On this week’s episode of Versus Trump, we talk about web-hosting company Dreamhost's refusal to cooperate fully with the Trump Administration's broad request for information about the visitors to DisruptJ20.org, a website allegedly used by those involved in an Inauguration Day riot. As usual, you can listen online below, and subscribe here with any podcast player or here in iTunes.

We begin the episode [at 2:00] by discussing the background of the case. Over 200 people were charged in connection with an Inauguration Day riot in Washington, D.C., and, during the investigation, the U.S. Attorney obtained a warrant that ordered Dreamhost to turn over a vast collection of data about visitors to the website DisruptJ20.org. The government says this site served as an online organizing tool for the rioters. Dreamhost, however, pushed back against the broad scope of the warrant; as we discuss, the government later narrowed the request, but a court last week ordered Dreamhost to comply with the newly-narrowed warrant, though the court will continue to supervise the data collection. We next [at 6:00] discuss whether the Trump Administration's request was a break with earlier attitudes about the scope of warrants for collection of electronic data. That leads us [at 24:00] into a discussion of the merits of the so-called two-step process of electronic data search and seizure, according to which government agencies are allowed to sift through large collections of electronic data and discard irrelevant information. One host is even persuaded of a new position live on air! (We won't reveal who.)

The episode concludes [at 34:00] with Trump nuggets about Carl Icahn and Joe Arpaio.

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Links

• There is no written ruling in the Dreamhost case, but a good description of what happened is available here via Dreamhost or here at the New York Times.
• The narrowed scope of the warrant is explained here. Dreamhost’s opposition to the warrant is here, and the government's brief explaining that it was narrowing its request is here. 
• We discuss the Supreme Court’s opinion in Riley v. California, and the opinion in that case is available here. Jason quotes from the Solicitor General’s brief in that case, and the brief can be found here.
• Take Care has featured multiple posts about the Arpaio pardon, including most recently those by Chiraag Baines here, and Leah Litman and Lark Turner here. 
• Easha’s Trump nugget highlights a New Yorker article, available here, about investor and former Trump advisor Carl Icahn.

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