14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has been subpoenaed by the D.C. police for information regarding several protesters that demonstrated against the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
According to a document obtained by CityLab, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia issued a subpoena to Facebook on January 27. The file was signed by a police officer with the Washington D.C. department.
This doesn’t really come as a surprise since there were over 200 arrests made on that day as protests turned violent. However, since many others were peacefully demonstrating, a class-action lawsuit was filed against D.C. and park police alleging officers had tried to control peaceful demonstrators and used chemicals on them.
The subpoena has to be connected to an official criminal investigation and can require the disclosure of various information regarding those accused, such as name, credit card information, email address, recent login/logout IP addresses, the length of service, and so on.
Not the first, nor the last
This isn’t the first time a subpoena landed on Facebook’s doorstep, and it certainly won’t be the last. Officers have asked the company in the past to provide messages sent by individuals they were looking into, whether they were sent over WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
During the January 20th protests, police took the phones of the arrested protesters and had reportedly mined them for all the evidence they could collect. By asking Facebook to also hand over data, they are likely trying to get a better picture at what happened.
One of the protesters received an email from Facebook’s “Law Enforcement Response Team,” informing them they have received legal process from law enforcement seeking information about their account.
“If we do not receive a copy of documentation that you have filed in court challenging this legal process within ten days, we will respond to the requesting agency with information about the requested Facebook account,” reads the message.
It seems that while Facebook isn’t outright telling them to go to court, it is at least implying there’s still time to do something about the subpoena against them.