© Bryan Woolston / ReutersActivists and journalists get hit by a stun grenade during a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the inauguration in Washington, D.C. January 20, 2017
The government's request for complete access to Facebook accounts linked to the anti-Trump inauguration protests has been challenged by the ACLU, which accuses the DOJ of an "unjustified invasion of privacy"violating the First and Fourth Amendments.
The Department of Justice sought warrants for three anti-Trump Facebook accounts, as part of its probe into the large protests on inauguration day, in which mass arrests were made and more than 200 people were charged with felony rioting.
Neither Lacy MacAuley, Legba Carrefour or Emmelia Talarico, who owns the DisruptJ20 (now Resist This) page, were charged with inauguration day-related offences, however.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) DC is fighting to limit the "unreasonable" search warrants seeking access to the protesters' Facebook accounts. "Most of the material demanded bears no relation to the government investigation," it explained in its
filing to DC Superior Court Thursday.
A gag order - preventing Facebook from informing its users that they were under investigation - was placed on the
warrants when they were obtained in February. However, Facebook fought it and the case was dropped by the government on September 14, allowing those targeted to be informed.
Comment: A thorny problem. Antifa and groups like it need to have tabs kept on them. They are a danger to the public. But drawing the line at what is acceptable monitoring is difficult and easy to slip into unconstitutional overreach, as the ACLU had noted.