--- title: Twitter Sues Government Over Anti-Trump Record Accounts description: Twitter said in a lawsuit that it received a demand from officials for records that could reveal the user behind an anti-Trump account. canonical: https://time.com/4729832/twitter-anti-trump-account-lawsuit/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-06T20:22:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:51:04.828Z article:section: Politics og:title: Twitter Sues U.S. Government Over Demand for Records on Anti-Trump Account og:description: The account claims to be run by federal immigration employees og:url: https://time.com/4729832/twitter-anti-trump-account-lawsuit/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfded1c1e8504c45/6988b794428a9e2747cd5a74/twitter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4000 og:image:height: 2250 og:image:alt: Illustrations Of Popular Mobile Apps And Social Media Sites og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Twitter Sues U.S. Government Over Demand for Records on Anti-Trump Account twitter:description: The account claims to be run by federal immigration employees twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfded1c1e8504c45/6988b794428a9e2747cd5a74/twitter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Twitter Sues U.S. Government Over Demand for Records on Anti-Trump Account > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [David Ingram / Reuters](https://time.com/author/reuters/) ## David Ingram / Reuters Apr 6, 2017 8:22 PM UTC  An illuminated wall bearing Twitter Inc.'s logo in this arranged photograph in London, on Jan. 5, 2016. An illuminated wall bearing Twitter Inc.'s logo in this arranged photograph in London, on Jan. 5, 2016.Bloomberg/Getty Images by [David Ingram / Reuters](https://time.com/author/reuters/) ## David Ingram / Reuters Apr 6, 2017 8:22 PM UTC (SAN FRANCISCO) — Twitter Inc said in a lawsuit on Thursday that it had received a demand from U.S. officials for records that could reveal the user behind an account opposed to President Donald Trump and that it was challenging the demand in court. The lawsuit over the account @ALT\_uscis, claimed to be run by federal immigration employees, was filed in federal court in San Francisco, where Twitter is based. Following Trump’s inauguration in January, anonymous Twitter feeds voicing concerns at more than a dozen U.S. government agencies appeared to challenge the president’s views on climate change and other issues. “The rights of free speech afforded Twitter’s users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” Twitter said in the lawsuit. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment on pending litigation. The company said it received an administrative summons last month demanding that it provide records related to the account. The acronym CIS refers to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the account’s description refers to itself as “immigration resistance.” The social media company has a history of challenging other government demands for information on its users, including a 2012 demand from New York prosecutors about an Occupy Wall Street protester. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4729832/twitter-anti-trump-account-lawsuit/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4729832/twitter-anti-trump-account-lawsuit/"},"headline":"Twitter Sues U.S. Government Over Demand for Records on Anti-Trump Account","datePublished":"2017-04-06T20:22:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:51:04.828Z","description":"The account claims to be run by federal immigration employees","url":"https://time.com/4729832/twitter-anti-trump-account-lawsuit/","keywords":["Social Media","Tech","White House","twitter","Courts","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfded1c1e8504c45/6988b794428a9e2747cd5a74/twitter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Ingram / Reuters"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfded1c1e8504c45/6988b794428a9e2747cd5a74/twitter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Illustrations Of Popular Mobile Apps And Social Media Sites","caption":"Illustrations Of Popular Mobile Apps And Social Media Sites","creditText":"Bloomberg/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/social-media/","name":"Social Media"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4729832/twitter-anti-trump-account-lawsuit/","name":"Twitter Sues U.S. Government Over Demand for Records on Anti-Trump Account"}}]}] ```