The Department of Homeland Security has been quietly demanding tech companies turn over user information about critics of the Trump administration, according to reports.
In several cases over recent months, Homeland Security has relied on the use of administrative subpoenas to seek identifiable information about individuals who run anonymous Instagram accounts, which share posts about ICE immigration raids in their local neighborhoods. These subpoenas have also been used to demand information about people who have criticized Trump officials or protested government policies.
Unlike judicial subpoenas, which are authorized by a judge after seeing enough evidence of a crime to authorize a search or seizure of someone’s things, administrative subpoenas are issued by federal agencies, allowing investigators to seek a wealth of information about individuals from tech and phone companies without a judge’s oversight.
While administrative subpoenas cannot be used to obtain the contents of a person’s emails, online searches, or location data, they can demand information specifically about the user, such as what time a user logs in, from where, using which devices,
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