Critics of Donald Trump or his administration may be known to the Department of Homeland Security. The organization is allegedly pressuring social media companies to share information about users who criticize the president, along with information about people who run anonymous ICE-watchdog social media accounts, according to reporting in Tech Crunch.
The DHS is doing this by issuing administrative subpoenas to social media companies, in hopes of getting information about users.
Third-party organizations (like social media companies) do not have to comply with administrative subpoenas, explained Steve Stransky, an adjunct professor in the school of law at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
This is true, “Unless there’s a separate court process or separate order from a judge requiring the third party, the social media company, to comply with the administrative subpoena,” he added.
Not all companies will comply, but some have cooperated. Take, for example, Google, which handed information about a 67-year-old recent retiree over to the government; the user had emailed a federal prosecutor about an immigration case he read about. Federal officials later showed up at his door after he received a notice from Google about the subpoena. The DHS has since withdrawn the subpoena in this case.
