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Twitter Inc is suing the US Government after it reportedly received demands from US officials asking for records that would reveal the user identities behind an account opposed to President Donald Trump.
- Twitter says it received a summons last month demanding the account's details
- US Department of Homeland Security, a defendant in the case, declines to comment
- Twitter has a record of litigating in favour of user privacy
"The rights of free speech afforded Twitter's users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the US Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech," Twitter said in the lawsuit.
The US Department of Homeland Security, which is a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit over the account @ALT_uscis, claimed to be run by federal immigration employees, was filed in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday (local time), where Twitter is based.
The acronym CIS refers to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the account's description refers to itself as "immigration resistance".
Following Mr Trump's inauguration in January, anonymous Twitter feeds voicing concerns at more than a dozen US government agencies appeared to challenge the President's views on climate change and other issues.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it was representing the anonymous Twitter user, who has 33,000 followers, and would be filing on the user's behalf soon.
Twitter said it received an administrative summons last month demanding that it provide records related to the account.
A copy of the summons filed with the lawsuit says the records are needed for an investigation to ensure compliance with duties, taxes and fines and other custom and immigration matters.
It was not immediately clear how the anonymous account fit into those laws and regulations, and Twitter might have a strong case that the summons was improper, said Paul Alan Levy, staff attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group who specializes in online privacy and free speech issues.
"I don't think there is any way for the Government to come out of this looking good," Mr Levy.
Twitter, which counts Mr Trump among its active users, has a record of litigating in favour of user privacy, including a 2012 demand from New York prosecutors about an Occupy Wall Street protester.
Reuters
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, donald-trump, social-media, united-states
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