Comprehensive Scoring Analysis

The Department of Homeland Security has been quietly demanding tech companies turn over user information about critics …

In several cases over recent months, Homeland Security has relied on the use of administrative subpoenas to seek identi…

These subpoenas have also been used to demand information about people who have criticized Trump officials or protested…

Unlike judicial subpoenas, which are authorized by a judge after seeing enough evidence of a crime to authorize a searc…

While administrative subpoenas cannot be used to obtain the contents of a person’s emails, online searches, or location…

But because administrative subpoenas are not backed by a judge’s authority or a court’s order, it’s largely up to a com…

Administrative subpoenas are not new; the use of these self-signed demands by Trump officials to seek identifiable info…

Bloomberg reported last week that Homeland Security sought the identity of an anonymous Instagram account called @monto…

This comes amid an ongoing federal immigration crackdown across the United States, which has drawn widespread protests …

Homeland Security lawyers sent an administrative subpoena to Meta demanding it turn over personal information of the pe…

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the account owner, said there was no evidence of wrongdoing and that r…

Homeland Security withdrew its subpoena without providing an explanation.

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Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW The ACLU called the subpoena “part of a broader strategy to intimidate people who document im…

” Bloomberg reported the effort to unmask the @montcowatch account was not an isolated incident, referencing at least f…

Those subpoenas were also withdrawn after the account owners sued to block the attempt.

Tech companies have in recent years published transparency reports that detail how many government demands for data the…

But most do not break out how many judicial and administrative subpoenas they receive over a period of time, even thoug…

When asked by TechCrunch, Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan did not say if Meta provided Homeland Security any data inv…

A new report by The Washington Post on Tuesday found that an administrative subpoena was also used to seek information …

The retiree’s home was later visited by federal agents inquiring about the .

The Post described the retiree as someone critical of Trump during his first term, who attended a No Kings rally last y…

Within five hours of emailing the Homeland Security lawyer — who was named in an article about the case of an Afghan th…

was trying to deport and whose address is listed on the Florida Bar’s website — the retiree received an from Google, ac…

The notified him that his account had been subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security.

The subpoena demanded to know the day, time, and duration of all his online sessions, his IP address and physical addre…

Two weeks later, Homeland Security agents were on his doorstep, asking him questions about the that he sent to Dernbach…

Google spokesperson Katelin Jabbari told TechCrunch the company pushes back against overbroad or improper subpoenas, “a…

When asked by TechCrunch, Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin would not say why the U.

was seeking information about people who have been critical of the Trump administration and accounts documenting ICE ac…

“HSI has broad administrative subpoena authority under 8 U.

§ 1509(a)(1) to issue subpoenas,” said McLaughlin, referring to Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative unit…

Not all companies are able to hand over data about their customers.

For instance, information that is end-to-end encrypted and can only be accessed by obtaining a person’s phone or device…

That said, many companies are still able to provide large amounts of information about their users, including where the…

End-to-end encrypted messaging apps, Signal, have long championed how little data it collects about its users.

The messaging app responds to occasional legal demands by stating that it is unable to produce user data that it does n…

tech giants is another reason why European countries and ordinary consumers are seeking to rely less on American tech g…

tech companies are overtly cozying up to the Trump administration