IHIP News: Trump Admin ATTACKS REDDIT to Get User's Data that SPEAK OUT Against HIM?!

All right, this mega regime likes to. flood the zone and thankfully there are. so many incredible journalists in the. United States doing incredible work. exposing the fascism and the erosion of. civil liberties and here to discuss. his reporting with me is Ryan Devereaux. He's an investigative journalist and. fellow at type Media Center. He's out. with an incredible piece. for the intercept titled a redditor. criticized ice. Trump is trying to.

unmask them by dragging the company to a. secret grand jury and he's here to. discuss it with us. Ryan, welcome to I. hit news. This is really disturbing and. there's just so many stories out there. that I want to highlight how just a. random redditor can be in the crosshairs. of this fascist regime. Well, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, we published a story last week on. the intercept which looks at this case. that you described where a person had. been posting on Reddit.

The government didn't identify exactly. what the offending post was but their. lawyers had surmised that it was likely. to do with ice and the shooting of Renee. Good in Minneapolis. Sort of a bit of backstory over the past. year since the Trump administration came. in and they've been sending a ton of. what are known as administrative. subpoenas to. different digital media companies. So. the big social media companies meta x. and and Reddit and requesting data on.

anonymous accounts that post related to. immigration enforcement. These are. accounts that are sometimes tracking ice. operations in the streets naming agents. who are often masked. The government. claims that this is doxing and this is a. threat to officer safety but in a lot of. cases what we have seen are. instances where individuals seem to be. be doing nothing more than venting about. their frustration with the federal. government and they get hit with one of.

these subpoenas. Um in this particular case, um it sort. of originated in Northern District of. California. An ICE agent from Virginia. had requested uh information and about a. month's worth of really extensive. electronic data on a user. They didn't. say, the agent didn't say exactly what. had tipped them off, what what what what. caused this. Reddit alerted, which they. often do in these sort of instances, the. user that there had been a request for. their data. The user then contacted a.

group called the uh. CLDC. It's a Center for Civil Liberties. Defense. um Civil Liberties Defense Center in. Northern California in the district. where these tech companies are based. They filed a motion to quash. uh this administrative subpoena. What they have found, what these. advocates have found, is that when they. actually enter these motions to quash in. in federal court, ICE is generally. backing down in these cases. So, when. people get representation, when they uh. you know, say, "Hey, we're going to.

fight this." ICE has been backing down. But what happened in this case that is. as far as we can tell, maybe the first. instances instance of this happening, is. that that motion was filed. The lawyers, the defense attorneys, the. Civil Liberties Advocates received an. email from an Assistant US Attorney. there in the Northern District of. California saying, "Hey, we're withdrawing this request for. data." And just a few days later, four. days later, Reddit receives a grand jury subpoena.

not in Northern California, but in. Washington, D.C. Not from an ICE agent, but from an Assistant uh US Attorney, a. federal prosecutor in the capital. And. they're calling not this individual. Reddit user to appear before the grand. jury, they're calling the company itself. to turn over this data. So, what Civil. Liberties Advocates, Privacy Advocates. are saying is that this indicates a. significant sort of escalation in what. the administration is doing targeting. the the companies themselves and the. very existence of a grand jury subpoena.

a federal grand jury subpoena out of the. capital. suggests the possibility of a. potential significant criminal case sort. of centering around this. free speech activity many many are here. we don't know what the substance of this. case is because grand juries are. incredibly secret. but the very but we know that it is. existence. suggests something serious. So we know that like Zuckerberg Musk.

bent the knee to Trump I mean that's. widely documented so do we know if the. owners of Reddit are they knee benders. to fascism? You know Reddit is an interesting case. in comparison to some of these other. tech companies you have groups like the. Electronic Frontier Foundation which. tracks sort of privacy protections in. the context of these big social media. companies in in general Reddit has. scored fairly high on on their rankings. in terms of protecting privacy Reddit. certainly makes a big deal of their.

privacy protection policies we don't. know how much to take them at their word. because a lot of this happens behind the. scenes but outwardly they they very much. sort of project the image of a company. that does a lot to protect its data in. the course of reporting the story Reddit. directed me to some transparency reports. that they published in the past year. that are really that really include some. very interesting data about the moment. that we're in right now so the past year. the first six months of last year Reddit.

recorded more requests from law. enforcement law enforcement. these sorts of administrative subpoenas. grand jury subpoenas that sort of thing. than they've ever received at any other. point prior to their reporting now Now, don't disaggregate that data to tell us. which law enforcement agencies. specifically are requesting data, but it. is US law enforcement agencies that are. making the most requests. And a lot of. those requests are coming from federal. law enforcement. A lot of them are.

coming out of DC. And so it it is a. strong indication that these companies, Reddit in particular, but it also Meta. and actually receiving a lot of requests. on accounts. And. you know, requests for data are not. unusual for these companies from federal. law enforcement. Normally, you know, Reddit will get a. a number of requests for child. endangerment type of cases. But what's. different in this moment is a ton of. requests from the government about. anonymous accounts that appear critical.

of the administration's immigration. enforcement regime. Yeah, and it makes you wonder, remember. all the don't tread on me flags at the. January 6th and don't tread on me. people. Yeah, absolutely. >> a clear, you know, attack on free. speech. There is this I've read about. this. I think it's N S P 17 or something. like this. It's a national security memo. where they are wanting to get files on.

people probably like me or like you or. these Reddit users and label us, it's a. pre-crime labeling. They're labeling. people with a pre-crime. Do you see any link between that N S P. 17. and and these. requests coming out of Washington in. this pre-crime. era that DOJ, Trump, Stephen Miller, they're wanting to It goes back to what. the president ran on, which is the enemy.

from within. Any reporting that this is all linked in. that umbrella of this regime? Yeah, so NSPM 7 was a national security. sort of memo that went out to all of the. you know the sort of. ecosystem of federal law enforcement. agencies sort of outlining what the. administration's. law enforcement priorities and agenda. are. And as you indicated, it's you know. folks can look it up. There's a whole. list of sort of criteria that the.

administration is asking. ordering its agencies to be on the. lookout for. A lot of this stuff has to. do with being you know critical of. immigration policies. You know, anything that threatens sort. of traditional. this is. not my sort of description of what this. is not this is not my interpretation. It's literally what it says. It's you. know sort of anyone that's critical. traditional American values.

sort of. Christian traditional American values. critical of immigration enforcement. That's the sort of broad umbrella that. the administration has tasked its. federal law enforcement agencies to be. sort of targeting and zeroing in on and. paying attention to. So I think what we've seen and this is. pretty clear at this point is obviously. the administration's immigration agenda. is quite unpopular politically right. now.

In addition to a really intense. crackdown on undocumented people. themselves, the administration has. widened the aperture to include critics. of its policies. We saw this you know playing out. obviously very dramatically in. Minneapolis where I was earlier this. year. And I think that these cases like. we're discussing here is instances of a. Reddit user being targeted with. administrative subpoena and then. the government sort of getting that. batted down and turning around and. filing a sort of order that a a major.

one of the largest you know tech. companies around to appear before a. grand jury in Washington D.C. is part of. the same sort of project. Um. I very much believe that that the kind. of Miller agenda that lumps immigration. in with cracking down on the left are. are intimately intertwined. Yeah, I do, too. You know, they call him. his nickname in the White House is Mr. Prime Minister. And I don't think that this is my. opinion. I think that whether it's um.

Kristi Noem or Senator Mark Wayne. Mullin, they're just a puppet. I think. Stephen Miller runs DHS. He's the one. who puts the pressure on the people in. Minneapolis to be aggressive with. protesters. So, let me ask you this. I. think one of the biggest American things. is to talk. I have a podcast called. I've Had It cuz I like to talk, right? So, I think a lot of Americans. like to talk. The president likes. to talk. Look at his his social. media feed. It's ridiculous. He's the.

biggest talker on the planet. So, you're telling me I can go on Reddit. right now and I can be like, I sucks. I. think Stephen Miller's a prick. Um I. think what they did in Minneapolis is. I think they're behaving like. fascist Nazis. And then they're going to come after me. via some secret grand jury? For That's what's happening here to. Americans talking on Reddit. Yeah, so a bit more context about this.

case in particular. Like I said, we. don't know what triggered it for ICE, but this person who's identified in. court records as John Doe and got legal. counsel and they did a review of all of. this person's posts. Um you know, recent posts. And what they. saw were some, you know, they posted in. a thread. that shared an article a news article. that identified Jonathan Ross who is the. ICE officer who shot Renee Good in. January in Minnesota.

The comments from this poster in that. account, which I I report on in the. piece, I. I include three different posts that are. probably the spiciest of anything that. the attorneys could find and and they. weren't. even the most aggressive in that thread. So again, we don't know what the context. or what the what the substance of this. case that the feds are. apparently pursuing is. But yeah, your.

description. uh of what the sort of ramifications. could be. if you're going on Reddit to talk. um seems accurate. It seems to be what. happened in this case. >> he named the shoot the the ICE uh agent. that shot Renee Good. He. named him. >> No no no no. The the the subreddit had posted a news. article. from from Minneapolis. The news article.

that broke the news of who Jonathan Ross. was and this was just people commenting. on the news. The the poster didn't share. anything that wasn't already circulating. widely in mainstream news accounts. They. said, you know, that Jonathan Ross was, you know, lived in. lived in Minneapolis for a while, served. in the National Guard. Their commentary. was that they would like the Reddit. users commentary was that they would. like to see Ross in prison. Uh that.

there was no sort of disclosing new. information that wasn't already out. there. >> All of this was protected speech, right? Okay, so civil liberties lawyers say. they can't find anything remotely. criminal in this user's post. What do you think the government's. actually trying to accomplish here with. Reddit? Do do I mean, I for me, and this. is just me deducing, I'm not an. investigative journalist like you are. To me what the work you do is the gold.

standard. I am an online commentator. {slash} talker. For me it seems. like a layup that Trump could call Zach. or uh Musk and be like, "Hey, we want. this shit." And you know, Elon Musk, I. mean, high on ketamine, he'd be like, "Yeah, sure. Here's all the DMs. Whatever you want, buddy." But is there. any Do you know of any link that Reddit. is something they're trying to get their. hands on? Do you think that this is more. like we need to get control of Reddit. because Reddit hasn't been the knee, or. do you think this is it is more um we're.

sending out a flare to like when they. arrested Don Lemon. They're trying to. send out a flare to people like me. What. what is your take through your. investigation on this? What do you think. the message that the Miller Stephen. Miller's wrote cuz we know Trump doesn't. give a about any of this stuff. He's laser focused on his ballroom. So, what do you what do you think they're. trying to What message do you think. they're trying to send here? You know, there's a lot of. you know, we're doing a lot of speculating here. because obviously it's a grand jury,

super secret. We you know, that's that's. the nature of a grand jury. We don't. know what the substance of this. investigation is, but I think that it is. fair to conclude that. this is an indication that the. administration and federal law. enforcement under this administration is. taking this. doxing of federal law enforcement. epidemic. as they describe it really seriously. Um they're going beyond the. administrative subpoenas which an agent.

you know, ICE can whip up pretty quick. They don't need a a judge's approval to. request this data. They're seeing pushback in federal. courts as they did in Northern District. of California. They're seeing some of. these knocked down. So, instead of. backing away from this project of going. after these accounts, um. they're taking it to the next level and. they've convened a grand jury and. they're seeking evidence and they're. hauling the companies themselves in and. asking them to turn over data and that's.

a pretty significant turn. We'll have to. wait and see, you know, whether. an indictment comes down out of this. grand jury or not. Um, you know, but the fact of a federal. grand jury in this kind of case is. significant. For, you know, listeners. who might not know, a grand jury is not. like, you hear jury and you're thinking. of an adversarial kind of trial, the. defense attorney making arguments. That's not what a grand jury is. A grand. jury exists for the purpose of allowing.

a prosecutor to present evidence in. order to bring charges. Everything is. under seal. So, all of this is happening. behind closed doors right now. We're. going to have to wait and see to see. whether or not something comes out of. it, but yeah, I think that this is a. strong indication that the the. administration is. you know, it's taking this whole doxing. thing very, very seriously. They're. committing resources to it. They're assigning agents to it and. obviously agents are going around and.

they're looking for for for stuff that. they can request data on. Like like I. said, Reddit has received a ton of these. type of requests over the past year and. it's not just Reddit. X has too. Meta has too. They're they are making a. concerted effort to find people who are. behind these accounts. Which is really rich because, I mean, nobody is a bigger doxer than Donald. Trump. When he had all of these, you. know, cases against him, lawsuits. against him, he's doxing judges, judges'.

kids. I mean, just absolutely horrible. Um, I just want to point out that. everything with this administration, it. seems like it's a shakedown. They, when. they started, they had to shake down the. law firms and then they're shaking down. universities. Now they're shaking down. uh, uh, tech agencies and all of this is. a means to, um, curtail criticism. I. will say something hopeful for my. listeners is that sometimes, a lot of. times, federal courts have been, um,

really strong resistance in Trump 2.0. And grand jurors have been really strong. resistance. You may remember, Ryan, the, uh, Trump regime tried to, uh, convene a. grand jury against sitting members of. Congress and the Senate that, uh, wanted. to, that told people in the military do. not disobey illegal orders. And they. tried to indict John Kelly, et cetera. And the grand jury, which would indict a. ham sandwich, was everyday Americans.

standing up as resistance. So, that's. why I just want to say to you and to the. listener, these stories and the, um, journalism that you do is so important. in the world of podcasting. And I'm a. podcaster. I always say the gold. standard is journalism to shine a light. to disinfect wrongs and to right wrongs. So, thank you so much. You have any. closing thoughts for our listeners as we. continue through, you know, this with the Trump regime.

Well, just you know, you know, I was just sort of thinking as. as you were commenting there about the. level of resistance that we were seeing. in the United States right now. And I I. spent a good chunk of the beginning of. this year in Minneapolis and saw what. that looked like there in Minnesota. And. I think that sort of. as unprecedented as the moment feels in. terms of the crackdown, I I think that. there is a. a a sort of nearly unprecedented level.

of resistance out there. And I I think. we can expect that to continue as the. administration's efforts roll on. I I I agree with you. Ryan Devereaux, thank you so much for you're doing and. listener please go read his article at. the intercept and support journalist the. most important part of our democracy. right now is journalism. Thank you so. much. Thanks so much for having me. >> [music].