cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/44753223

The story of how Reddit became ensnared in an ICE-related grand jury began early last month, when the company received a request to turn over the name, address, phone number, and other data associated with an account belonging to a user identified in court records as John Doe.

The request was what’s known as an administrative summons or administrative subpoena, a powerful legal tool typically associated with serious crimes such as child trafficking. Under Trump, the subpoenas, which do not require judicial approval, have increasingly become a weapon wielded against opponents of the president’s immigration policies.

While it does not disaggregate ICE’s activities from other law enforcement agencies’ requests, Reddit reports that January to June 2025 marked the highest volume of requests the company has ever received in a single reporting period. Sixty-six percent of the 1,179 requests came from agencies in the U.S., including 423 subpoenas and 27 court orders. Reddit disclosed user data in 82 percent of those cases. While most requests concern child safety, the next highest category of data sought by law enforcement agencies falls into what Reddit lists as “other/unknown investigation types.”

In the John Doe case, Reddit received an initial request on March 4 from an ICE agent in Fairfax, Virginia.

“Failure to comply with this summons will render you liable to proceedings in a U.S. District Court to enforce compliance with this summons as well as other sanctions,” the summons read. “You are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time. Any such disclosure will impede the investigation and thereby interfere with the enforcement of federal law.”