'Very chilling': Experts warn Trump DOJ ramping up attacks on 1st Amendment

Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 14, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

According to new reporting from Bloomberg, the Department of Justice is suing social media companies to obtain the names, addresses and banking information of users on Reddit and X as part of a push to identify critics of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation program. The subpoenas were filed by the US Attorney’s Office for Washington, which is helmed by Trump-ally Jeanine Pirro. So far the DOJ’s criminal investigation involves at least two anonymous social media posters who have criticized the administration’s actions.

“The anonymous users, who learned of the subpoenas from the platforms and hired lawyers to challenge the government’s demands for information, haven’t been told what possible offenses are being probed,” reported Bloomberg. “Their lawyers believe the investigations could relate to allegations of revealing a federal officer’s location data or other types of perceived threats, but dispute that their clients committed crimes. Even if no charges ultimately are filed, the attorneys contended in interviews that rooting out identities of dissenters is at the very least an intimidation tactic.”

According to Bloomberg, the move represents a notable escalation in the administration’s effort to weaponize law enforcement against its critics. Previously, Trump’s DOJ has attempted to leverage administrative summonses, a lower legal threshold that doesn’t require judicial processes. But after legal challenges stymied the strategy, the administration has “raised the stakes” by seeking grand jury subpoenas.

“They started with an administrative summons, which does not indicate a criminal investigation, and then progressed to the grand jury subpoena, which does,” said Lauren Regan, an attorney representing a targeted social media user. This attempt, she added, “is further proof that this is a bad faith attempt to unmask the user.”

As Bloomberg explains, “Regan, a co-leader of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, said some of her client’s posts were as simple as ‘expletive ICE.’ The subpoena doesn't specify the post or posts that caught the government’s attention, but Regan said she suspects it was one that appeared to reference the ICE officer who shot Minnesota protester Renee Good and where the official had lived. It’s not clear to her what laws the government is alleging were broken by the comments.”

Targeted social media companies have notified impacted users to provide the opportunity to fight the DOJ’s requests, but their window to challenge the government is brief, as companies have been given a deadline for delivering data.

While former federal prosecutor Bonnie Greenberg says it’s easy for a prosecutor to serve a grand jury subpoena, “court precedent has imposed a heavy burden on the defendant to quash” it. She noted that only once in her 37 years in court has she seen an individual successfully halt such an effort.

“The post does not contain a trace or an inkling that any violence was intended,” said First Amendment lawyer Joshua Koltun, who represents a targeted user, noting that even if the DOJ’s criminal prosecution fails, the damage to free speech has already been done. “It’s a very chilling thing to get a subpoena to find out your identity, and to run the risk that some ICE agent is going to be knocking on your door.”

According to First Amendment Coalition Executive Director David Snyder, anonymous speech is foundational to U.S. politics. Snyder referenced the Federalist Papers written by several of the country’s founding fathers, who used the anonymous pseudonym “Publius.”

“They understood at a very visceral level that in order to speak your mind,” explained Snyder, “sometimes you need to be able to do so anonymously so the government doesn’t come after you.”

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