Curb Grand Jury Subpoena Abuse Targeting Anonymous Social Media Critics

Block the government's abuse of grand jury subpoenas to unmask anonymous social media users who criticize immigration enforcement. A sealed case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit puts this issue squarely before the courts. The ACLU, EFF, the Cato Institute, and others filed an amicus brief urging the court to apply proper First Amendment scrutiny to these subpoenas. The facts are troubling. DHS issued an administrative subpoena to Reddit to identify an anonymous user who had simply commented on a post about an immigration officer in Minnesota. When that subpoena was challenged and withdrawn, the government turned around and obtained a grand jury subpoena for much of the same information. Grand jury subpoenas are issued without prior court approval, and the DOJ has used them repeatedly in the past year to extract users' personal data from social media companies, often without any showing that a crime was committed. Anonymous speech is a cornerstone of free expression, and it protects critics from government retaliation. Immigration authorities have already engaged in documented racial profiling and sometimes violent conduct. Letting prosecutors use grand jury subpoenas to identify their online critics, with no meaningful judicial check, compounds that harm. Courts must not defer to the government's claims of legitimacy here. First Amendment scrutiny is required.