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 Sep. 29, 2017, 12:31 PM GMT / Updated Sep. 29, 2017, 7:19 PM GMT By Adam Edelman 
 
 The Justice Department is demanding that Facebook turn over information from three accounts that could provide access to the personal details of thousands of activists who expressed interest in anti-Trump rallies. 
 
 The department obtained search warrants targeting three Facebook accounts that were used to organize Inauguration Day protests against Donald Trump, the ACLU said late Thursday. But accessing those accounts would provide information on thousands of other users who "liked" an anti-Trump Facebook page, the group explained. 
 
 The ACLU’s Washington, D.C., office said in a statement it would fight the enforcement of the search warrants. 
 
 "Opening up the entire contents of a personal Facebook page for review by the government is a gross invasion of privacy," said Scott Michelman, a senior staff attorney at ACLU. "When law enforcement officers can comb through records concerning political organizing in opposition to the very administration for which those officers work, the result is the chilling of First Amendment-protected political activity." 
 
 The warrants were issued as part of an ongoing case by the Justice Department against people who allegedly broke laws while protesting Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington. Prosecutors have said the website, DisruptJ20.org, was used to organize "a violent riot." 
 
 A person holds up a sign in protest before the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump at Freedom Plaza in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017. Joshua Lott / AFP - Getty Images file 
 
 One search warrant was issued for the DisruptJ20 Facebook page, which has since been renamed Resist This, requiring the group’s moderator, Emmelia Talarico, to hand over "nonpublic lists of people who planned to attend political organizing events and even the names of people who simply liked, followed, reacted to, commented o or otherwise engaged with the content on the Facebook page," the ACLU said in a motion filed Thursday in U.S. Superior Court in Washington. 
 
 That could include nearly 6,000 Facebook users who "liked" the page from Nov. 1, 2016, to Feb. 9, 2017. 
 
 Two other warrants obtained by the Justice Department would require Facebook to hand over "all information from the personal Facebook profiles of local DisruptJ20 activists' Lacy MacAuley and Legba Carrefour from Nov. 1, 2016, through Feb. 9, 2017. 
 
 The warrants demand "all private messages, friend lists, status updates, comments, photos, video and other private information solely intended for the users’ Facebook friends and family, even if they have nothing to do with Inauguration Day," the ACLU said. 
 
 A Facebook spokesperson wouldn't comment on whether the company would comply with the warrants but said the company had "successfully fought in court to be able to notify the three people whose broad account information was requested by the government." 

 The ACLU-DC is trying to stop three search warrants that’d let the Department of Justice snoop around protesters’ Facebook accounts over Inauguration Day protests. They filed in D.C. Superior Court on Thursday, saying the government’s demands violate the Fourth Amendment because they are so broad, and threatening First Amendment speech. These warrants ask for too much information not directly relevant to the federal probe, argues the ACLU. This includes information on the plaintiffs’ friends, associates, and the approximately 6000 individuals who just “liked” an anti-Donald Trump Facebook page. Requested data would go back to Nov. 1, 2016, a week before the presidential election. 
 
 “The warrants make no provision for avoiding or minimizing invasions into personal and associational/expression information, for preventing such information from being shared widely within the government, or for destroying irrelevant material when the investigation is concluded,” said the ACLU filing. In other words, this might chill First Amendment speech by giving the government means to observe anyone who were simply linked to anti-Trump protesters. 
 
 This fight stems from arrests made Jan. 20. Demonstrators came to Washington D.C. to protest President Donald Trump‘s inauguration, and over 200 ended up getting charged with felony rioting. In investigating the alleged criminality, the federal government later got three search warrants from the D.C. Superior Court against three Facebook accounts: the disruptj20 page (now known as Resist This) owned by Emmelia Talarico, and personal accounts owned by Lacy MacAuley, and Legba Carrefour. According to the ACLU, these people didn’t initially know about warrants because of a gag order. Facebook fought this gag order, which was later dropped by the government shortly before the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled on it. Talarico, MacAuley, and Carrefour hadn’t even been charged with Inauguration Day-related arrested by the US Attorney, said the ACLU. 
 
 The DOJ declined to comment. 
 
 The government previously tried to get their hands on the IP addresses of 1.3 million people who visited the DisruptJ20.org website. DreamHost, the hosting provider, was served a search warrant, which they fought in court. The DOJ amended their demand in August to now omitting the digital address of visitors, and unpublished posts hosted on the site. A court took this further, by placing more restrictions on investigators. Officials must explain how information will be reviewed, show how they will abstain from collecting prohibited information, and abstain from sharing and publishing collected information, even with other government agencies. The DOJ is appealing these restrictions. DreamHost, who was ordered to hand over the information under this new court decision, was mulling over whether to appeal as well. 
 
 [Screengrab via BBC] 

 Washington (CNN) Trump administration lawyers are demanding the private account information of potentially thousands of Facebook users in three separate search warrants served on the social media giant, according to court documents obtained by CNN. 
 
 The warrants specifically target the accounts of three Facebook users who are described by their attorneys as "anti-administration activists who have spoken out at organized events, and who are generally very critical of this administration's policies." 
 
 One of those users, Emmelia Talarico, operated the disruptj20 page where Inauguration Day protests were organized and discussed; the page was visited by an estimated 6,000 users whose identities the government would have access to if Facebook hands over the information sought in the search warrants. In court filings, Talarico says if her account information was given to the government, officials would have access to her "personal passwords, security questions and answers, and credit card information," plus "the private lists of invitees and attendees to multiple political events sponsored by the page." 
 
 These warrants were first reported by LawNewz.com 
 
 Facebook went through seven months of legal proceedings so it could make all three of the Facebook users aware that the government attorneys wanted their online details. 
 
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– Attorneys for the Department of Justice filed search warrants in February to access the Facebook accounts of three people described as "anti-administration activists," CNN reports. According to NBC News, not only would the search warrants give the government access to—as the ACLU puts it—"all private messages, friend lists, status updates, comments, photos, video, and other private information" of those three individuals but also the names of approximately 6,000 people who "liked" an anti-Trump protest page run by one of them. Facebook spent seven months fighting the government in court to be able to inform the users—Emmelia Talarico, Lacy MacAuley, and Legba Carrefour—about the search warrants, winning that argument this month. With the search warrants now public, the ACLU filed in defense of the three Facebook users Thursday, LawNewz reports. The Department of Justice is seeking access to the trio's Facebook accounts in connection with the arrests of hundreds of protesters during President Trump's inauguration. But the ACLU claims the search warrants violate the Fourth Amendment by being too broad and could chill free speech. "Opening up the entire contents of a personal Facebook page for review by the government is a gross invasion of privacy," a senior staff attorney at the ACLU tells NBC. Not only that but access to a protest Facebook page run by Talarico could give the government the names of thousands of people interest in anti-Trump protests, opening them up to government observation. The ACLU is seeking to quash the search warrants.