Indybay Beats Back Illegal SFPD Search Warrant and Gag Order Over Police Credit Union Vandalism Post

[PDF of March 7 order by Judge Linda Colfax vacating her 90-day non-disclosure order issued on January 24]


On January 18 at 1:41am, a psuedonymous communiqué by "some anarchists" was published on the Indybay newswire claiming credit for smashing 18 windows at the San Francisco Police Credit Union that night. It stated that the building was "attacked for Tortuguita." Tortuguita, active in the struggle to stop "Cop City” in Atlanta, was shot and killed by Georgia state troopers on January 18, 2023. Contrary to police statements, the autopsy report showed that they were holding their hands in the air and found no evidence of gunpowder residue on their hands. The communiqué additionally honored the memories of Klee Benally, Sekou Odinga, and Banko Brown.

On January 24, San Francisco police Sergeant Michael Canning served a search warrant on Indybay, seeking the internet IP address and other identifying information about the author of the communiqué. Indybay was ordered to comply with the warrant by January 31. The warrant additionally included a 90-day non-disclosure order preventing the Indybay collective from revealing that we had received the warrant, which would have been in effect through April, had Indybay not resisted the order with legal representation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

When served, Indybay was not provided Sergeant Canning's Statement of Probable Cause. We later learned that the statement made no mention of Indybay being a news website and therefore protected by well-established shield laws, which protect news outlets and news gatherers from revealing unpublished information to authorities. Judge Colfax might not have approved the warrant had SFPD provided her with that relevant information.

After several days of back-and-forth wrangling between EFF attorneys and Sergeant Canning, with the San Francisco City Attorney involved, SFPD agreed on January 31 to take no further action on the warrant. With the gag order remaining in place, and wary that SFPD might make another attempt at a search, Indybay and EFF proceeded with preparing a formal motion to quash the warrant and vacate the gag order.

On February 22, Indybay filed a motion to quash the warrant under California Penal Code sections 1524.3(f) and 1546.4(c) and to vacate the non-disclosure order as an unconstitutional content-based prior restraint on speech. The motion was filed under seal due to the gag order, and the related hearing on March 5 was closed to the public. On March 7, Judge Linda Colfax issued her order vacating the gag order, attached above.

In its nearly 24-year history, Indybay has resisted numerous warrants and other police inquiries seeking identifying information of contributors. Not once has Indybay revealed such information when requested. User privacy is of the utmost importance, and technical precautions are in place, such as allowing anonymous posting, not requiring logins, and not typically recording the IP addresses from which people visit and post to the site. Readers and contributors can further protect themselves by using privacy-enhancing tools such as Tor Browser and Tails operating system.

The Indybay collective wishes to express our extreme gratitude to Mario Trujillo, David Greene, and all of the good folks at EFF for their pro bono work on the case. Hopefully, this victory will serve as another reminder to SFPD and other California police departments not to pursue such illegal warrants in the future, against Indybay or any other independent news outlets.