The DOJ Wants the IP Addresses of All Visitors to Anti-Trump Website

Source: Law Street Media

On July 17, the Department of Justice issued a search warrant to the website hosting company DreamHost in order to gain access to the IP addresses of people who visited www.disruptj20.org. The website coordinated protests of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

On Monday, DreamHost made the warrant public, as it plans to challenge the DOJ in court. Privacy advocates call the government’s request an unconstitutional “fishing expedition,” looking for people who are critical of the president. The warrant requested access to the website founder’s information, as well as the IP addresses of about 1.3 million people who visited it.

Now people are outraged that the government is targeting people visiting a website that is critical of the president, which is not a crime. “This specific case and this specific warrant are pure prosecutorial overreach by a highly politicized department of justice under [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions,” said Chris Ghazarian, general counsel for DreamHost.

The people behind DreamHost are determined to fight the warrant in court. Ghazarian said they are the gatekeepers between the government and all the people visiting the website: “We want to keep them protected.”

Read more: https://lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/law/doj-wants-ip-addresses-visitors-anti-trump-website/