The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has backed down from the fight to expose the owners of Instagram and Facebook accounts that monitor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Pennsylvania.
One of the anonymous account holders, John Doe, sued Meta via subpoena to prevent ICE from identifying him and other critics online, which he claimed violated basic First Amendment-protected activity.
DHS initially opposed Doe’s motion to quash the subpoenas, arguing that community watch groups endangered ICE agents by posting “photographs and videos of agents’ faces, license plates, and weapons, among other things.” DHS alleged that this was tantamount to “threatening to hinder ICE agents in the performance of their duties”. DHS’s arguments match those of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who has claimed that impersonating ICE agents is a crime, though Wired noted that ICE employees often post easily searchable LinkedIn profiles.
According to Doe, the agency intends to test to see if it can gain the authority to expose all critics online by enforcing a Customs statute that allows agents to turn over information about goods entering or leaving the US.
But then, on January 16, DHS suddenly reversed its stance and withdrew its subpoena from Meta.
A court filing confirmed that DHS had dropped its requests for customer information last week, initially seeking Doe’s “postal code, country, all email addresses on file, date of account creation, registered telephone number, IP address at account signup, and logs showing the IP address and date stamp for account access.”
The filing did not explain why DHS decided to withdraw its requests.
However, previously, DHS had requested similar information from Meta about six Instagram community watch groups that shared information about ICE activity in Los Angeles and other locations. DHS also withdrew those requests after the account holders defended their First Amendment rights and filed a petition to quash their subpoenas, Doe’s court filing said.
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