Republican Attorney General Jeff Sessions
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.”
When contacted, the Justice Department directed The Hill to the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. […]
Just finished this piece in my morning paper as the eclipse is getting underway here in San Diego. Stopped in my tracks by what I consider the enormity of this threat to what’s left of our privacy, I jumped to Stephan’s report and here it is — loud and clear! I confess that loathing was my first response, and this actually frightens me. The hearing is on Friday. Holding the good thought on this one.