Steve Loney: How to fight back when the federal government tries to silence you online

The freedom to openly criticize the government without penalty or punishment is the keystone of our democracy. Free and spirited debate helps inform voters and keeps our elected officials accountable to their oath of office to serve the people and defend the Constitution.

The Department of Homeland Security has now withdrawn three subpoenas targeting U.S. residents who criticized the government online. That’s not an accident—it’s an abusive pattern: issue the subpoena, then back down swiftly the moment it is legally challenged and gains attention.

These subpoenas demand that big tech companies, like Google and Meta, turn over extensive private data about account users who did nothing more than exercise their First Amendment rights on the internet. The message DHS is sending is simple: speak up, and we’ll terrify you into thinking twice about ever doing it again.

It’s intimidation dressed up as law, but these subpoenas are without question illegal. DHS is just betting on people not knowing how to fight back.

The freedom to openly criticize the government without penalty or punishment is the keystone of our democracy. Free and spirited debate helps inform voters and keeps our elected officials accountable to their oath of office to serve the people and defend the Constitution.

As our government takes steps to chill dissent we are in real danger of slipping into authoritarianism and losing our democracy as we know it.

From major universities to distinguished law firms to media organizations to Jimmy Kimmel and more, the Trump administration has made no secret about its willingness to weaponize federal agencies and powers as a means of silencing opposition to its destructive agenda.

Unlike the high-profile battles between the president and prominent institutions and public figures, DHS’s scheme is quieter – yet no less sinister. The federal agency wants to smother the voices of ordinary people who dare to protest, petition, or express grievances about government actions.

But if our showdowns with DHS have shown us anything, it’s that we are not powerless against this administration’s tactics.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania took on two of the recent subpoena cases – and undisputedly won.

The first case involves an Instagram account called MontCo Community Watch, which disseminated information about potential ICE raids in Montgomery County. Just a few months after the account’s creation in June 2025, DHS sent a subpoena to Meta demanding personal information like the name, IP address, email, and phone number of the individual behind the anonymous Instagram account.

Rather than refusing to comply with a clearly unlawful subpoena, Meta sent a form email to our client informing them that the government was trying to access their personal data and they had 10 days to file a federal action, or else Meta would turn over the client’s user data to DHS. It was immediately clear that the agency had no legal basis to get that user data. Nevertheless, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and our co-counsel (from the ACLU of Northern California and Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg, and Lin) had to initiate court proceedings and argue a motion before a federal judge in California before DHS ultimately backed down and withdrew its subpoena with an agreement not to issue any more subpoenas targeting MontCo Community Watch.

The second case involves a Philadelphia retiree who wrote an email to a DHS official regarding the potential deportation of an individual from Afghanistan. The email was non-threatening and urged the official to use “common sense and decency” when considering the case for deportation.

Within hours, our client received a note from Google, alerting him to the fact that DHS had issued a subpoena to access sensitive personal data tied to our clients’ Google account and that they were giving him a week to challenge the government’s order. In other words, just like Meta, Google was leaving it to our client, who is not an attorney, to file a challenge to a subpoena he had not seen in federal court all by himself.

Just a few days later, DHS agents showed up at our client’s door with a copy of his email, demanding an explanation. Our client explained that he had obtained the email address of the DHS official he’d contacted through publicly-available information online. Eventually, the agents agreed that our client had committed no crime and left. But DHS did not withdraw its subpoena.

Once again, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the ACLU of Northern California challenged DHS’ subpoena in federal court, this time alongside attorneys from the ACLU National Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. And again, DHS backed down when we pushed back. The agency responded to our court filing by withdrawing their illegal subpoena and concluded their sham “investigation” against our client.

Of course, our two clients won’t be the last critics of the Trump administration that the federal government will attempt to silence by weaponizing our courts.

So here’s what you can do if you find yourself a target of a DHS (or another federal agency) subpoena as a result of things you said or wrote online that were critical of the federal government.

First, if a social media company, web browser, or internet service provider alerts you to the fact that the federal government has issued a subpoena for your personal data, you should immediately request a copy of the subpoena from them. That alert, with information on how to contact the service provider, will probably come in the form of a message to whatever email account you have linked to your social media accounts, so make sure you monitor those email accounts and check your spam folders.

Second, you should reach out to your state ACLU affiliate or an attorney – ideally one who specializes in free speech law – for help.

Make no mistake, any and all efforts to silence dissent and roll back the First Amendment by this administration –or any administration– is unacceptable. The ACLU of Pennsylvania will use every tool and resource at its disposal to protect your right to criticize the government.

The ACLU was built for this.

Watch ACLU-PA’s Steve Loney join The Lever’s David Sirota to discuss DHS subpoenas >>

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Vox Populi is posting this blog as a public service to our readers.

Steve Loney is Senior Supervising Attorney for ACLU-PA.