SURRENDER

Twitter Beats Back Government Request for Identity of Trump Critic

Government reportedly withdraws its summons for info on user critical of Trump.

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday reportedly withdrew a request for Twitter to provide information on a user purported to be a government employee posting critical comments about President Trump. The social media site had fought back against the request, filing a lawsuit on Thursday in which it challenged the order as a violation of the First Amendment rights of the user, who claimed to be an employee of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A day later, Twitter dropped the suit, saying the “summons has now been withdrawn.” The Department of Homeland Security has yet to comment on the matter. But experts had said Twitter would have had the upper hand in the legal battle, because the government did not seem to have a compelling argument that the Twitter user was breaking any laws. The Twitter account run by @ALT_uscis has been posting critical comments about Trump’s immigration policies for the last two months, with special emphasis on the president’s plans to build a wall with Mexico and his controversial travel ban on certain countries.