The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection have withdrawn their requests to unmask the Twitter account holder of @ALT_USCIS, news agencies and the account reported on Friday afternoon.
We want to thank @twitter and @aclu for standing up for the right of free anonymous speech. Thank you resistance for standing up for us. https://t.co/6PdwZIJ2xP
— ALT🛂 Immigration (@ALT_uscis) April 7, 2017
Twitter has now filed to voluntarily dismiss its complaint.
“On April 7, 2017, counsel for Defendants from the Department of Justice contacted counsel for Twitter, to advise that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has withdrawn the summons and that the summons no longer has any force or effect,” Twitter’s new filing states.
“Because the summons has now been withdrawn, Twitter voluntary dismisses without prejudice all claims against Defendants in the above captioned matter.”
The original complaint drew tremendous support from both privacy advocates and tech people worried that this would be the beginning of such data sweeps.
“The rights of free speech afforded Twitter’s users and Twitter itself under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous political speech,” the original complaint said.