The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been asking tech companies for information on accounts posting anti-ICE sentiments. According to The New York Times, DHS has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta over the past few months. Homeland Security asked the companies for names, email addresses, telephone numbers and any other identifying detail for accounts that have criticized the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or have reported the location of its agents. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with some of the requests
Administrative subpoenas are different from warrants and are issued by the DHS. The Times says they were rarely used in the past and were mostly sent to companies for the investigation of serious crimes, such as child trafficking. Apparently, though, the government has ramped up its use in the past year. “It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability,” Steve Loney, a senior supervising attorney for ACLU, told the publication.
Companies can choose whether to comply with the authorities or not, and some of them give the subject of a subpoena up to 14 days to fight it in court. Google told The Times that its review process for government requests is “ designed to protect user privacy while meeting [its] legal obligations” and that it informs users when their accounts have been subpoenaed unless it has been legally ordered not to or in exceptional circumstances. “We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad,” the company said.
Some of the accounts that were subpoenaed belong to users posting ICE activity in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on Facebook and Instagram in English and Spanish. The DHS asked Meta for their names and details on September 11, and the users were notified about it on October 3. They were told that if Meta didn’t receive documentation that they were fighting the subpoena in court within 10 days, Meta will give Homeland Security the information it was asking for. The ACLU filed a motion for the users in court, arguing that the DHS is using administrative subpoenas as a tool to suppress speech of people it didn’t agree with.
In late January, Meta started blocking links to ICE List, a website that lists thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents’ names. A few days ago, House Judiciary Committee member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also asked Apple and Google to turn over all their communication with the US Department of Justice to investigate the removal of ICE-tracking apps from their respective app stores.
