[pokeymcsnatch]

I think the only conclusion that I'm jumping to is that it was malicious. At best, it's a bad and very likely unconstitutional policy.

Framing it as "asking" is dishonest- a cease and desist is a demand that you stop with an implied legal action if you don't. It didn't say "hey if this progresses, you might be criminally liable"- it calls out this specific tweet as potentially criminal and threatens federal charges.

As a side note, I tried to read the tweet again and it's been deleted, so who knows. Maybe all this was made up and maybe there was more to it or maybe DHS disappeared her. Either way, without more context I'm 100% unwilling to budge on this being an abuse of power.

[kube-system]

If it was a malicious attempt to chill speech, why is it one letter sent to some rando on Twitter? Unless we see more people coming forward with the same experience, I’m more inclined to presume that this is more simply just a isolated instance of a whacky person posting whacky shit.

[greyface-]

In the replies, other people are expressing that this happened to them, too. Here's one example: https://twitter.com/_the__snowflake/status/15427023930617774...

[kube-system]

That link is dead for me.

[greyface-]

Looks like the chilling effects are working. Here's an archived copy: https://archive.ph/aPlL5

[kube-system]

It’s a photo of two business cards. I don’t see a letter or any claim of what it was about, let alone an accusation of misconduct.

The most obvious explanation here is that the guy made an illegal threat and the feds showed up to check out whether it was legitimate. That’s completely normal and legal, and not even refuted by anything at that link.