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Twitter Sues US Government Over Attempt To Unmask Anti-Trump Account (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: According to Twitter's suit, filed today in Northern California District Court, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has attempted to use a "limited-purpose investigatory tool" to unmask the owner of the Twitter account "@ALT_USCIS." The account, one of several "alt" or "rogue" government accounts that appeared in the wake of Trump's ascent to the presidency, was used "to express public criticism of the Department and the current Administration," according to Twitter's complaint. In the suit, Twitter writes that @ALT_USCIS has purported to be a dissenting member of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. On March 14, Twitter received a summons from Customs requesting records that could reveal the identity of the account's operator, including IP logs and any associated phone number or mailing address. In addition to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the lawsuit names four individuals as defendants: DHS secretary John Kelly, acting CBP commissioner Kevin McAleenan, and special agents Stephen P. Caruso and Adam Hoffman, who issued and served the order itself.
It's amazing how quickly we forget about our own Constitution. The same document that created the job for the President protects the public's right to criticize him. Sure, we can't overtly slander or libel him, but we can say a lot of other things.
IANAL, but Penn and Teller said it well on their show BS: "To call someone an idiot or a moron is defamatory and you open yourself up to a lawsuit. But to call them an asshole or motherfucker, you're expressing an opinion and you're pretty much in the clear."
What sort of backwater third world dictatorship do you think you live in where vocal criticism of the dear leader amounts to treason?
So?
Maybe you don't understand, if this was a criminal prosecution they would have brought charges against a John Doe and applied for a warrant. Using the national security tool they are using (designed for foreign actors outside US jurisdiction) bypasses the requirement to obtain a warrant and avoids that nasty complication of proving the speech in question is NOT protected speech.
Your blatant disregard of how this bypasses standard criminal procedures by waiving it away blatantly ignores that they are doing it this way so they don't have to get a subpoena and document why this speech isn't protected. Any time the wrong procedure is being used like this you can bet dollars to donuts the are abusing the process because what they are doing would have never met the requirements for a valid warrant. Don't cheer lead so hard that you ignore abuse of power.
If they were investigating a crime they would have gotten a warrant. Their goal is persecution, to make the (legal) criticism stop.