April 6, 2017

Twitter fights Homeland Security's attempt to find who's running anti-Trump account

CNET - Twitter is suing the US government to prevent the Trump administration from forcing it to reveal who's running an anti-Trump account.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday, Twitter says an arm of the Department of Homeland Security used a "limited-purpose investigatory tool" in an effort to unmask the identity of the person or people behind @ALT_uscis, an account that criticizes the administration's management of US Citizenship and Immigration Services. USCIS is part of DHS.

According to the suit, US Customs and Border Protection, another part of DHS, issued a summons on March 14 demanding that Twitter release records that would lead to the account's owners. The company says the order is unlawful and must be dismissed.

"Permitting CBP to pierce the pseudonym of the @ALT_uscis account would have a grave chilling effect on the speech of that account in particular and on the many other 'alternative agency' accounts that have been created to voice dissent to government policies," Twitter wrote in its suit.

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