Democrat demands answers from ICE after legal fight over anti-Trump Twitter account

Twitter withdrew its lawsuit against the Trump administration over the anti-Trump account @ALT_USCIS earlier on Friday, one day after it sued. According to a court document, Twitter said because CBP withdrew a request for a summons, it was “voluntarily” withdrawing all claims against the agency.

Twitter had sued in response to Homeland Security Department officials demanding that the social media company reveal who is behind an anonymous account that has been critical of federal immigration policies. The lawsuit had been filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It showed that DHS reached out in March about the identity of the account, which has over 161,000 followers — a spike of over 100,000 followers in the last 24 hours. In its complaint, Twitter claimed that the government “unlawfully abusing a limited-purpose investigatory tool” to “unmask” the identity of the user behind the account. Specifically CBP requested user information, account login, phone number, mailing address and I.P. address.

On the surface, Wyden said CBP’s request for information was an overreach of its authority, which pertains to trade laws. “Even more concerning,” Wyden added, “is the possibility that CBP requested this information to learn if the account holder(s) are employed by the Department of Homeland Security in order to take retaliatory action or otherwise squelch the exercise of First Amendment right to comment on U.S. policy, and to make those comments anonymously.” Wyden also said he wants to know whether any other executive branch officials outside of CBP were involved in the decision.

Wyden wasn’t the only one to question the Trump administration’s intentions.

GOP Sens. Mike Lee and Cory Gardner sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly requesting “clarification” about CBP’s internal protocols for ordering private companies to reveal their customers’ personal information.

The ACLU also criticized what it called an “unconstitutional” demand by ICE.

“The speed with which the government buckled shows just how blatantly unconstitutional its demand was in the first place,” said Esha Bhandari, one of the ACLU attorneys who represented the user of the @ALT_USCIS account. “Speaking anonymously about issues of the day is a longstanding American tradition, dating back to when the framers of the Constitution wrote under pseudonyms. The anonymity that the First Amendment guarantees is often most essential when people criticize the government, and this free speech right is as important today as ever.”

The user at the center of legal fight, @ALT_USCIS, tweeted praise to both Twitter and the ACLU for defending the “right of free anonymous speech.”