Donald Trump's administration has found a whole host of ways to be malicious and inept. They seem to have both colluded with Russia to swing the election and then (poorly) attempted to cover up that collusion. They have failed on such easy political calculations as "denounce the KKK" and "be critical of Nazis." And they have consistently and constantly undermined the legitimate news media at every turn, all while pushing hateful policies that hurt basically anyone who isn't a straight white male with money. It would be easy to assume that there were no new ways for this administration to disgust and scare people, yet here we are.

Today a web hosting service called DreamHost announced in a blog post that the Department of Justice has requested they turn over 1.3 million IP addresses of visitors to a website called DisruptJ20.org that people used to organize protests of Donald Trump's inauguration.

The request from the DOJ demands that DreamHost hand over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses — in addition to contact information, email content, and photos of thousands of people — in an effort to determine who simply visited the website. (Our customer has also been notified of the pending warrant on the account.) That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment. That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind.

This appears to be a pretty clear-cut example of the government attempting to not only police political speech and people's right to assemble, but also make people more generally hesitant to speak out against the administration. And what's possibly even scarier is the fact that DreamHost is simply the first provider to go public with a request like this. Who's to say that there aren't sites and providers who have already turned this information over to the government willingly, but are keeping quiet?

I think what is most striking about this is how it's just another example of Trump and company's inability to take it no matter how much they dish it out. This is a coalition that's built on targeted Internet harassment and a widespread abuse of anonymity. Of all the Trump trolls who clog your Twitter mentions, what percentage of them are actually displaying their real name and photo? Eight percent? But that's not who Trump and company are looking into. No, they just want to know the information of Trump's enemies. And if that sounds to you like the opening moves of a budding autocracy... Well, then congrats, you're absolutely right.

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