> Later that day, Jon received an email from Google notifying him that an administrative subpoena had been sent to them from the Department of Homeland Security “compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.” Federal agencies can issue such subpoenas without an order from a judge or grand jury, and Google gave Jon, who withheld his last name to protect his family from the government, one week to challenge it.
> Laws are supposed to restrict the use of administrative subpoenas, but DHS has used the tool against dissent protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Jon could not find who in the agency issued the subpoena, let alone a record of it to show an attorney.
> Days later, DHS agents showed up at Jon’s door.
> Both Google and Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the United States during the first half of 2025 as Trump’s second term began, with Google receiving 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months.
Basically anything goes with this administration, what's going on in the dark but will come out after 2029 will probably be outrageous, just imagine what he's got the CIA doing
They just seized six-year-old state ballots, with an incorrect illegal warrant, outside statute of limitations, with the agents calling the President in the middle of the action
By the way just a reminder they don't need any warrant at all to read any of your emails that are over six months old and you'll never know it happened, it's why the Clintons kept their email server in their basement because he signed that law and knew not to keep them remote
As if everything will be fine in 2029. Between Trump 48, President JD Vance, or a post-purge where the enablers of this regime actually faces accountability, the 3rd option is the least likely...
If the email is as innocent as the article makes it out to be, then this is pretty scary stuff. The DHS Trump appointees are either extremely paranoid and incompetent or abusing government powers to intimidate citizens.
> “Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” Jon wrote from his gmail account. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”
That seems an extremely reasonable email/tone. In fact, this is basically a model of what our civics classes told us we should do.
This whole administration is like watching the sort of petty politics HN assures me basically don't exist outside small towns play out at a state and federal level. Politicians flinging poo at each other, inter agency pettiness. Some guy writes an email and DHS's reactions is "who's this guy who thinks he's so smart, scrutinize him, maybe we can screw him" like a local enforcer who has no "real" power except to cause misery who got offended by someone in the facebook comments.
It's hardly hard to believe that the government would persecute critics. That has happened even before the current administration. It certainly in line with other behaviour we've seen from this admin.
11 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 32.0 ms ] thread> Laws are supposed to restrict the use of administrative subpoenas, but DHS has used the tool against dissent protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Jon could not find who in the agency issued the subpoena, let alone a record of it to show an attorney.
> Days later, DHS agents showed up at Jon’s door.
> Both Google and Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the United States during the first half of 2025 as Trump’s second term began, with Google receiving 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months.
They just seized six-year-old state ballots, with an incorrect illegal warrant, outside statute of limitations, with the agents calling the President in the middle of the action
By the way just a reminder they don't need any warrant at all to read any of your emails that are over six months old and you'll never know it happened, it's why the Clintons kept their email server in their basement because he signed that law and knew not to keep them remote
> “Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” Jon wrote from his gmail account. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”
That seems an extremely reasonable email/tone. In fact, this is basically a model of what our civics classes told us we should do.
It's hardly hard to believe that the government would persecute critics. That has happened even before the current administration. It certainly in line with other behaviour we've seen from this admin.