How the FBI Sought a Warrant to Search Instagram of Columbia Student Protesters

Newly unsealed records provide new details about the Trump administration s failed effort this spring to obtain a search warrant for an Instagram account run by participant protesters at Columbia University The FBI and federal prosecutors sought a sweeping warrant the records show that would have identified the people who ran the account along with every user who had interacted with it since January Between March and April the FBI and the Department of Justice filed multiple search warrant applications and appeared numerous times before two different judges in Manhattan federal court as part of an research into Columbia University Apartheid Divest or CUAD a learner group A magistrate judge denied the application three times in March a decision which a district court judge later affirmed in April It is uncommon for a magistrate judge to reject a search warrant application from the regime It is peculiar for a magistrate judge to reject a search warrant application from the leadership announced F Mario Trujillo a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation And it is even more distinctive for the regime to try and appeal that decision to a district court judge who again rejected it That speaks to the lack probable cause in the warrant application The records which include transcripts of hearings with the judges as well as the governing body s filings provide a rare blow-by-blow of the search warrant application process which in line with normal procedure was initially conducted under seal The materials were unsealed on Tuesday as part of a court action originally filed by the New York Times in May which The Intercept supported Columbia University and CUAD did not forthwith respond to a request for comment The establishment first sought a search warrant on March the records show The Times previously shared that the Department of Justice sought the search warrant after a top official Emil Bove ordered the department s civil rights division to find a list of CUAD s members For a month the executive argued to judges that a March post on Instagram from cuapartheiddivest the group was banned from Instagram in late March for violating public standards was a true threat against the university s then-interim president Katrina Armstrong in violation of federal law The post referred to the university s use of the New York Police Department to break up campus demonstrations and the targeting of aspirant activists by U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement Screenshot from the ruling body s application for a search warrant targeting the Instagram account of Columbia University Apartheid Divest Source Court filing The people will not stand for Columbia University s shameless complicity in genocide reads the post in part next to a photo of graffiti spray-painted onto a Manhattan mansion used as the president s housing at Columbia The University s repression has only bred more resistance and Columbia has lit a flame it can t control Katrina Armstrong you will not be allowed peace as you sic NYPD officers and ICE agents on your own students for opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people FREE THEM ALL reads the graffiti in the photo alongside an inverted triangle a much-disputed symbol that pro-Palestine protesters in the U S and around the world have used Hamas the militant group that ruled the occupied Gaza Strip has also used the inverted triangle to identify bombing targets the FBI agent whose name was redacted wrote in an affidavit accompanying the search warrant application The FBI agent wrote that the photograph of the graffiti and message in the Instagram post were sufficient probable cause of an interstate communication of a threat to injure in violation of the law Read our complete coverage Chilling Dissent The argument made in multiple hearings over the following weeks failed to convince two judges Reviewing the initial application Chief Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn determined it was a close call and requested for more information about the symbolism and context of the posting according to a letter from the executive On March Netburn denied the search warrant application finding the post seemed like protected speech under the First Amendment the cabinet letter commented The Justice Department fast appealed the rare denial of a search warrant application Because Judge Netburn s ruling significantly impedes an ongoing review into credible threats of violence against an individual prompt reversal is necessary wrote Alec C Ward a trial attorney in the Justice Department s civil rights division in a March letter to a district court judge Following hearings on March and March which largely concerned the Justice Department s procedural missteps District Court Judge John Koeltl referred the search application back to Netburn During a March hearing Netburn denied the request for a search warrant application once again Netburn criticized the leadership for failing to clearly represent what the episode law is around the First Amendment and threats Words that may reflect heated rhetoric in the context in which they are made would not reasonably engender fear do not constitute a true threat Netburn commented ruling that the governing body hadn t met its burden to establish that the triangle symbol in the context here and in the context of the report that the president of Columbia University will not have peace is a true threat as the law identifies The administration also hadn t indicated whether Armstrong the interim Columbia president herself really interpreted the statements as threatening which binding precedent from the U S Supreme Court requires We have not had an opportunity to put that question directly to Ms Armstrong at this point Ward communicated Netburn The FBI had flagged the post to Armstrong s office Ward commented at the hearing conveying its belief that the threat should be taken seriously from a assurance standpoint Ward compared the post to burning a cross outside a residence which is not protected speech under the First Amendment saying the two were not exactly equivalent but still comparable as symbolic threats After denying the application Netburn ordered that if the cabinet ever tried to get another court to authorize a search warrant for CUAD s account they had to include a transcript of the hearing before her The accompanying text also does not contain an explicit or implicit threat of violence It contains political opposition to Columbia s program The executive appealed Netburn s third denial of the search warrant application At an April hearing Koeltl agreed with Netburn s denial Context matters Koeltl revealed at the hearing There were no such explicit threats in the Instagram post about what was written on the wall on then-President Armstrong s residence As for the explicit message on the wall FREE THEM ALL that phrase does not convey a threat Koeltl revealed nor is there any reason to conclude that the red paint was intended to convey a purported threat The accompanying text also does not contain an explicit or implicit threat of violence he ruled It contains political opposition to Columbia s program In a final bizarre twist to the search warrant saga when the New York Times sought to unseal the materials last month the regime did not oppose the request On Tuesday evening the Justice Department filed copies with minimal redactions The post How the FBI Sought a Warrant to Search Instagram of Columbia Novice Protesters appeared first on The Intercept