence Social Media Critics

As the Department of Homeland Security and ICE continue to act as the Felon's secret police aimed at terrorizing undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike - ignoring literally thousands of court orders against its actions - the New York Times reports that now DHS wants information on social media accounts that are either critical of the Felon's increasingly fascist regime or track the misdeeds of ICE.  Claims are disingenuously made that this is necessary for the safety of heavily armed and lawless ICE agents, but the reality is that the Felon and his cabinet of unqualified misfits and grifters cannot tolerate criticism and being called out for who and what they really are.  Disturbingly, DHS is using administrative subpoenas that circumvent judicial review to seek information on critics and their social media accounts. This leaves Felon/DHS targets unprotected by judicial review and left to their own devises to oppose these administrative subpoenas (we all may want to have the ACLU on speed dial) that seek to intimidate and silence critics. I suspect as the Felon's poll numbers continue to crater thanks to unpopular policies and no meaningful action to lower consumer prices, the offensive against free speech will escalate.  Here are highlights from the Times piece:

The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.

In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.

The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court.

“The government is taking more liberties than they used to,” said Steve Loney, a senior supervising attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. “It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.” . . . . its [DHS] lawyers have argued that they are seeking information to help keep ICE agents in the field safe. . . . Meta, Reddit and Discord declined to comment.

“When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. “We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.”

The Trump administration has aggressively tried tamping down criticism of ICE, partly by identifying Americans who have demonstrated against the agency. ICE agents told protesters in Minneapolis and Chicago that they were being recorded and identified with facial recognition technology. Last month, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, also said on Fox News that he was pushing to “create a database” of people who were “arrested for interference, impeding and assault.”

Unlike arrest warrants, which require a judge’s approval, administrative subpoenas are issued by the Department of Homeland Security. They were only sparingly used in the past, primarily to uncover the people behind social media accounts engaged in serious crimes such as child trafficking, said tech employees familiar with the legal tool. But last year, the department ramped up its use of the subpoenas to unmask anonymous social media accounts.

In September, for example, it sent Meta administrative subpoenas to identify the people behind Instagram accounts that posted about ICE raids in California, according to the A.C.L.U. The subpoenas were challenged in court, and the Department of Homeland Security withdrew the requests for information before a judge could rule.

Mr. Loney of the A.C.L.U. said avoiding a judge’s ruling was important for the department to keep issuing the subpoenas without a legal order to stop. “The pressure is on the end user, the private individual, to go to court,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security also sought more information on the Facebook and Instagram accounts dedicated to tracking ICE activity . . . . On Sept. 11, the Department of Homeland Security sent Meta a request for the name, email address, post code and other identifying information of the person or people behind the accounts. Meta informed the two Instagram and Facebook accounts of the request on Oct. 3.

“We have received legal process from law enforcement seeking information about your Facebook account,” the notification said, according to court records. “If we do not receive a copy of documentation that you have filed in court challenging this legal process within ten (10) days, we will respond to the requesting agency with information.”

The account owner alerted the A.C.L.U., which filed a motion on Oct. 16 to quash the government’s request. In a hearing on Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the A.C.L.U. argued that the government was using administrative subpoenas to target people whose speech it did not agree with. . . . Two days later, the subpoena was withdrawn.

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