Bloomberg reports:
U.S. prosecutors prevailed in their request to seek information about subscribers to an anti-Trump website allegedly linked to rioting during the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C.
A judge in District of Columbia Superior Court on Thursday ordered DreamHost LLC, the host of the website disruptj20.org, to comply with a government warrant seeking information about the site’s subscribers.
The government says the site was used to recruit and organize hundreds of people who rioted in the city on Jan. 20, the day President Donald Trump was sworn in, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage over nearly two dozen city blocks.
Chief Judge Robert Morin ruled that DreamHost was obligated to turn over subscriber data, but that prosecutors would have to tell the judge which data it intended to seize.
The judge said he would oversee the use of the data to make sure the government’s seizure was limited to individuals linked to the riots and not people who merely posted messages or communicated with others through the site.
Attorneys for DreamHost say company considering appeal, warns that today’s order could expose 1000s of innocent users. pic.twitter.com/y9MAsdyDNT
— Jimmy Hoover (@JimmyHooverDC) August 24, 2017
. @DreamHost you should of expected this… #Anonymous #TangoDown #OpDomesticTerrorism #DayToDenounce pic.twitter.com/t6UPD6JgHF
— #OpStandUpToCFAA ? (@OpStandUpToCFAA) August 24, 2017
A D.C. Superior Court judge approved a government warrant and now DreamHost must provide data about visitors to https://t.co/Zvr9SWcbUY https://t.co/78SjKf13SX
— Camilo Garzón (@CamiloAGarzonC) August 24, 2017
Oh crap. All my sites are on Dreamhost and they’ve apparently been taken down by hackers for standing up for freedom and democracy.
— Brook Ellingwood (@belling) August 24, 2017
Dreamhost under DDoS attack. My website is down. They also went to court fighting DoJ order today. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but dang.
— Shelly King (@shelbelle94) August 24, 2017
Looks like we’re having a connectivity issue with our video server @DreamHost, video files are temporarily down on the Town Website.
— Douglas Cable Access (@DouglasCableTV) August 24, 2017
It seems that @dreamhost is the victim of an ongoing DDOS attack right now – many sites affected as a consequence.
— SkyfireApp (@Skyfire_App) August 24, 2017
It seems we might have been Trumped. Trump v Dreamhost court case started, then Dreamhost went down. Coincidence? Our website is down 🙁
— Wholegrain Digital (@eatwholegrain) August 24, 2017
Our engineers have identified the cause of the DNS degradation as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack… https://t.co/Imur07b8FI
— DreamHost Status (@dhstatus) August 24, 2017