Congressional Democrats launched an inquiry Monday into how tech giants handle demands from the Department of Homeland Security for personal information on Americans who criticize the agency.
The probe comes after The Washington Post investigated Homeland Security’s use of administrative subpoenas, a powerful but little-known legal instrument that federal agencies can issue without an order from a judge or grand jury.
In the fall, a 67-year-old retiree named Jon emailed Homeland Security prosecutor Joseph Dernbach to urge mercy for an Afghan seeking asylum. Five hours and one minute later, Jon received a notice from Google that the agency had requested information from his account. The next month, a pair of Homeland Security investigators showed up to his suburban Philadelphia home to interview him about the email.
The U.S. government had been accused under previous administrations of overstepping laws and guidelines that restrict the subpoenas’ use, but privacy and civil rights groups say that, under President Donald Trump, Homeland Security has weaponized the tool to strangle free speech.
In a letter to the tech companies, 28 members of Congress cited Jon’s case as well as others highlighted in The Post’s story, alleging that the incidents “demonstrate that DHS has used this authority to identify, surveil, and intimidate individuals based on speech and political expression protected by the First Amendment.”
“Even the mere notification that individuals receive that the federal government subpoenaed their data chills future speech,” read the letter, co-written by Reps. Robin Kelly (D-Illinois) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington). “These practices undermine public trust in both law enforcement and the private companies entrusted with Americans’ personal data.”
The letter — addressed to executives at Google, Meta, Apple, Snap, Microsoft, X, TikTok, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — asked the companies to describe how they handle administrative subpoenas from Homeland Security, whether they had challenged the requests, either internally or in court, and if they had identified patterns that raise “civil liberties concerns” since Trump’s second term began a year ago.
Most of the tech companies contacted by Congress did not immediately respond to requests by The Post for comment Monday. Nor did Homeland Security.
A spokesperson for Snap declined to comment. Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan pointed to the company’s online FAQ about how it fields government data requests, which states that Meta notifies users of such requests, maintains a dedicated team to review each one and challenges any request it deems “not consistent with applicable law or our policies.”
Kelly, who has sought to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, was indignant when she read about Jon’s saga.
“That’s what people fought and died for — for us to have the right to express ourselves,” she told The Post. “You’re coming to his door for that? That is ridiculous. … Very scary to think that’s happening and that he’s not the only one that’s happened to. … You can’t go to a rally? You can’t write a letter? Like, where does it end?”
Jon, who spoke to The Post on the condition that his last name be withheld out of fear for his family’s safety, panicked when he received the message from Google in late October. The company didn’t say what information the government officials wanted but did tell him that to keep them from getting it, he would have to file a motion in federal court and submit it to Google within seven days.
He initially assumed the subpoena had been approved by a judge or grand jury, because he didn’t know any other kind of subpoena existed. Google had notified him from a “noreply” address and directed him to request a copy from Homeland Security but offered no guidance on how to do that.
Only weeks later did Google provide him with a redacted version of the subpoena and reveal that it still hadn’t given Homeland Security the information it requested, despite the passed deadline.
“Our processes for handling law enforcement subpoenas are designed to protect users’ privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a spokesperson told The Post last month. “We review all legal demands for legal validity, and we push back against those that are overbroad or improper, as we did in this instance.”
Homeland Security withdrew the subpoena in early February after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to quash in federal court. The ACLU also endorsed the letter sent to tech companies Monday, editing the document and offering support, according to Jessica Lee, a spokesperson for Kelly’s office.
Homeland Security is not required to share how many administrative subpoenas it issues each year, but tech experts and former agency staff estimate it’s well into the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Because the legal demands are not subject to independent review, they can take just minutes to write up and, former staff say, officials throughout the agency, even in mid-level roles, have been given the authority to approve them.
In recent months, Homeland Security has issued administrative subpoenas to try to unmask Instagram users who posted about ICE raids in Los Angeles and to identify the people behind an Instagram and Facebook account that tracked ICE raids in Pennsylvania. The agency abandoned both cases after the ACLU intervened.
Like other large tech firms, Google regularly publishes “transparency reports” that show how many government demands for user data it receives, but the companies don’t differentiate between judicial and administrative subpoenas, despite their fundamental differences.
Both Google and Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the U.S. during the first half of last year, as Trump began his second term in office, according to the companies’ most recent reports. Google, which has shared subpoena data since 2012, was sent 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months.
Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and Snap say they alert their users to administrative subpoenas unless they’re barred from doing so or in extenuating circumstances. T-Mobile and TikTok, in contrast, say they notify users when required to by law. Verizon and AT&T wouldn’t tell The Post whether they provide any notice, and X did not reply to questions.
In their letter Monday, lawmakers asked the tech companies to detail exactly how many subpoenas each has received from Homeland Security since Trump’s inauguration. They also asked how many times each company notified their customers of the subpoenas, as well as how many times Homeland Security attempted to “delay or prevent notice.”
The legislators requested “a complete response” by March 26, “given the seriousness of these issues and Congress’s oversight responsibilities,” according to the letter.
“I am pleased to see that the role of the big tech companies in the secretive process involving administrative subpoenas is finally in the spotlight,” Jon told The Post after learning of the letter. “They have responsibilities as corporate citizens to protect the interests of their users. … They need to be held accountable.”
Still, Jon said, Homeland Security’s alleged abuses demand the most urgent attention.
Congress can reexamine the agency’s authority to issue administrative subpoenas, but Kelly suspects that any review would only come after a shift in political power. No Republicans signed her letter.
Jon, who became a U.S. citizen after moving to Pennsylvania from England in the 1980s, worries the country could change in lasting ways if the federal government continues to target critics without consequences.
The experience has fundamentally shifted his own outlook. He’s less trusting, more paranoid. On a recent trip abroad, his luggage was delayed after the Transportation Security Administration set it aside for inspection, and he couldn’t help but question if it was related. He wondered the same after sudden problems with his phone that, he now acknowledges, were probably benign. He recently upgraded to a Real ID and plans to get a passport card he can carry with him all the time, just in case he needs to prove one day that he’s a real American.
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