Prosecutors seek records related to Inauguration Day protest

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"What we have is a sweeping request for every single file we have" in relation to DisruptJ20.org, said Chris Ghazarian, DreamHost general counsel, according to the Washington Post.

Web provider DreamHost has just two days before the company lands in court to fight the US Department of Justice's "overbroad" request for information on users who visited the group's site, a move targeting demonstrators who took part in the #DisruptJ20 movement, activists say.

The warrant was served to the hosting company on July 17, and the government is seeking all information related to that particular website. "But the Fourth Amendment was created to prohibit fishing expeditions like this", he said.

A hearing in Superior Court in Washington was scheduled for Friday, but has been postponed.

The company Dreamhost warns people that the information they are requested to release could be used to identify those who used the websites to express their political speech, an act protected by the First Amendment.

Robert Cattanach, a former lawyer in the Justice Department's civil division with an expertise in cybersecurity, said the loads of "raw data" sought by the government is "too unmanageable to be useful" and was likely a first step in an attempt to ultimately identify protesters. In April, the U.S. attorney's office in Washington DC filed a single indictment charging more than 217 people with identical crimes, including felony rioting. They've been nothing but supportive and helpful throughout, and we're honored to have them in our corner. Federal prosecutors have always been looking for information, including social media account information, related to the Inauguration Day arrests and those involved.

Stephanie Lacambra, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital privacy and advised DreamHost early in the case, believes that the company "did the right thing in standing up for its users".

"I can't conceive of a legitimate justification other than casting your net as broadly as possible to justify millions of user logs", senior staff attorney Mark Rumold told the Guardian.

"What they would be getting is a list of everyone who has ever been interested in attending these protests or seeing what was going on at the protests and that's the troubling aspect".

Wide-reaching warrants for user data are sometimes issued when the content of a site is illegal such as pirated movies or child sexual abuse imagery, but speech is rarely prohibited.

This isn't the first time the organization has had to defend those protections this week. In addition to the thousands of people who protested peacefully that day, there were a relatively small number of people who broke windows, set a limousine on fire, threw rocks at police and, in one case, "sucker punched" prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer.

After public outcry over the administration's overreach, CBP dropped the request.