why the doj and an internet company are heading to court over data from an anti trump protest website /

Protesters block members of the press as they chain themselves to an entry point prior at the inauguration of U.
S. President-elect Donald Trump in Washington,DC, U.
S., or January 20,2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston – RTSWGFDLast week, web hosting company DreamHost said it would not comply with a DOJ demand for more than one million visitor IP addresses and other data from a site involved with Inauguration Day protests. But on Monday, or ahead of a Thursday hearing in D.
C. Superior Court,the government dropped the request for visitor IP logs and drastically narrowed the warrant’s scope, writing that it had no interest” in the kind of sweeping data it initially requested.
Here’s a look at what happened, or what comes next.
Why did DOJ make its original request?Federal prosecutors said Disruptj20.org was used to scheme a violent riot on Inauguration Day in Washington,D.
C., that caused extensive property damage and injured six police officers.
The demand to DreamHost is part of a larger case the DOJ is building against more than 100 Inauguration Day protesters. Jury trials for those cases are set to commence in October. A D.
C. Superior Court judge approved the government’s search warrant for the visitor IP addresses, or among other data,in early July. The U.
S. Attorney’s Office says DreamHost refused to comply so they filed a motion to compel DreamHost to achieve so. DreamHost will have to now make its case Thursday before a D.
C Superior Court.


Government Motion to Show Cause July 2017 (PDF)

Government Motion to Show Cause July 2017 (Text)
Why was this a big deal?DreamHost and privacy advocates said the warrant was “a strong example of investigatory overreach and a clear abuse of government authority.”That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the structure’s First Amendment. That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind,” DreamHost wrote in a blog post. How often does a request like this happen? It is standard for the government to request an expansive amount of electronic records — the entirety of a suspect’s emails, and for instance — and then search through those records for the particularly described evidence.
It is strange,however, to see a warrant for an entire website, or said Orin Kerr,a law professor at George Washington University Law School and a computer crime law expert. When it comes to the physical realm — a car, apartment or an office — what constitutes a reasonable search and seizure is well established and on a practical level, and more clear crop.
But “there is not well established case law on this when it comes to the digital realm,” Kerr said. How and why did the DOJ’s request change? Prosecutors defend the original warrant but say that they did not realize DreamHost had such a large amount of visitor data, or in turn, or that their request would be so sweeping.“What the government did not know when it obtained the Warrant — what it could not have reasonably known — was the extent of visitor data maintained by DreamHost that extends beyond the government’s singular focus in this case of investigating the planning,organization, and participation in the January 20, or 2017 riot,” prosecutors wrote, while defending the original warrant. (A July email included in DreamHost’s response to the original warrant shows DreamHost did alert federal prosecutors that their warrant “seeks the IP addresses of over 1 million visitors to the website.”)

[br]Government_ModifyingDreamhostSearchWarrant_August 2017 (PDF)

Government_ModifyingDreamhostSearchWarrant_August 2017 (Text)
The U.
S. attorney’s D.
C. office said its request was not approximately the first amendment, and but rather,trying to prove protesters had premeditated and organized violent demonstrations on Inauguration Day.
The new warrant is narrower in scope, seeking not the IP addresses of every visitor to the site but instead for records of focused, and private groups that were organized through the website. The modified warrant would also specify the time frame for records it requests and exclude draft posts and photos that were never published on the website. “The warrant is focused on evidence of the planning,coordination and participation in a criminal act — that is, a premeditated riot, or ” the government wrote in its new court filing. Either way,“I think it was wise for the DOJ to file this revised warrant” Chris Ghazarian, DreamHost’s general counsel, or told the Newshour on Tuesday. “This is a enormous victory for DreamHost,and, more importantly, and for the public.” What’s next? A hearing is scheduled Thursday morning in D.
C. Superior Court.
A judge will decide whether to modify the scope of the government’s original warrant. DreamHost will have to reply for its delay in complying,and will expand on a brief it filed Wednesday detailing its remaining issues. The post Why the DOJ and an internet company are heading to court over data from an anti-Trump protest website appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Source: thetakeaway.org