On May 31, 2019, the United States Department of State implemented new registration rules which required visa applicants to disclose all of their social media identifiers, including anonymous ones, which they used during the five years prior to their application on twenty social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several foreign social media sites. The requirements also applied to people already living in the United States who applied for new visas.
On December 15, 2019, plaintiffs (the Doc Society, a non-profit organization which supports documentary filmmakers, and the International Documentary Association, a non-profit of association of documentary filmmakers) filed suit against Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf, seeking (1) a declaration that the registration requirements violated the Administrative Procedures Act and the First Amendment, (2) an injunction to prohibit enforcement of the registration requirements, and (3) an order expunging all information collected to date as a result of the registration requirements.
The government filed a motion on April 15, 2020 to dismiss the action for lack of jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim and the plaintiffs opposed the motion on May 27. Several amicus curiae briefs were filed in opposition to the motion on behalf of, among others, Twitter, Reddit, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The government filed its reply papers on June 10, 2020 and a decision on the motion is expected soon.
Regardless though of how the district court rules on the motion, it is highly likely that an appeal will follow in this important challenge which pits the plaintiffs’ civil liberty rights against the government’s social media surveillance practices in the name of national security.
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For any question relating to this article, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.
Rob Nussbaum has lectured numerous times on legal issues and social media and how social media and other electronic evidence may be admitted into evidence at trial. He concentrates his practice in general commercial litigation and appears regularly in New Jersey federal and state courts.
For any questions relating to whether your website or social media presence can be used against you as a basis for personal jurisdiction, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.