Overview
- A U.S. magistrate judge denied five search-warrant requests from the Justice Department that sought wide-ranging digital records connected to the Cities Church FACE Act prosecution.
- The judge specifically rejected a warrant seeking comprehensive subscriber data for 'The Don Lemon Show,' saying the indictment did not establish that Lemon had a YouTube channel or that subscriber lists were evidence of a crime.
- The requested data list included names, mailing and residential addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, which the judge described as an alarming effort to compile a comprehensive index of a platform’s audience.
- Prosecutors say Lemon helped intimidate churchgoers, while Lemon says he was reporting as a journalist, and the judge’s denial highlights friction between the government’s theory and press-protection concerns.
- The case uses a rarely invoked FACE Act provision that covers interference with religious services, and the ruling underscores judicial skepticism about government fishing expeditions for mass platform user data and the privacy risks those searches pose.