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 attendee 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 study into Columbia University Apartheid Divest or CUAD a attendee group A magistrate judge denied the application three times in March a decision which a district court judge later affirmed in April It is peculiar for a magistrate judge to reject a search warrant application from the ruling body It is atypical for a magistrate judge to reject a search warrant application from the governing body mentioned F Mario Trujillo a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation And it is even more peculiar for the administration 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 regime 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 without delay respond to a request for comment The authorities first sought a search warrant on March the records show The Times previously released 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 administration 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 attendee activists by U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement Screenshot from the establishment 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 solicited for more information about the symbolism and context of the posting according to a letter from the cabinet On March Netburn denied the search warrant application finding the post seemed like protected speech under the First Amendment the establishment letter declared The Justice Department fleetly appealed the rare denial of a search warrant application Because Judge Netburn s ruling significantly impedes an ongoing study 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 governing body for failing to clearly represent what the development 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 noted ruling that the ruling body hadn t met its burden to establish that the triangle symbol in the context here and in the context of the announcement that the president of Columbia University will not have peace is a true threat as the law identifies The cabinet also hadn t indicated whether Armstrong the interim Columbia president herself truly 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 explained Netburn The FBI had flagged the post to Armstrong s office Ward noted at the hearing conveying its belief that the threat should be taken seriously from a protection 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 regime 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 guidelines The ruling body appealed Netburn s third denial of the search warrant application At an April hearing Koeltl agreed with Netburn s denial Context matters Koeltl reported 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 guidelines In a final bizarre twist to the search warrant saga when the New York Times sought to unseal the materials last month the cabinet 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 Apprentice Protesters appeared first on The Intercept