Feds asking Facebook for info on anti-Trump activists

[Sgent]

Source: CNET

Turns out it's not just web hosting provider DreamHost that's fighting Justice Department search warrants on users linked to an anti-Trump site associated with inauguration protests. Facebook is in the same boat.

The Justice Department in February issued three warrants to search the Facebook accounts of people associated with violent protests of President Donald Trump's inauguration. The warrants -- which name DisruptJ20 activists and the anti-Trump organization's Facebook page -- ask for information including the activists' friends, associates and the roughly 6,000 people who just "liked" the page, according to Lawnewz.com, which first reported the story Thursday.

The ACLU, which has posted the warrants here, quickly went to work on behalf of the activists named in the warrants. It went to court Thursday to block the enforcement of the warrants arguing that they are "overbroad under the Fourth Amendment," which protects personal privacy.

"Opening up the entire contents of a personal Facebook page for review by the government is a gross invasion of privacy," said Scott Michelman, a senior staff attorney with ACLU-DC. "Moreover, when law enforcement officers can comb through records concerning political organizing in opposition to the very administration for which those officers work, the result is the chilling of First Amendment-protected political activity."



Read more: https://www.cnet.com/news/justice-department-facebook-search-warrants-anti-trump-activists-disruptj20/

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. What did the FBI call this when they did it back in the day, forgot

BTW, most of the negative stuff about ANTIFA, also bullshit. It is these guys

[scarletwoman]

2. COINTEL nt

[Eliot Rosewater]

6. Thank you, that is it.

[Not Ruth]

4. These guys are the Sinn Fein of Antifa

[bucolic_frolic]

3. So the double standard applies to Facebook

the Russians run wild with mind-distorting propaganda but anti-Trump's are under surveillance

This should be illegal

[bluestarone]

5. this

is what i was talking about earlier

[noneof_theabove]

7. USA now UCCA

is starting smell something like 1930's Germany.

[calimary]

8. Welcome to DU, one of_theabove!

I'm stunned anew every day. To borrow from Joe Biden, NEVER have I seen malarkey like this.

[CountAllVotes]

10. +1

So right you are.

At a rally that was on the tee vee earlier the crowd was shouting USA USA USA.

It could have been something creepily similar ...



Welcome to the DU btw!!

[Lifelong Protester]

9. This is getting more ridiculous by the day.

[BlueMTexpat]

11. Shades of Tricky Dick! eom