After Twitter sues to block US from unmasking tweeting Trump critic, US withdraws summons
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Updated: A government agency has dropped its bid to obtain the identity of a tweeting critic who claims to work for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The government notified Twitter on Friday that it had dropped its administrative summons seeking account information, the Hill reports. Twitter had filed a First Amendment lawsuit challenging the summons Thursday, but it has notified the court it will withdraw it.
The April 6 suit filed by Twitter sought to protect the identity of a person who tweets at @ALT_uscis, report the Recorder (sub. req.) the Washington Post, the Hollywood Reporter and Snopes.com. The Twitter user had criticized Trump immigration policies.
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr represented Twitter in the federal suit, filed in the Northern District of California, according to the Recorder. The suit sought to block an administrative summons for account information issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Free speech advocates told the Washington Post that the summons was apparently the first by a government agency that seeks to unmask an anonymous critic.
Twitter made two arguments. The first was that the customs agency can only obtain a narrow class of records that relate to imports. The second was that the summons violates the First Amendment rights of both Twitter and the account holder.
To satisfy the First Amendment, Twitter argued, the government would have to demonstrate that a criminal or civil offense has been committed. The government also would have to show that unmasking the Twitter user is the least restrictive means for investigating the offense, that its bid for information is not motivated by a desire to suppress free speech, and that the interest in pursuing the investigation outweighs the First Amendment rights of Twitter and its users, Twitter argued.
The suit referred to earlier clashes between President Donald Trump and government agencies over their own Twitter accounts. Trump had apparently criticized the National Park Service’s tweeted crowd estimates at his inauguration. Another Twitter account for Badlands National Park tweeted about climate change; those tweets were blamed on a former employee who still had access to the account.
Following those disputes, a wave of newly created Twitter accounts expressed alternative views for a federal agency, including the @ALT_uscis account, created in late January, the suit said.
The Twitter account had 32,000 followers at the time of the court filing. The number had grown to 152,000 followers as of Friday afternoon.
Updated at 1:20 p.m. to report that the summons and the lawsuit have been withdrawn; updated at 1:51 p.m. to update the number of Twitter followers.
