Remember Big Brother? Well, he’s here now. It seems that people who are now signing petitions or writing Homeland Security on certain cases by email are now having their Google accounts subpoenaed by DHS, but if and when the notice comes from Google is there a copy of a subpoena attached.
The Washington Post has a story about a man in northern Virginia who wrote DHS asking that an Afghan who had worked with the US not be deported. Only five hours later, he received this ominous email: “Google,” the message read, “has received legal process from a Law Enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.”
DHS is not required to disclose the number of administrative subpoenas it issues every year, but over the last six months at least 28,622 have been issued to Google. In Minneapolis DHS subpoenaed the Instagram accounts of all 7,000 workers at Hennepin Health care who protested ICE presence in hospital rooms interfering with medical care. The ACLU quashed that subpoena, but in many cases people do not even know about these intrusions into their lives.
Prayer for the Day
Raised in a Nation touting its Constitutional freedoms,
We find that there are forces seeking to quiet dissent;
Told that our history honors the brave who have struggled,
We learn that forces seek to intimidate us today.
Arouse us, O Lord, so we become aware of threats to our freedom,
And help us put a check on unbridled power.
In the name of the One who stood against authoritarian power,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Beyond my personal situation, is the bigger question of how they misuse their powers to target innocent victims across the board. If this goes unchallenged, we are all complicit or vulnerable in allowing the Government to abuse its powers.
Jon, whose Google account was subpoenaed
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.
Nathan Freed Wessler, ACLU attorney who represented Jon to quash the
subpoena
To the wicked, God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes,
Or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline,
And you cast my words behind you.”
Psalm 50: 16-17