Twitter sues the US Department of Homeland Security for trying to break the first amendment

If you don’t know what’s going on between Twitter and the United States Government right now, grab some popcorn and take a seat. We’ll try to make it as simple as possible, as there is quite a bit of meat on this bone.

Twitter is suing the United States Department of Homeland Security for demanding that Twitter unmask the anonymity of Twitter account @ALT_USCIS (Alternative US Citizenship and Immigration Services), which voices its direct opposition of the Trump Administration, its values (and its logic). The government tried to use a “limited purpose investigatory tool” that can circumvent the protection of free speech for very specific cases.

The Trump Administration was unable to give a good enough (or valid) reason to justify why the anonymity of the Twitter account was not protected by the first amendment. It tried to play an UNO card at the Poker table by citing a statute (the one that tried to go around the first amendment) that had nothing to do with the circumstance of the anonymous Twitter account.

The account was created back when Trump was first inaugurated as the 45th president of the US. During this time, the administration seized control of official Twitter accounts for various US departments. @ALT_USCIS is (supposedly) managed by one or more current US government employees and if the identity/identities were revealed, it will likely cost these folks their jobs.

pic.twitter.com/jMyK38iOcN

— ALT🛂 Immigration (@ALT_uscis) April 6, 2017

As a response to Twitter’s lawsuit, @ALT_USCIS has pinned a tweet of the first amendment onto its profile.

The 25 page filing outlines the background and motivation behind the @ALT_USCIS account and cites a number of tweets, solidifying that the account (and its users) in question, is doing nothing more than exercising its right to free speech. Check out the filing here, (and make sure you get a refill on that popcorn if you do).

Source | Via