Trump administration taking Reddit to secret grand jury over anti-ICE posts: report

Council to consider bill to unmask ICE officials

A potentially controversial vote is expected Tuesday in Montgomery County as leaders debate whether to fast track the Unmask ICE Act, aimed at stopping immigration officers from covering their faces during operations. 

WASHINGTON - A major legal showdown is unfolding as the Trump administration takes aim at an anonymous social media user, and uses a secret federal grand jury to do it.

What we know:

The U.S. government has ordered Reddit to appear before a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., by Tuesday, April 14, according to The Intercept.

The subpoena reportedly requires the social media platform to hand over the name, address, telephone number, IP address and other personal details of a user who posted heavy criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers online.

The backstory:

On March 4, an ICE special agent based in Fairfax, Virginia, hit Reddit with an administrative summons demanding a month's worth of data on the Oregon-based user, known only as "John Doe."

Reddit alerted the user, whose attorneys said they found criticism, but zero criminal activity when reviewing John Doe’s posts.

According to court documents, the user’s posts included sharing publicly available biographical details about an ICE officer involved in the fatal January shooting of a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis. The user also threw out ideas for what to write on an anti-ICE protest sign and posted a complaint saying, "TSA sucks."

"I use this account to post about events and issues local to my region of Oregon and beyond," the Reddit user said in a sworn declaration.

After the user's lawyers successfully challenged the initial administrative summons in a California federal court, ICE withdrew the request. However, on March 31, the government issued a D.C. federal grand jury subpoena. 

Related

article

Anti-ICE protests continue in DC, across nation following violence in Minneapolis

Thousands of people are demonstrating across the country, protesting against ICE enforcement in their communities.

Dig deeper:

ICE stated in the summons that its request was based on a provision of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, a law that raised import duties on goods to protect American farmers and industries.

The Reddit user responded, "Neither I nor my Reddit account are involved in importing or exporting any merchandise—or anything else subject to taxes or duties—into or out of the United States," according to the Intercept.

What they're saying:

Legal experts say that unlike a standard summons, grand jury proceedings are kept highly secret, give prosecutors vastly more power to compel evidence, and are much harder to fight in court.

"We should be very, very, very concerned that they've now taken one of these to a grand jury," David Greene, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Intercept.

Reddit, which boasts over 100 million daily users, has made it clear that they aren't handing over user data voluntarily.

"Privacy is central to how Reddit operates, and we take our commitment to protecting that seriously," Reddit said in a statement. "We do not voluntarily share information with any government, especially not on users exercising their rights to criticize the government or plan a protest."

Judge questions warrantless arrests by ICE agents in DC

D.C. residents rallied outside the federal courthouse today ahead of a hearing over whether the Trump administration is defying a court order blocking warrantless civil immigration arrests in the nation's capital.

Why you should care:

The case is raising massive questions about online anonymity and the First Amendment. 

If prosecutors are successful, civil liberties groups warn it could set a dangerous new precedent, making it far easier for authorities to bypass standard legal roadblocks and unmask anonymous critics online under the guise of law enforcement investigations.