The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is reportedly issuing administrative subpoenas to identify anonymous social media accounts that criticize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with at least some of those requests, according to The New York Times.

These subpoenas appear alongside other recent steps by the Trump administration aimed at clamping down on its critics.

In Minneapolis and Chicago, ICE agents told protesters their faces were being recorded and identified using facial recognition technology. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, has also spoken publicly about creating a database of people arrested during protests against immigration enforcement operations.

One way to understand these government moves is by focusing on law enforcement and compliance. Some people may wonder about what legal authority DHS is using to demand identities and compile lists, how many accounts are involved, and whether prosecutions will follow. Those questions matter.

But they are not the most important ones.

To me, a professor of public service and vice chair of the National Communication Association’s Communication and Law Division, the more revealing question is why the government wants the names of critics in the first place, and what that choice signals about how dissent is being understood.

Legality is wrong measure

The DHS subpoenas that target social media accounts may be perfectly legal.

Administrative subpoenas are authorized by statute and do not require a judge’s approval before issuance. The government’s use of facial recognition technology has survived constitutional challenge in certain investigative contexts. A president’s executive memoranda routinely set enforcement priorities.

But constitutionality does not turn on whether a tool exists. It turns on how that tool is used.

Power can be lawful in the abstract and antidemocratic in its application.........

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