Twitter Sues DHS After It Asks for Rogue Agency Account’s User Info

Twitter filed a lawsuit against the Homeland Security Department after it tried to force the microblogging platform to unmask a user who appears to be critical of President Donald Trump's administration and DHS’ immigration policies, BuzzFeed reported.  

According to Twitter’s complaint, a Customs and Border Protection agent faxed the company a summons in mid-March, demanding any “records regarding the twitter account @ALT_USCIS to include, User name, account login, phone numbers, mailing addresses, and I.P. addresses.” It said the summons “ordered Twitter to produce the records to a CBP office in Washington D.C. by 11:45 A.M. on March 13, 2017—the day before the CBP Summons was faxed to Twitter."

The lawsuit, filed in California, defends the right to free speech of Twitter user @ALT_USCIS, whose bio describes the account as "immigration resistance," "not the views of DHS or USCIS" and uses the hashtag #altgov. The filing lists DHS and CBP as defendants, as well as Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, CBP Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, CBP Special Agent Stephen Caruso and CBP Special Agent Adam Hoffman.

The account—with a rapidly growing follower account thanks to the attention—posts messages critical of the administration. One recent tweet criticized Trump’s decision to host Chinese President Xi Jinping in a lavish dining room at his resort, Mar-A-Lago, when recent budget discussions have argued for cuts in social services for citizens.

“How much are we taxpayers paying Mar-A-Cheeto for this setup? but meals on wheels,” the account tweeted. And later, “Last week: Unmasking is outrageous when it comes to Russian collusion. Today: Unmask @alt_uscis because customs import code.”

The First Amendment guarantees Twitter users and Twitter itself a “right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” the company’s lawsuit argued.

This account is part of a larger group of “resistance”-themed accounts that have proliferated since Trump took office, Twitter’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, posted on BuzzFeed. Often, they “purport to be current or former employees of federal agencies, or others with special insights about the agencies, who provide views and commentary that is often vigorously opposed, resistant, or ‘alternative’ to the official actions and policies of the new administration.”

Twitter users @alt_labor, referencing the Labor Department, and @blm_alt, referencing the Bureau of Land Management, appear to have similar missions, Twitter’s lawyers claimed.

DHS “may not compel Twitter to disclose information regarding the real identities of these users without first demonstrating that some criminal or civil offense has been committed, that unmasking the users’ identity is the least restrictive means for investigating that offense, that the demand for this information is not motivated by a desire to suppress free speech, and that the interests of pursuing that investigation outweigh the important First Amendment rights of Twitter and its users,” the lawyers wrote in that complaint.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also tweeted support for the user.

“We're glad Twitter is pushing back," ACLU tweeted. "We'll be going to court to defend this user's right to anonymous speech.”