On 17 July 2017, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) served a search warrant (.pdf; 1MB) on DreamHost, a website host, for all information related to a website used to coordinate protests during the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Specifically, the warrant covers the usual suspects: The individuals that own and operate the website. But this warrant, unlike similar warrants issued in the past, demands the IP addresses, date and time of access, contact information, email content, images, as well as browser and operating system information of some 1.3 million people who visited the website.
On 14 August 2017, DreamHost published a statement announcing its intent to challenge the warrant. The statement cites Chris Ghazarian, the company’s general counsel, as taking issue with the warrant “for being a highly untargeted demand that chills free association and the right of free speech afforded by the [US] Constitution.”
It’s worse than that; it’s a made-to-order enemies list for Trump.
On 15 August 2017, Gharzarian told Julia Carrie Wong and Olivia Solon writing for the Guardian, “This specific case and this specific warrant are pure prosecutorial overreach by a highly politicized Department of Justice under [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions. You should be concerned that anyone should be targeted simply for visiting a website.”
Wong and Solon report that the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC charged “more than 217 individuals with identical crimes, including felony rioting,” under a single indictment on 27 April 2017.
DreamHost challenged the Justice Department warrant on the grounds of its overreach. Instead of responding to DreamHost, the Justice Department filed a motion (.pdf; 7.7MB) with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia requesting an order to compel DreamHost to produce the records demanded in the search warrant.
In response, on 11 August 2017, DreamHost filed its response (.pdf; 919KB) to the Justice Department’s motion.
A hearing was set for 18 August 2017.
Department of Justice walks back scope of warrant
On 22 August 2017, the Justice Department walked back the overly broad nature of its search warrant, insisting in its reply in support of its motion and motion to modify (.pdf; 8MB) that “the government is focused on the criminal acts of defendants and their co-conspirators, and not their political views — and certainly not the lawful activities of peaceful protesters.”
This is a fascinating document in that it reveals what the Justice Department was really fishing for with its overly broad gillnet:
“The Website was not just a means to publicly disseminate information (as many websites are designed to do), but was also used to coordinate and to privately communicate among a focused group of people whose intent included planned violence.”
Mark Rumold and Stephanie Lacambra writing for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) succinctly highlight the flaws in the Justice Department’s new and improved warrant:
“At a minimum, DOJ should be required to specify which accounts are subject to the order. More fundamentally, DOJ is still investigating a website that was dedicated to organizing and planning political dissent and protest. That is activity at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection. If, as DOJ claims, it has no interest in encroaching on protected political activity and organizing, then it should allow a third-party — like a judge, a special master, or a taint team — to review the information produced by DreamHost before it is turned over to the government. Anything less threatens to cast a further shadow on the legitimacy of this investigation.”
David Kravets writing for Ars Technica cites Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy representing site visitors who want to maintain their anonymity, who “doubts the Justice Department’s sincerity that it didn’t want records of everybody who visited the site.” After all, the original warrant made very specific — if overly broad — demands.
“Either they’re incompetent or they’re disingenuous,” Levy told Kravets in a telephone interview.
DreamHost must comply with narrowed warrant
On 24 August 2017, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert Morin ruled that DreamHost must comply with the Department of Justice’s narrowed warrant.
As of 27 August 2017, Morin’s ruling isn’t available online (search for Case Number 2017 CSW 003438).
The Department of Justice must submit a “minimization plan” to the court that specifically includes the names of all government investigators who will have access to the data and a list of all the methods that will be used to search the evidence.
Additionally, Morin ruled that the Justice Department was prohibited from sharing any information in the matter with any other government agency, that data provided be limited to October 2016 — 20 January 2017, and that any information unrelated to “rioting” be sealed.
A dangerous precedent
Joseph Kishore writing for the World Socialist Web Site reports that while DreamHost is claiming a “win for privacy and the web,” its own attorney, Raymond Aghaian, argued in court that the information demanded by the government is “tantamount to the membership list of an advocacy group” and a “general warrant” (.pdf; 38KB).
Ordinary search warrants require probable cause that a particular crime has been committed by a particular individual. General warrants, on the other hand, allow enormous amounts of information to be gathered that applies to neither a particular individual nor a particular crime. General warrants are prohibited as “unreasonable searches and seizures” under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Kishore argues:
“The government now has a legal precedent for demanding similar information from any website organizing or supporting protests and other oppositional activity, using the pretext of alleged violent actions — often the result of police provocateurs — to effectively criminalize dissent.”
Authoritative, canonical source: Trump administration issues warrant for identities of visitors to anti-Trump website.
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