Voice of America reports the U.S. government on Friday dropped its effort to force Twitter to identify users behind an account critical of President Donald Trump. The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection had sought the identity of the users of Twitter handle @ALT-USCIS. Twitter had responded on Thursday by filing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging the request to unmask the users, contending “the rights of free speech afforded Twitter's users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution [the] right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech."
Reuters claimed the abrupt end to the dispute may indicate that Justice Department lawyers did not like their chances of succeeding in a fight about First Amendment rights, citing Jamie Lee Williams, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who maintained the government effort appeared to be “a blatant attempt to censor or chill the people behind this account, or to retaliate against people who are speaking out against this administration,” noting as well that “this could have been a huge loss for the administration in court.”
Esha Bhandari, one of the ACLU attorneys who represents the @ALT-USCIS account users asserted “the speed with which the government buckled shows just how blatantly unconstitutional its demand was in the first place. Speaking anonymously about issues of the day is a longstanding American tradition, dating back to when the framers of the Constitution wrote under pseudonyms. The anonymity that the First Amendment guarantees is often most essential when people criticize the government, and this free speech right is as important today as ever.”
Austin Evers, Executive Director of American Oversight, acknowledged the Department of Homeland Security “did the right thing by stepping back from their demand that Twitter identify the author of the @ALT_uscis account,” but noted that “not every critic of the government will have a major tech company backing them up in court, so it is important for us to understand why DHS tried to stifle dissent in the first place and whether they intend to do so in the future.” “This is an odd ending... that honestly raises more questions than it answers,” Evers continued, “we have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for records related to who in the Trump Administration ordered this improper administrative summons, and we are prepared to sue if necessary to hold those responsible for this overreach accountable.”