The Trump administration has ordered Reddit to provide personal information on one of its users who criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement, The Intercept reported on Friday. Reddit has until April 14 to provide the data.

Attorneys for the user say their client’s posts and their anonymity are clearly protected by the First Amendment.

On March 4, an ICE agent in Fairfax, Virginia sent a request to Reddit seeking information on the user, referred to as John Doe. To compel compliance, ICE slapped the social media behemoth with an administrative subpoena, which does not require approval from a judge.

“Failure to comply with this summons will render you liable to proceedings in a U.S. District Court to enforce compliance with this summons as well as other sanctions,” the request stated. “You are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time. Any such disclosure will impede the investigation and thereby interfere with the enforcement of federal law.”

The request sought a month’s worth of data on the user, but it did not specify what the agency found potentially actionable.

Reddit informed Doe about the request two days later, prompting the person – who lives in the Pacific Northwest – to retain attorneys from the Civil Liberties Defense Center in Oregon. The user’s attorneys say nothing in their client’s posting history points to illegal activity. The Intercept reported:

There was a thread from early January, after news outlets including The Intercept identified Jonathan Ross as the ICE officer who shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis. Commenting on a Minnesota Star Tribune article, another Reddit user posted that Ross might be welcomed as a hero in Florida or Texas. John Doe responded by sharing that Ross had lived in Chaska, Minnesota; grew up in Indiana; and served in the Indiana National Guard — biographical details that were circulating widely at the time. “Hopefully he moves up to Stillwater State Penitentiary,” they wrote.

In another post, a Reddit user asked what they should write on an anti-ICE protest sign. John Doe suggested the lyrics to a song: “Urine speaks louder than words.” In a third instance, Doe wrote, “TSA sucks and we all know it.” According to the Reddit user’s attorneys, these were the most aggressive posts they could find.

Doe’s attorneys file a motion to quash the government’s summons in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where Reddit is based. On March 27, the U.S. Attorney’s Office there informed Doe it was withdrawing the request.

But on March 31, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. summoned representatives from Reddit to appear before a grand jury in the nation’s capital. The office, which is headed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, is seeking about three months’ worth of data on Doe.

“Because they were repeatedly losing those attempts at subpoenaing stuff in court, in what they’re doing is illegal and unconstitutional, they have now switched to this other mode,” Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center told The Intercept. “They are able to strong-arm information that they were denied through the courts legally.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!