Overview
- The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, led by Jeanine Pirro, issued grand jury subpoenas to Reddit and X seeking names, addresses and banking records for at least two anonymous users who criticized ICE.
- Records shared with reporters show the requests were made “pursuant to a criminal investigation,” yet the targeted users were not told what specific crimes the DOJ is probing.
- The move follows an earlier use of administrative summonses that were withdrawn after legal pushback, and the government then escalated to grand jury subpoenas that are harder to quash.
- The affected users learned of the demands only after the platforms notified them and their lawyers have filed motions to quash the subpoenas and to unseal the matters now pending before Chief Judge James Boasberg.
- Civil liberties groups and the platforms say the subpoenas threaten anonymous dissent and privacy, and reporters note similar DHS and platform data requests have been used before, making the court fights a key test of online speech protections.