But on March 31, “Reddit received another message from the feds,” The Intercept reported. “This time, instead of requesting information on an individual user, the government ordered Reddit itself to appear before a grand jury—not in California, but in Washington.”
The subpoena was issued by prosecutors from the US Attorney’s office in DC, and the “records sought spanned a period roughly three times longer than what ICE had originally requested,” the article said. The US Attorney for the District of Columbia is Jeanine Pirro. The grand jury subpoena is a new tactic being used by the Trump administration after it repeatedly lost attempts to subpoena information in court, The Intercept was told by CLDC Executive Director Lauren Regan.
Grand jury proceedings are not public. Grand juries may issue indictments after assessing evidence presented by prosecutors to determine whether there is probable cause that someone committed a crime. Witnesses may be called to give testimony. If an indictment is issued, the accused would be put on trial.
“The only valid use of a grand jury is to investigate federal crimes,” Regan told The Intercept. It’s unclear how Doe’s Reddit posts are evidence of a crime, and the administration is “able to hide what they are doing under the guise of a federal grand jury,” she said.
While the now-withdrawn summons is public, we do not have a copy of the subpoena. The CLDC told Ars today that it has no further comment on the case and noted that grand jury subpoenas are issued in secret.
Reddit: “We do not voluntarily share information with any government”
David Greene, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “knew of no examples during the recent wave of immigration enforcement-related investigations in which a leading tech company has been called to appear before one of the secret panels,” The Intercept article said. “Free speech protections are at their weakest in the context of a grand jury, he explained: The proceedings are not adversarial; their purpose is to permit a prosecutor to file charges.”