DHS Is Hunting Down Trump Critics. The ‘Free Speech’ Warriors Are Mighty Quiet.
from the the-chilling-effects-are-real dept
For years, we’ve been subjected to an endless parade of hyperventilating claims about the Biden administration’s supposed “censorship industrial complex.” We were told, over and over again, that the government was weaponizing its power to silence conservative speech. The evidence for this? Some angry emails from White House staffers that Facebook ignored. That was basically it. The Supreme Court looked at it and said there was no standing because there was no evidence of coercion (and even suggested that the plaintiffs had fabricated some of the facts, unsupported by reality).
But now we have actual, documented cases of the federal government using its surveillance apparatus to track down and intimidate Americans for nothing more than criticizing government policy. And wouldn’t you know it, the same people who spent years screaming about censorship are suddenly very quiet.
If any of the following stories had happened under the Biden administration, you’d hear screams from the likes of Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger, about the crushing boot of the government trying to silence speech.
But somehow… nothing. Weiss is otherwise occupied—busy stripping CBS News for parts to please King Trump. And the dude bros who invented the “censorship industrial complex” out of their imaginations? Pretty damn quiet about stories like the following.
Taibbi is spending his time trying to play down the Epstein files and claiming Meta blocking ICE apps on direct request from DHS isn’t censorship because he hasn’t seen any evidence that it’s because of the federal government. Dude. Pam Bondi publicly stated she called Meta to have them removed. Shellenberger, who is now somehow a “free speech professor” at Bari Weiss’ collapsing fake university, seems to just be posting non-stop conspiracy theory nonsense from cranks.
Let’s start with the case that should make your blood boil. The Washington Post reports that a 67-year-old retired Philadelphia man — a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from the UK — found himself in the crosshairs of the Department of Homeland Security after he committed the apparently unforgivable sin of… sending a polite email to a government lawyer asking for mercy in a deportation case.
Here’s what he wrote to a prosecutor who was trying to deport an Afghani man who feared the Taliban would take his life if sent there. The Philadelphia resident found the prosecutors email and sent the following:
“Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life. Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”
That’s it. That’s the email that triggered a federal response. Within hours — hours — of sending this email, Google notified him that DHS had issued an administrative subpoena demanding his personal information. Days later, federal agents showed up at his door.
Showed. Up. At. His. Door.
A retired guy sends a respectful email asking the government to be careful with someone’s life, and within the same day, the surveillance apparatus is mobilized against him.
The tool being weaponized here is the administrative subpoena (something we’ve been calling out for well over a decade, under administrations of both parties) which is a particularly insidious instrument because it doesn’t require a judge’s approval. Unlike a judicial subpoena, where investigators have to show a judge enough evidence to justify the search, administrative subpoenas are essentially self-signed permission slips. As TechCrunch explains:
Unlike judicial subpoenas, which are authorized by a judge after seeing enough evidence of a crime to authorize a search or seizure of someone’s things, administrative subpoenas are issued by federal agencies, allowing investigators to seek a wealth of information about individuals from tech and phone companies without a judge’s oversight.
While administrative subpoenas cannot be used to obtain the contents of a person’s emails, online searches, or location data, they can demand information specifically about the user, such as what time a user logs in, from where, using which devices, and revealing the email addresses and other identifiable information about who opened an online account. But because administrative subpoenas are not backed by a judge’s authority or a court’s order, it’s largely up to a company whether to give over any data to the requesting government agency.
The Philadelphia retiree’s case would be alarming enough if it were a one-off. It’s not. Bloomberg has reported on at least five cases where DHS used administrative subpoenas to try to unmask anonymous Instagram accounts that were simply documenting ICE raids in their communities. One account, @montcowatch, was targeted simply for sharing resources about immigrant rights in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The justification? A claim that ICE agents were being “stalked” — for which there was no actual evidence.
The ACLU, which is now representing several of these targeted individuals, isn’t mincing words:
“It doesn’t take that much to make people look over their shoulder, to think twice before they speak again. That’s why these kinds of subpoenas and other actions—the visits—are so pernicious. You don’t have to lock somebody up to make them reticent to make their voice heard. It really doesn’t take much, because the power of the federal government is so overwhelming.”
This is textbook chilling effects on speech.
Remember, it was just a year and a half ago in Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court found no First Amendment violation when the Biden administration sent emails to social media platforms—in part because the platforms felt entirely free to say no. The platforms weren’t coerced; they could ignore the requests and did.
Now consider the Philadelphia retiree. He sends one polite email. Within hours, DHS has mobilized to unmask him. Days later, federal agents are at his door. Does that sound like someone who’s free to speak his mind without consequence?
Even if you felt that what the Biden admin did was inappropriate, it didn’t involve federal agents showing up at people’s homes.
That is what actual government suppression of speech looks like. Not mean tweets from press secretaries that platforms ignored, but federal agents showing up at your door because you sent an (perfectly nice) email the government didn’t like.
So we have DHS mobilizing within hours to identify a 67-year-old retiree who sent a polite email. We have agents showing up at citizens’ homes to interrogate them about their protected speech. We have the government trying to unmask anonymous accounts that are documenting law enforcement activities — something that is unambiguously protected under the First Amendment.
Recording police, sharing that recording, and doing so anonymously is legal. It’s protected speech. And the government is using administrative subpoenas to try to identify and intimidate the people doing it.
For years, we heard that government officials sending emails to social media companies — emails the companies ignored — constituted an existential threat to the First Amendment. But when the government actually uses its coercive power to track down, identify, and intimidate citizens for their speech?
Crickets.
This is what a real threat to free speech looks like. Not “jawboning” that platforms can easily refuse, but the full weight of federal surveillance being deployed against anyone who dares to criticize the administration. The chilling effect here is the entire point.
As the ACLU noted, this appears to be “part of a broader strategy to intimidate people who document immigration activity or criticize government actions.”
If you spent the last few years warning about government censorship, this is your moment. This is the actual thing you claimed to be worried about. But, of course, all those who pretended to care about free speech really only meant they cared about their own team’s speech. Watching the government actually suppress critics? No big deal. They probably deserved it.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, administrative subpoenas, bari weiss, chilling effects, dhs, donald trump, free speech, matt taibbi, michael shellenberger
Companies: google, meta
Comments on “DHS Is Hunting Down Trump Critics. The ‘Free Speech’ Warriors Are Mighty Quiet.”
There were still patrols today.
This is still ethnic cleansing.
This is still fascism.
And for the record: I believe Tom Homan loves to lick the shit crust off Trump’s mushroom cap penis while Stephen Miller jerks it to “Faces of Death” onto both their faces.
Kristi Noem drinks virgin blood to keep her plastic surgery in place.
These shitbirds can literally fuck their own faces.
Get the fuck out of Minnesota.
Michael Shillenberger
Not the cleverest pun, I’ll admit.
But this piece unfortunately convinced me to spend seconds of my precious life looking at what Shellenberger is up to now. He’s f*cking STILL complaining about “the Left”. “The Left” is about to return to its intolerant ways. “The Left” is going to “get more people killed” because of their resistance to ICE. Pretti was interfering with authorities, and oh nos, he kicked a Border Patrol car and spat on it some time before he was killed – AS IF ANY OF THAT IS MEANT TO BE PUNISHED A DEATH SENTENCE. As if there’s no way he could have been apprehended nonlethally if they felt so threatened by his attempts to (check notes) help another person the authorities were attacking.
Not one f*cking thing about raiding journalists homes… or how depriving people of their LIFE is actually quite arguably a much larger problem compared to “the Left”‘s “censorship industrial complex”. Or how going after critics in every way possible – from extorting media giants to pushing insufficiently supine journalists from the Pentagon, to pushing career government personnel out of numerous agencies due to insufficient ideological and unquestioning loyalty – is pretty clearly worse than anything Biden even CONSIDERED. And actually, it doesn’t matter if it’s “worse” or not – it’s all very, very clearly wrong, and censorship, but no, not a complaint out of him about .
F*ck it, I take it back. “Shillenberger” is too GOOD of a pun for him.
I pity the fool who reads an iota of his Substack. If visual venereal diseases were possible, I would have just contracted all of them from giving that jackhole a moment’s peruse.
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The problem with falsely villifying ‘The Left’ for decades on end crying wolf is that no one will care when the radical leftist wolf actually shows up to devour the conservatives and Nazis.
Think about that for a minute. All he is doing is setting up the second New Deal he fears most and guaranteeing being denied due process for being part of the GOP.
His best bet will be to flee to a small country and try to disappear hoping no left wing dissidents fly a drone to him extrajudicially (because at what point do they gain anything from denying the lies over his disappearance and lack of due process being a footnote and media background noise?)
The right wing is intentionally trying to grind non-violent protest to dust betting they can remain in control over whatever ashes remain. Historically that’s always been a very bad bet, and he desperately wants to be an exception that proves the rule.
At some point you skip engaging in pointless, twisted debate with evil people on their playing field.
I read the WaPo article about the 67 year old man who got a visit from federal agents. It was unnerving, to put it mildly. To put it less mildly, it was terrifying. The bio of the author of that article begins with:
“John Woodrow Cox is an enterprise reporter at The Washington Post and the author of Children Under Fire: An American Crisis. In 2018, his series about the impact of gun violence on children in America was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He was also part of the team of Post journalists awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for public service for coverage of the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.”
I wonder if he made the cut when the WaPo layoffs were announced 1 day later.
They want to make America great again, they say. They can… just by leaving and never coming back. Clearly they hate every American ideal of justice, freedom, and fair play. They call themselves Christians as well, all while rejecting everything Jesus said to do and doing the exact opposite. Their ideal behavior is to lie, cheat, steal, and murder. We fought a world war to stop people like this from killing everyone who opposed them. I guess all those people simply immigrated to the U.S. and have been subverting the country ever since. Scratch a billionaire, find a Nazi. The top 1% of U.S. wealth-holders have about one third of all the country’s wealth; the bottom third have barely more than zero wealth. Fifty years ago the top 1% didn’t even have 10% of the wealth. We’re well into the long con with the filthy rich buying up everything with money they acquired by hook or by crook. Follow the money if you want to save America.
Meanwhile it looks like no one left is competent enough to find a kidnapper.
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You are lying, again. Murthy was dismissed for lack of standing. No findings of legal merit were made.
You always make the same lie, and CITE YOURSELF LYING as documentation.
As for people trying to obstruct law enforcement operations, surveilling targets is very different than political dissent, isn’t it?
They are following them to try to stop them from accomplishing their duties. That is, depending on how far they go, NOT protected speech.
You disingenuous partisan pissant.
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I’ve responded to your disingenuous arguments before. That you continue to repeat it shows that you are incredibly dishonest.
It was dismissed for lack of standing, but why was there no standing? How about I let Amy Coney Barrett tell you:
“There is therefore no evidence to support the States’ allegation that Facebook restricted the state representative pursuant to the CDC-influenced policy”
“As already discussed, the record contains no evidence that either the FBI or CISA engaged with the platforms about the pandemic.”
“Hoft provides no evidence that Twitter adopted
a policy against posting private, intimate content in response to the FBI’s warnings about hack-and-leak operations”
“There is no evidence that the White House asked Facebook to censor every user who reposts a member of the disinformation dozen, nor did Facebook change its policies to do so.”
“the [district] court, echoing the plaintiffs’ proposed statement of facts, erroneously stated that Facebook agreed to censor content that did not violate its policies…. Instead, on several occasions, Facebook explained that certain content did not qualify for removal under its policies but did qualify for other forms of moderation.”
The reason there was no standing was because the plaintiffs presented NO EVIDENCE of any actual demands for censorship. If they had presented actual evidence I would have also called it out as a violation of the First Amendment (as I have when both Democrats and Republicans have demanded censorship). I would have signed onto an amicus brief against the government if they had shown ANY evidence. They didn’t. That’s why the case failed.
Because the people you idolize LIE LIKE FUCKING CRAZY. And when a court demanded evidence THEY HAD NONE. So, yeah, it was for lack of standing because to have standing YOU HAVE TO SHOW ACTUAL HARM. They couldn’t, so they lost.
Your problem is you’re SO focused on supporting whatever your team does that you never, not once, could ever possibly admit that maybe this was a SHIT lawsuit based on made up claims that had no evidence behind it. Nor could you EVER admit that you’re beloved MAGA leaders are engaged in widespread censorship.
Because you’re an automoton. You’re just here to spew talking points. You couldn’t think your way out of a paper bag.
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I sometimes wonder if such users are here because they view TechDirt as their own personal erotica website. They get off getting completely owned like this. I mean, it’s a possible explanation for why they keep coming back to get owned again, anyway.
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Murthy was NOT decided for lack of standing. It wasn’t decided at all. Random quotes don’t change that.
You continue to lie about it. Lying about lying doesn’t change that, at all.
There is no world in which the SCOTUS “ruled on” Murthy. They refused to rule. (probably for very pragmatic, political reasons, which is sad).
You are lying, on purpose, EVERY time you bring it up.
“dur hur FoxNews lied to you”. This is incredibly ironic since you live in the biggest bubble ever.
Learn the law. Or y’know, just stop lying about it.
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Lol, dude, I was responding to YOU saying it was “dismissed for lack of standing.” Now you’re saying it wasn’t? Lol.
Yes, technically it was “remanded” but the result and intent is the same.
It literally was. It was decided that the lower court was wrong in its analysis and sent back to them to try again. This isn’t hard.
Uh. “Random quotes” being quotes of the MAJORITY OPINION IN THAT RULING that explain WHY IT WAS REMANDED FOR LACK OF STANDING which prove you are full of shit.
You are full of shit. The majority opinion, written by a Justice nominated by Donald Trump, says I’m right and you’re full of shit.
They absolutely did. They ruled that the 5th circuit’s ruling was incorrect and remanded the case back to them to try again. As part of that they explained why there was no standing, which was that there was no evidence of any actual coercion by the government.
You do realize that everyone else can actually read the ruling, right?
It’s right here:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
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Except the SCOTUS decision for no standing was found based on the lack of evidence.
You are lying by omission, pretending that lack of standing is mutually exclusive with a lack of verified evidence, when in fact the former was due to the latter.
“The Supreme Court issued its decision on June 26, 2024. The 6–3 majority determined that neither the states nor other respondents had standing under Article III, reversing the Fifth Circuit decision. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion, stating: “To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek. Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”[31] Barrett cited a “dearth of facts” to support the claim that any action taken by the social media companies was a result of executive branch action for each of the plaintiffs, writing that in some cases there was no evidence that any government defendant had mentioned them at all.[32]
Barrett also wrote that the Fifth Circuit’s decision relied on a “clearly erroneous” reading of the evidentiary record by the District Court. She listed numerous examples in which Doughty had misframed routine communications as supposed “censorship requests”.[33] Other legal analysts noted the remarkable number of factual errors and fabricated quotations that had passed through the district court and Fifth Circuit and made it to the Supreme Court, some of which were raised and clarified in oral argument.[34]”
That’s a subjective claim to motives.
No, no it’s not. But targets is a very tainted word. The “targets” are constitutional rights violating agents and observing and recording and reporting them in the course of their supposed duties is protected 1st Amendment activities. Public employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. SCOTUS has already ruled on this.
They are following to document unlawful conduct under the color of law as a right of redress under the 1st Amendment. Just because you work for the government doesn’t mean you have immunity for violating the Constitution.
There’s a lot of wiggle room in that weasel wording.
Another accusation-confession. You are partisan. Others just oppose constitutional violations regardless of who is committing them.
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You know that everyone can actually read the Murthy v. Missouri decision, right? You on the other hand, you saw the word “dismissed” and stopped both reading and thinking.
Do you even know the reason for the dismissal? Mike spelled it out for you, the Supreme Court found no First Amendment violation which meant the plaintiffs had no standing under Article III because it was determined they had not been and will not be affected by governmental actions.
We have been over this before and it seems you don’t understand simple things like referring to previous opinions someone wrote to establish a fuller picture for the reader of the writer’s position. Every time Mike cites one of his own articles they contain all the previous cites and links to news articles, legal documents and court decisions. That you can’t understand this is entirely due to your abject clownishness and failure as a human being.
You aren’t a big on learning history, are you? Organized protesting and obstruction of governments and their agents is and have always been the hallmark of political dissent. How the fuck do you think the US was created? By having the red-coats knocking on someone’s door and apologizing profusely after that person wrote polite letters disagreeing with the king whereupon all the British skedaddled back to Great Britain?
Well then, I assume writing polite letters is your definition of NOT protected speech.
I have to inform you that you claimed that title ages ago.
Speaking of “shithole countries”. America, those of us in the free world are looking on in total disbelief and horror. You’re fucked for years to come.
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LOL. Hi Scrut.
Tell TOP I ain’t dead still.
As for the NAZIs, well…working on it. As Churchill said “The Americans can be trusted to do the right thing, once they have tried everything else.”
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The Free World that’s more than happy to help with what’s going on in the US? The one giving biometrics to help ICE? That one?
https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-countries-gear-up-to-let-us-tap-their-citizens-biometrics/
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/02/03/australian-biometric-id-data-access-donald-trump-ice/
Taibbi is such a clown, it’s crazy he ever had any cred in left wing circles… Then again, lest we forget, Glen Greenwald broke the Snowden story. What time to be alive, eh?
We clearly follow different people and organizations. FIRE has spoken out consistently against those working to suppress speech. And I tend to follow the writings of Cathy Young and other principled liberals on the matter of Freedom of Speech.
I don’t care for MAGA or Progressive “we only care about freedom of speech when it’s our own speech” and the organizations and people I follow reflect this.
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I mean, I named who I was talking about here.
Sure, FIRE is mostly good and I know and talk to folks on their legal team all the time.
I just wish that the other side of their house wasn’t so credulous about “speech on campus” nonsense.
For example, in their newly announced conference one of the featured speakers is… Matt Taibbi.
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To be fair, for most of its existence FIRE’s remit was primarily about educational institutions. It stands to reason they’d fixate on what went on in campuses at the time.
As for Matt Taibbi…I can speculate as to why FIRE thought to invite him as a features speaker – mainly from his blog post that Greg Lukianoff publicly linked to on his then-Twitter account several years back. But I am sure there is more to the decision than that. I’m no fan of Taibbi’s history of being quick to jump the gun and foment conspiracies about governmental censorship, but I would like to get Lukianoff’s reasoning before fully forming my own opinion on Taibbi as a speaker there.
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Matt Taibbi.
Christ, what an asshole.
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It does occasionally cover some stuff to provide a fig leaf for it’s credibility, but it’s been extremely inconsistent. Young isn’t any better, either.
The fact that it puts in some effort puts it above most similar ‘free speech’ organizations, but that’s like saying a wolf in sheep’s clothing is putting in more effort than the plain wolf. Mind you, there are some true believers that work there, playing the role of the useful idiot, but the organization as a whole isn’t.
If you’re looking for someone who consistently calls out FIRE but has free speech credentials, I’d recommend Ken White (Popehat). He’s done a good job pointing out when FIRE is being selective.
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I can’t really speak to the unstated examples you’re referring to for FIRE, but for Cathy Young I will say that she is just one person with only so much time to research and write. It would be impossible for her to not miss writing on some big issues.
As for Popehat – I do generally enjoy his writings though I find him having a history of being swept up in moral panics. It has tarnished my view of him and added suspicion to any emotionally charged topic that he writes about, but I still significant value in reading his blogs nevertheless.
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Who are the progressives you’re referring to exactly?
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“Free speech primarily benefits the powerful”
“Free speech enables speech that intimidates the marginalized into self-censorship.
Etc etc…
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And I’m saying I haven’t heard that from progressives. Can you provide examples?
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I admit I’m a bit at a loss for what can come of this – do ubiquitous was that refrain that I question if we even operate under the same factual basis.
This was a consistent theme of a lengthy news cycle lasting years during the 2010’s and early 2020’s.
I doubt you’ll accept an actual list of names here – people like George Washington University law professor Mary Anne Franks who promoted “reimagining” the first amendment to promote “fearless speech” – speech the oppressed use to challenge their oppressors – and not “reckless speech” which she did not exhaustively define. But she has painted free speech as primarily benefitting the powerful against the powerless. Or what about Professor Richard Delgado who has argued against freedom of speech because it allows for racist speech and reinforces social hierarchy.
And then there’s the enormity of college students and newly grads during the 2010s who publicly spoke out against freedom of speech if it allowed offensive speech targeted at minorities – a category of speech that they seemed to think would never be redefined by the powerful. So many were of this view that it is best expressed as a statistic and in polls rather than individual names. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/11/20/40-of-millennials-ok-with-limiting-speech-offensive-to-minorities/
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Some of your citations appear to be 8+ year old citations from random academics with vague discussions about legal theories during the 1st Trump administration, not politicians or practicing legislators or billionaires who donate large sums to actively influence elections and the politicians who benefit from such contributions. It seems like you’re comparing powerful and influential people with actual power to regulate speech like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump in various mediums and platforms to random academics who have no influence beyond the students in their programs and random podcast listeners who number in the significant minority of the American voter populace.
The Pew Research reference seems like a dead end. I can’t find the actual survey questions to see how they were phrased. The links referencing the survey either go to another filtered report about global results or to a 404 page where they’re no longer hosting the raw survey data, so it can’t be reliably audited or reviewed. You also don’t provide any justification as to why the 40% of millennials referenced in the survey were all progressives or representative of progressives. I’d also want to see a current survey of the same individuals to see how they feel currently rather than 10+ years ago.
This seems like a cherry picked both sides argument.
There indeed might be some self-identified progressives with regressive perspectives on free speech, but it’s disingenuous to pretend that random discussions on the topic or expressions of opinion are equal to the actual violations of free speech principles by conservatives who proudly proclaim themselves to be “free speech absolutists.”
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Nah don’t engage with disingenuous bullshit: this is a retread of the “NAZIs were left wing” argument and it’s bullshit.
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Yeah, every argument from that poster was pretty weak and unevidenced. The tone was… offputting. Does have the flavor of something wrong.
So after sitting with it for a while, here’s a half-assed pile of things which could be used to steel-man an actual good-faith argument.
Note: Not everyone who is not-conservative, not-right, not-MAGA, is “the left”, which anyone sensible knows, but i am pointing out i am aware. So anything mentioned would have to be checked against actual examples of the left.
-The idea in some circles that we do not need the First Amendment because (other countries we think are a good example right now) do not have it; that ‘hate speech’ should be a crime, and further criminalization should occur to better protect the more disenfranchised classes.
Not always popular with everyone in such circles, to be sure. Not something i have seen in the wider public sphere outside the now quite old idea of hate speech (or hate crime enhancements) itself, which was hardly limited to the left or what some jokers call “the left”.
i’ll also say that i understand the idea that 1A disproportionally benefits the powerful and the privileged class, but, uh, what doesn’t? What can they not co-opt and redirect and arrogate only to themselves?
If i had other thoughts, i’ve lost them. But in extreme charity, maybe commenter with which i disagree could be referring to stuff like this, as well as whatever rando professors said something sometime.