Twitter Sues Agent Orange


No one is safe from being sued.

From Variety

Twitter has sued the Trump administration over attempts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to unmask the identity of users behind an account critical of the government. The account in question, @ALT_USCIS, is one of several alt-government accounts which were launched after the new administration took office and proceeded to silence some official Twitter government accounts.

The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, alleges that the DHS tried to use a “limited-purpose investigatory tool” to find out who is behind the account in question, which has been critical of the immigration policy of the current administration. “The rights of free speech afforded to Twitter’s users and Twitter itself under the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous free speech,” the lawsuit argues.

The lawsuit goes on to argue that many of these alt-government accounts, including @ALT_USCIS claim to be run by government workers, in this case employees of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services. These users have taken to Twitter to voice their dissent with official government policies.

The Twitter account in question is this one. Here’s their pinned tweet:

I’m following this one… it’ll be interesting…

Comments

  1. says

    What a bizarre summons. Issued by the customs and border patrol of all people, under a very narrowly defined law having to do with fees and duties on imports. The only thing in all this that’s sillier than the idea that Twitter should comply with such obvious idiocy is that the agents concerned thought they stood a chance in hell of their little fishing expedition coming home with a catch.

Leave a Reply