News Release

Government Demands Details on All Visitors to Anti-Trump Website

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The Guardian reports — “U.S. government demands details on all visitors to anti-Trump protest website” that on July 17, the Department of Justice “served a website-hosting company, DreamHost, with a search warrant for every piece of information it possessed that was related to a website that was used to coordinate protests during Donald Trump’s inauguration. The warrant covers the people who own and operate the site, but also seeks to get the IP addresses of 1.3 million people who visited it, as well as the date and time of their visit and information about what browser or operating system they used. …

“The website, www.disruptj20.org, was used to coordinate protests and civil disobedience on 20 January, when Trump was inaugurated.”

CHIP GIBBONS,  Chip at RightsAndDissent.org
Gibbons is policy and legislative counsel for Defending Rights & Dissent. He said today: “There is no legitimate law enforcement purpose for this warrant. We know very well that its real purpose is to chill speech, silence dissent, and make people afraid to speak out.”

ALFREDO LOPEZ, alfredo at mayfirst.org
Lopez is co-director of May First/People Link, which said in a statement: “While demands made on providers for user information have become common over the last few years, this one represents a new level of violation. … May First/People Link has resisted every legal request like this one since 2008 (see support.mayfirst.org/wiki/legal). We are glad to see Dreamhost fighting this one. And, we believe our entire movement should support that resistance and promote the resistance of any such order in the future.”