Elon Musk’s X asks Supreme Court to shield users from US government

Elon Musk’s social media company X has asked the Supreme Court to shield its users from US law enforcement, intervening in a case that could force the federal government to produce a warrant to access private data. In a brief filed to the high court, X said it was concerned about “broad, suspicionless” requests, adding that platforms should “not be coerced into helping governments undermine their users’ privacy.” The supporting brief comes in a long-running case brought by James Harper, a user of crypto exchange Coinbase. He claims he was one of thousands of Coinbase clients whose trading data was handed to the Internal Revenue Service as part of a “fishing expedition” by the agency into potential tax fraud, in violation of the site’s privacy policies. A win for the plaintiff in the case, which the Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear, would restrict the US government — of which Musk is a part — from compelling data to be handed over by X without “probable cause and particularised suspicion”.