Trump Administration Targets Data on 1.3 Million Americans for Visiting a Website

There are two points I want to hammer home in today’s piece. First, we all need to accept that Donald Trump is not some sort of crazy aberration in U.S. politics, but rather basically just the ghastly continuation of the authoritarianism and militarism which has characterized our insane society since we experienced a civilization-wide mental breakdown following the attacks of 9/11.

I’ve written about this ongoing cultural insanity on many occasions, but most passionately in my 2013 piece, How I Remember September 11, 2001:

In the days following the collapse, all I wanted was for the towers to be rebuilt just like before. I wanted the skyline back to what I had know since the day I came into this earth at a New York City hospital to be restored exactly as I had always known it. Career-wise, I felt I should leave Wall Street. I thought about going back to graduate school for political science, or maybe even join the newly created Department of Homeland Security (yes, the irony is not lost on me). I read a lengthy tome on Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. I was an emotional and psychological mess, and it was when I was in this state of heightened distress that my own government and the military-industrial complex took advantage of me.

It wasn’t just me of course. It was an entire nation that was callously manipulated in the aftermath of that tragedy. The courage and generosity exhibited by so many New Yorkers and others throughout the country and indeed the world was rapidly transformed into terrifying fear. Fear that was intentionally injected repeatedly into our daily lives. Fear that translated into pointless wars and countless deaths. Fear that was used to justify the destruction of our precious civil rights. Fear that was used to initiate a gigantic power grab and the source of tremendous profits for the corporate-statists and crony-capitalsits. Unfortunately, that is the greatest legacy of 9/11.

If you take an honest look at Trump, what you’ll see is an authoritarian goon building upon the more marketable authoritarianism that came before him in the persons of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Many people thought that by electing Trump they would break the cycle, but the cycle is continuing with reckless abandon and will probably continue on its present course until the U.S. empire collapses on itself.

The second point I want to make is that our centralized authoritarian government and deep state will use all idiotic acts of violence committed by protestors and counter-protestors to target the civil liberties of the rest of us. I discussed this at length in yesterday’s post, but it bears repeating.

I consider anyone, whether they claim to be on the “right” or the “left,” who advocates street violence or attends protests armed to fight, to be a serious danger to the rest of us since their actions play directly into the best interests of oligarchs and those who wish to crack down on the public at large. I call for all honest and reasonable people across the political spectrum to denounce such tactics, and I consider anyone advocating for street violence to be an enemy of the public at large, irrespective of what or who they claim to be fighting for. As John Lennon noted:

When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.

Public acts of violence give dastardly governments the excuse they need to crack down on civil liberties. If you engage in such behavior or endorse it, you are a huge part of the problem. This isn’t a forecast or prediction either, it’s happening right now.

For example, here’s The Hill reporting on how the Department of Justice is demanding information on 1.3 million Americans who simply visited a website.

The Department of Justice has requested information on visitors to a website used to organize protests against President Trump, the Los Angeles-based Dreamhost said in a blog post published on Monday.

Dreamhost, a web hosting provider, said that it has been working with the Department of Justice for several months on the request, which believes goes too far under the Constitution.

DreamHost claimed that the complying with the request from the Justice Department would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the government, in addition to contact information, email content and photos of thousands of visitors to the website, which was involved in organizing protests against Trump on Inauguration Day.

“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment,” DreamHost wrote in the blog post on Monday. “That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.”

TechDirt also had an excellent article on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:

Not all search warrants are bad. Indeed, most of them are perfectly legitimate, and meet the qualifications under the 4th Amendment that there is probable cause of a crime being committed, and the warrant is narrowly tailored to seek out evidence to support that. But… not always. As Ken “Popehat” White explains in a recent blog post, the Justice Department has somehow obtained the mother-of-all bad search warrants while trying to track down people who were involved in protests of Donald Trump’s inauguration back in January. The government has brought felony charges against a bunch of protestors from the inauguration, and now it appears the DOJ is going on a big fishing expedition.

DreamHost has now responded in court, saying that the warrant violates the 4th Amendment and appears to endanger the 1st Amendment rights of protestors. They also claim that it violates the Privacy Protection Act and that there are some jurisdictional issues with it as well. DreamHost also has a nice blog post about the whole thing:

This is, in our opinion, a strong example of investigatory overreach and a clear abuse of government authority.

Or, as the filing notes:

Where a search warrant endangers First Amendment interests, the warrant must be scrutinized with “particular exactitude” under the Fourth Amendment. See Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547, 565 (1978). “The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.” Int’l Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee, 505 U.S. 672, 701 (1992) (Kennedy, J., concurring). The government’s search warrant (“Search Warrant”) here requires non-party DreamHost, LLC (“DreamHost”) to turn over every piece of information it has about every visitor to a website expressing political views concerning the current administration. This information includes the IP address for the visitor, the website pages viewed by the visitor, even a detailed description of software running in the visitor’s computer. In essence, the Search Warrant not only aims to identify the political dissidents of the current administration, but attempts to identify and understand what content each of these dissidents viewed on the website. The Search Warrant also includes a demand that DreamHost disclose the content of all e-mail inquiries and comments submitted from numerous private e-mail accounts and prompted by the website, all through a single sweeping warrant.

The Search Warrant cannot survive scrutiny under the heightened particular exactitude standard required by the presence of the First Amendment issues. It fails to identify with the required particularity what will be seized by the government. It also fails to provide DreamHost with any assurance that the government will return or destroy the large portion of the information irrelevant to the government’s criminal case or cases. These features render the Search Warrant unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. In addition, the Search Warrant violates the privacy protections of the Privacy Protection Act, a statute enacted specifically to address such instances, and is without a jurisdictional basis.

Finally, here’s Ken White of the excellent legal blog Popehat:

The Department of Justice initially used subpoenas to DreamHost to seek subscriber information about who ran the site. That’s fairly straightforward. But then they doubled down. They obtained a search warrant for an extremely broad array of data related to the site, including all stored records of access to the site or communications with the site. As written, it seems to demand data including the IP addresses of everyone who ever accessed the site and the content of every site visitor’s question or comment submitted through the site’s comment form, as well as all emails sent to or through the web site. The Department of Justice has filed a motion in the DC court where charges are pending to compel DreamHost to respond, and DreamHost has filed an opposition articulating its objections to the warrant.

DreamHost’s brief illuminates the key issues: the search warrant is dangerously overbroad, and implicates protected speech. The Department of Justice isn’t just seeking communications by the defendants in its case. It’s seeking the records of every single contact with the site — the IP address and other details of every American opposed enough to Trump to visit the site and explore political activism. It seeks the communications with and through the site of everyone who visited and commented, whether or not that communication is part of a crime or just political expression about the President of the United States. The government has made no effort whatsoever to limit the warrant to actual evidence of any particular crime. If you visited the site, if you left a message, they want to know who and where you are — whether or not you did anything but watch TV on inauguration day. This is chilling, particularly when it comes from an administration that has expressed so much overt hostility to protesters, so relentlessly conflated all protesters with those who break the law, and so deliberately framed America as being at war with the administration’s domestic enemies. 

There’s a hearing on the Department of Justice’s motion on Friday. I’ll keep an eye on the case. You should too, and please spread the word that this is what the government is trying to do.

We should all take a moment to thank DreamHost for its courageous stance. We should also take the opportunity to condemn senseless acts of violence encouraged by anyone, regardless of political affiliation. They are foolishly (or intentionally) playing right into the hands of those who wish to oppress us.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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21 thoughts on “Trump Administration Targets Data on 1.3 Million Americans for Visiting a Website”

  1. The morning of September 11 I was sleeping in late when my mother woke me up and told me that something strange was going on. I got to the TV just in time to see the towers fall to the ground. I remember thinking that two things had just happened, one the USA was now at war, and two our individual Constitutional rights were toast.

    Reply
    • “People as uninformed and as gullible as Americans have no future. Americans are a dead people that history is about to run over.” – Paul Craig Roberts

      The events that took place last week in Charlottesville are perhaps one of the most magisterially PSYOPs carried out by the government in recent years, plans that are focused in changing the current system and the consolidation of more power too. Useful idiots and supporters from both sides in the ongoing dispute (“right” vs. “left” in all of its forms, “white nationalists” vs. “antifa”, KKK vs. BLM, etc) cannot envision that interment facilities are anxiously waiting for all of them as soon as Martial Law is enacted in the United States.

      Kim Jong-un is surely enjoying this reality-show while making final adjustments to his nuclear toys.

  2. I agree that the citizenry, at least a large number off them, is now disfunctional or psychotic, certainly ignorant, uneducated, gadget possessed, and easily led around. It has become scary.

    Reply
    • This is all becoming so incredibly transparent that I’m expecting an introduction of The Hound from “Fahrenheit 451” into the scenario.

  3. If I were Bannon, I’d have arranged to have provocateurs planted among the anti-fascist groups, carrying ‘weapons’, and taunting the fascists….. it’s worked a zillion times before.

    Reply
  4. What worries me the most is citizen reaction to govt. lawlessness. On the left people will not support the right of white supremacists to speak or march. They want the govt. to shut them down. In the meantime, the govt. would like to know who they should suppress on the left. People on the right will not object to this intrusion of rights. So basically, only a few people will take an ethical stand of behalf of their fellow citizen’s rights.

    This is how our rights are being destroyed, one by one. Unless we can get more people to come forward on their fellow citizen’s behalf we are going down.

    I went to this site. I suspect it was likely a govt. sponsored website. I would ask and ask them to explain what their goal was. Where they just trying to replace one dictator with another (Trump with Clinton)? If so, how did they think this would help our nation? Did they plan to offer non-violence training? Were they going to talk about govt. agitators and how not to fall into violent reaction in a tense situation? I could never get any response to my questions. One similar website, World Can’t Wait, did respond by telling me I was deranged for asking these questions!

    Any legitimate movement for real social change should have no problem stating what their goals are and how they wish to accomplish those goals. They should be able to renounce the use of violence. Not one group did any of the above. From this, I simply assumed they were fake groups.

    Reply
    • > On the left people will not support the right of white supremacists to speak or march. They want the govt. to shut them down. In the meantime, the govt. would like to know who they should suppress on the left. People on the right will not object to this intrusion of rights.

      That is norm. Individualism is new religion, collectivism is demonized.

      So, the left should fight for THEIR privileges, using any weapon available, gov’t included.
      So, the right should fight for THEIR privileges, using any weapon available, gov’t included.

      Enter Tragedy of commons.

  5. My memory of 9-11? My wife and I were living in Pakistan. We received a phone call from a Pakistani friend warning us not to go out on the street because it could be dangerous. The Pakistani couple who lived below us told us to come watch their TV with them. A week later we were in Yangon, Myanmar being briefed by representatives from the US State Dept. When we returned to the US nearly a year later, we were surprised by how friendly the New Yorkers we had to deal with at customs at JFK were. Evidently the 9-11 effect lasted that long.

    Now, having said the above: You expected that perhaps the US could escape judgment without repentance by the expedient of electing the right leader? Not gonna happen. Sorry.

    Reply
  6. Can’t say I’m surprised. My agenda is to spread the word about this most current shitting on the Constitution, whilst I bring a “Free Hugs” sign to the prospective neo-Nazi rally planned in my city. I can fight both kinds of bullshit.

    Reply
  7. The trust fund anarchists who committed violent acts during the anti-Trump protests opened this particular door. It’s what the Statists want from both sides.

    The more violence the better. That creates an excuse for trampling on the 4th Amendment until a lot of citizens start to get used to it because it keeps them “safe”. Fear has always been the most effective control mechanism. People will give up all kinds of freedoms to feel safe. 9/11 certainly proved that.

    Now Trump has tipped his hand and shown his cards. Not that it’s a surprise.

    Reply
  8. Amazing that the DoJ even bothers with a warrant ! I thought NSA or CIA or FBI simply took the information they needed with a FISA Warrant or none at all, using a “Clapper Injunction”. Why all this sudden obsession with legality – it is after all the USA where there is no data protection or privacy

    Reply
  9. Soon after Trump does something I do not I agree with, his critics do something worse that brings me back to him. The latest is the reaction to Trump’s very reasonable, balanced reaction to Charlottesville.

    Reply
  10. To “A Different Kevin” and other defenders of Trump’s “balanced” reaction: moral standing matters.

    Example: Police see a mob of protesters with weapons (clubs, bottles, molotov cocktails, no guns). The mob is protesting a police shooting of an unarmed victim. The police arm themselves with shields, tear gas, and other riot gear (ie, they arrive ready for a confrontation). Somebody from the mob throws a bottle, and the police engage. Soon everybody is fighting.

    Now just becuase both sides were prepared to fight, does it mean that there is “blame on both sides”? That’s utterly ridiculous. The police are justified in their violence, the mob is not.

    Or what about WW II, were US soldiers to blame for going to a foreign country to fight the Nazis? The war didn’t directly affect the US, after all.

    At Charlottesville, you basically have white supremist against anit-white supremists. One side saying that whites are genetically superior and the other (also mostly white crowd) saying people have equal rights. This is what people mean by “false moral equivalency.” Now if this was the KKK vs Nuwaubian Nation, then you would have a point, as both groups are morally deficient (and both despised by most blacks and most whites).

    As for this : “There were people in that rally. I looked the night before. If you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee.” That woudl be a good point if it ANY trutth to it. Find one picture or video that shows peaceful people protesting a statue as opposed to a bunch of torch-carrying, racists loudly chanting hate speech.

    Now, I do agree that @holes should be allowed to speak and demonstrate their complete ignorance, but that’s a different point. I also think that neither side should have employed violence, but at least one side is deploying violence in support of the principles of our country.

    Reply
    • First, you need to be better informed about the so-called “anti-white supremacists”. Antifa are not peaceful protesters. Everywhere they show up it is to be violent. The goal is to shut down discussion. They call everyone Nazis that are right of center. They have been operating this way for a year and no one in government or media has said anything.

      Most of the victims of political violence the past year have been Trump supporters and conservatives.

      Furthermore, the Left are void of ideas. Ideas are being discussed on the Right. I have ideas that at one time were considered liberal, but I would not be welcomed in the Democrat party. They are about Identity politics. Now, we have whites supremacists doing the same

      I am for free expression for everyone. The Nazis and white supremacists should have been ignored. They are insignificant. Nobody needs to disavow them.

      Here are the real reasons for the outcry:

      1. The Russian collusion narrative is not working so they have to go back to “Trump is a racist”.

      2. To shut down all dissent from Trump supporters, conservatives, and libertarians.

      3. Give Blacks a boogieman that the Liberals will defend them from to keep them in line, all the while not doing anything for their real problems.

  11. I never called the “anti-white supremist” at Charlottesville peaceful. I understand that Antifa’s preferred course of action is violence. While violence against a White supremist is not a moral act, it *is* at least defending a moral principle. You missed my point about “false moral equivalence”: one side can be “more wrong” than the other.

    Also, Trump in his “balanced” statement did refer to them as quiet protesters on Friday night, a point which is easily refuted by video evidence and a point which you haven’t addressed.

    “Most of the victims of political violence the past year have been Trump supporters and conservatives.” If you are talking about which *groups* have gotten attacked, then yes. Trumps far-right supporters prefer to cowardly attack individuals instead. Hate crimes against minorities, women, Muslims, and Jews are way-up (even if you take out the phone threats made by that Jewish teen). Trump has nodded to the supremists that this “Justice” Dept will look the other way, just as he encouraged violence against dissenters in his rallies when he was running.

    You can’t generalize the “Left and “Right” the way you are. Real people usually don’t fall into bins that easily. I acknowledge that Democratic Leadership have very little in the realm of good ideas. So do they, as evidenced by their July pivot to working class issues (which is probably more of a set of empty talking points).

    So what about Republicans?
    On how to address racial inequality: “it doesn’t exist.”
    On police misconduct (by a few individuals): “the police are always in the right”
    On gender pay disparity: “100% due to women’s choice of careers.”
    On pre-Great Depression levels of income distribution and economic disparity: “Give tax breaks to the wealthy”
    On religion in the governemnt: “Muslims want sharia law, which is wrong. There’s no place for religion in government. Also, gay couples shouldn’t marry because the Bible says so.”
    On marijuana: “It’s dangerous, and addictive, and is a gateway drug. And it doesn’t lead to corporate profits like opiods do.”

    As long as the parties’ leadership stays the same (Trump, McConnel, Ryan, Pelosi, Schumer), the middle class will continue to get screwed.

    Reply
    • You can have the last word, even though I found much to disagree with you. I stand by my previous post.

  12. So here is that last word, Kevin:

    The point I keep repeating is on “false moral equivalence.” Basically, two people can take the exact same actions (fighting in a mob), yet have different levels of morality attached. It is a simple concept, but one that Trump does not understand. I think that you DO understand that point now, which is why you are refusing to defend your previous position: it’s indefensible.

    (As a reminder, the *original* topic that I responded to was “Trump’s very reasonable, balanced reaction to Charlottesville.”)

    Reply
    • I do not want to continue this because I do not want to waste my time with this. I know I will not change you and you will not change me.

      Please do not make assumptions about what I think.

      BTW, I am in an interracial marriage, which the Nazis and racists would be against, though I would like to hear what there plan is to stop interracial relationships. If Trump truly was siding with them, I would not be supporting them.

      As far as moral equivalence, I am more threatened by Antifa than Nazis.

  13. Ok, I was wrong to assign an opinion to you. Now perhaps Nazis aren’t a threat to you (there really aren’t that many), but Trump and his supporters are (unless of course you are a member of the top 20%, as green is the color that matters most). Of course, Trump is actually a threat to his own primarily working-class base, so I guess it it doesn’t shock me that you support his stance here.

    Also, I will say that I had a similar *initial* reaction (“Some of the people are just in favor of keeping the statues and are really not racists.”) to Trump’s words – until I saw the pictures and videos. There is no way that any morally balanced person would be marching with that sheer numbers of hate-chanting goblins.

    Reply
    • The problem with “just want to keep statues” is that this behavior comes with many risks.
      Risks of being beaten, be defamed and loose job, etc.

      So, indeed, in the street you would mostly see passionate and riask-ignorant people. Radicals. On BOTH site.

      As for “As far as moral equivalence” – comparisons can happen when two values are put on the same gauge and pegged at some origin value.
      Here that means, that to parties should agree on some common shared measure to measure their particular morals. And then you can use that measure.

      But what if they do not agree?

      North Koreans say “we have right to live and be governed how we do here”.
      America says “No you have not. Because we here have moral superiority to kill you until you cease and desist. And you have no right for self-defense, because morally inferior nations dare not kill American soldiers breaking into their houses”.
      No common moral ground -> no reconciliation possible.

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