The ACLU of Pennsylvania wants a court to rule on DHS subpoenas of critics once and for all

by Ian Karbal, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
March 9, 2026

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has already represented two people who were the subjects of federal subpoenas seeking identifying information about them from tech companies.

It’s part of a trend of the federal government seeking information on anonymous critics of the Department of Homeland Security, the agency which houses Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and Customs and Border Patrol, or CBP.

The New York Times reported hundreds of subpoenas have been issued to tech companies like Meta, Google, Reddit and Discord seeking identifying information about anonymous users who track or have been critical of DHS.

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But Pennsylvania ACLU attorney Stephen Loney, said those might just be “the tip of the tip of the iceberg.” That’s part of why he’s hoping a judge will soon rule once and for all on the legality of such subpoenas.

“If you’ve been on Facebook or Twitter for a long time, you might have signed up in 2009 with an email you don’t check anymore,” Loney said. “But that’s the address that will get this notice, and it’s a notice that looks very pro-forma, it’s not personalized, and it looks like it could be spam. It’s the type of thing that looks like, if there was a link in there, I would tell my grandma not to click on it.”

He said that the emails from tech companies note the government asked for information and, if users don’t object in court, they will give the information to the government in a given number of days.

In the two cases that the ACLU of Pennsylvania got involved in, the federal government withdrew their subpoena requests after a requests to quash them were filed.

The first, filed in October, involved a Facebook page called MontCo Community Watch, which advised people of their rights when confronting federal immigration agents and tracked immigration enforcement activity.

DHS submitted two administrative summonses to Meta, Facebook’s parent company, seeking information about the users behind the anonymous account on September 11, 2025. 

The federal government withdrew its subpoena request shortly thereafter.

The second case involved a citizen who sent an email to a DHS attorney involved in a deportation case against an Afghan asylum seeker. The individual, identified as “Jon Doe” in legal filings, asked the attorney to “apply principles of common sense and decency” in their work.

He then received notification that DHS sent a subpoena to Google seeking private information linked to his Gmail account.

That case was dismissed in February after the government dropped their subpoena request.

“That’s great for the client, but in the bigger picture, what DHS is doing is withdrawing their subpoenas to kinda moot the legal issue before a court gets a chance to rule,” Loney said. “They’re dodging any kind of court opinion that would put on the record a decision confirming that what they’re doing is illegal.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, “The Department of Homeland Security conducts all operations in strict accordance with the U.S. Constitution, the Fourth Amendment, and federal law. The rule of law will always remain our highest priority.”

In the MontCo Community Watch case, while DHS had agreed not to issue further subpoenas seeking private information related to the account, the ACLU filed a motion last month seeking attorneys fees from the government.

Loney hopes that, in issuing a ruling on that narrow question, the court will also articulate why the government’s actions were illegal But he also said the ACLU is seeking other options to get a judicial ruling on the underlying question

Loney urged anyone who has been critical of the agency online to monitor any email accounts that may be associated with their recounts. He said anyone who receives a notice that they’ve been subpoenaed should immediately reach out to their local ACLU affiliate, or seek an attorney — ideally one who specializes in free speech law.

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