Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Dreamhost Gets Win As DOJ Backs Off Requests For Anti-Trump Website Visitors

Los Angeles-based hosting provider Dreamhost has scored a big legal win, after the U.S. Department of Justice retreated on its original request for the IP addresses and information for every visitor to the anti-Trump website, DisruptJ20.org. According to Dreamhost, the DOJ has now asked the court to exclude the HTTP access and error logs for the website, as well as unpublished text and photographs which had not been published by the owner of the site. The filing by the U.S. attorney's office said that "the government values and respects the First Amendment rights of all Americans to participate in peaceful political protests and to read protected political expression online," saying that the request was instead aimed at "evidence of the planning, coordination, and participation in a criminal act--that is, a premeditated riot." Dreamhost had gone public with its fight against the US DOJ request last week. The records in question would have exposed the IP addresses, and therefore, the identity, of around 1.3 million visitors to the DisruptJ20.org website.