Thousands of protesters line the inaugural parade at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue following President Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20 in Washington. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Judge moves to conceal identities of users behind anti-Trump website Feds probing Inauguration Day violence will get DisruptJ20 data, but stripped of details on individuals.

A D.C judge has ordered web hosting company DreamHost to turn over information about an anti-Trump website, but moved to conceal the identities of users who feared government retaliation for engaging in innocent political speech.

"We’re happy to see all of these changes to the original search warrant that are going to protect the constitutional rights of innocent internet users, which is what we have been fighting for from the beginning," said DreamHost General Counsel Christopher Ghazarian.


The order Chief Judge Robert Morin issued Tuesday still compels DreamHost to give government lawyers files, messages, and other information from DisruptJ20.org, a website used to convene and coordinate protesters ahead of President Donald Trump's inauguration. But the company can now redact the identities of individual users from the data that will be handed over to the government, the judge ruled.

In order to obtain that information, the Justice Department must demonstrate to the court that their activity on the site is directly related to the agency's ongoing criminal investigation of alleged rioting on Inauguration Day, according to the order.

The government "does not have the right to rummage through the information contained on DreamHost's website and discover the identity of, or access communications by, individuals not participating in alleged criminal activity," the order states.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C., which has charged more than 200 people with felony rioting on the day of Trump's swearing-in, declined to comment on the order.

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DreamHost initially challenged a search warrant that the company's attorneys argued was overly broad and would have required them to reveal the IP addresses of every visitor to the DisruptJ20 website. That argument resonated with Morin at a hearing in August, and he sought to put limits on how the government could access information held on DreamHost's servers.

At a hearing last month, Morin said he was willing to let investigators have a quick look at the types of files DreamHost has about DisruptJ20, then propose a detailed search protocol. However, prosecutors and the web hosting company agreed instead on anonymizing the data and turning it over to investigators who can then decide whether they want to seek the identities of those involved.

Several individuals who visited or interacted with the DistruptJ20 web site expressed concern to the court that their identities would be wrongly revealed to the government. Under the final version of the order, user identities are being redacted, at least initially.

Internet and free speech advocates had blasted the terms of the first warrant, arguing that it was dangerous to provide the government with the names of individuals who disapprove of the sitting president. What's more, they said revealing that information would amount to a violation of constitutional rights and could having a chilling effect on online political discourse.

One of the lawyers who challenged the original warrant, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen, described the revised order as significantly improved but still problematic.

“I’m pleased that the judge adopted our more expansive and protecting definition of what identifying information has to be withheld from disclosure. That’s really very important,” Levy said.

An online civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, also welcomed the judge's latest order as moving in a welcome direction

"We're pleased to see the court exercise appropriate caution before allowing the government access to information held by DreamHost," EFF's Andrew Crocker said. "The court recognized the serious First Amendment interests raised by the government's attempts to identify communications belonging to ordinary users of disruptj20.org without any evidence that these users are connected to its investigation. Allowing DreamHost to redact this information and requiring the government to articulate its search protocols are excellent first steps to preserving these users' First Amendment rights."

However, Levy said other aspects of the ruling appear to have gone against what he urged the judge to do. Asked about a potential appeal, the attorney said: “We have to figure out what we want to do about it.”

Ghazarian of DreamHost said the firm does not plan to appeal the order in its current form.

In his order, Morin said he is not inclined to stay his ruling for any potential appeal.

“Give the unprecedented level of participation by a service provider, DreamHost, in making suggestions to the Court to ensure that the identities of innocent visitors to the website are protected, the Court will deny any request to stay this order absent any additional showing,” the judge wrote.

The government's quest for the DreamHost data is moving forward as prosecutors continue to wage a parallel legal battle for similar information held by Facebook. In that case, the government is seeking the identities of thousands of people who "liked" the DisruptJ20 Facebook page, or posted messages there.

Prosecutors initially objected to Facebook's request to let those who maintained the page know about the demand for data, but a day before the issue was to go before a public hearing of the D.C. Court of Appeals, the government agreed to allow such notice.

Last week, people involved with running the page retained the American Civil Liberties Union to file a motion to quash the search. Morin is scheduled to hold a hearing Friday on that request.

The three are not currently charged in the criminal cases stemming from the violent protests, an official familiar with the case said.