WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A District of Columbia Superior Court judge on Thursday approved a government warrant seeking data from an anti-Trump website related to Inauguration Day protests, but he added protections to safeguard "innocent users."
Chief Judge Robert Morin said DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based web-hosting company, must turn over data about visitors to the website disruptj20.org, which is a home to political activists who organized protests at the time of Donald Trump's inauguration as U.S. president in January.
Morin, who will oversee review of the data, said the government must explain what protocols it will use to make sure the data of "innocent users" is not seized by prosecutors.
The U.S. Justice Department said it sought the records connected to the site amid concerns that it helped facilitate the planning of protests on Inauguration Day in which more than 200 people were arrested for rioting and vandalizing businesses in downtown Washington.
DreamHost resisted the request, saying the scope of the warrant was too broad and trampled on the rights of 1.3 million visitors to the site, many of whom were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to express their political views.
The Justice Department last week proposed amending the scope of its warrant to exclude the IP addresses of website visitors and limit the search only to records from July 1, 2016 to Jan. 20, 2017.
But DreamHost argued that the warrant was still too broad, as it could sweep in people who sent emails to disruptj20 addresses. The company objected to the two-step process that would require it to turn over data in bulk and let prosecutors search for and seize evidence of criminal involvement in the riots.
Morin said at a hearing on Thursday that he recognized the tension between free speech rights and law enforcement's need to search digital records for evidence. He said he added safeguards to his order granting the government's request for information in an effort to balance those two concerns.
Reporting by Robert Iafolla; Editing by David Alexander and Dan Grebler
