It's interesting, the article discusses that the request is for a relatively short period of time (35 minutes) - however for a popular website that could still be thousands of viewers.
It suggests that there's something they're specifically looking to match against - but if that was the case, I would think that specific IP addresses could be provided in the request - e.g. Did any one of these 10 IP addresses view the article in the time period. Much more specific and likely easier to justify.
I'd rampantly speculate that perhaps that time matches to the link being posted in a pedophilia related forum (with the forum behind TOR) - and the FBI would like to get a list of who might have followed it there.
It suggests that there's something they're specifically looking to match against - but if that was the case, I would think that specific IP addresses could be provided in the request - e.g. Did any one of these 10 IP addresses view the article in the time period. Much more specific and likely easier to justify.
I'd rampantly speculate that perhaps that time matches to the link being posted in a pedophilia related forum (with the forum behind TOR) - and the FBI would like to get a list of who might have followed it there.