Press release from my lawyers because of twitter records. Twitter WikiLeaks Hearing Tomorrow. Video - 1hr interview. This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the latest in the Obama administration’s crackdown on the whistleblower group WikiLeaks. Last week, it was revealed the Justice Department has subpoenaed the internet company Twitter for personal information from several people linked to WikiLeaks, including its founder, Julian Assange. The subpoena asks Twitter for all records and correspondence relating to their accounts, including apparently private direct messages sent through Twitter. The subpoena was issued on December 14th, but Twitter was under a gag order until last week. It’s unclear if Facebook or any other internet companies have received similar subpoenas. She arrived in Canada this week, and she joined me via Skype from Toronto for an interview. BIRGITTA JÓNSDÓTTIR: I got this subpoena with — asking for all this extra information, not only my tweets.
BIRGITTA JÓNSDÓTTIR: Well, they didn’t. BIRGITTA JÓNSDÓTTIR: They told me Friday. Video Inside WikiLeaks. Iceland summons US envoy. The American ambassador to Iceland has been summoned to explain why US officials are trying to access the Twitter account of an Icelandic MP and former WikiLeaks collaborator. Birgitta Jónsdóttir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, revealed last week that the US justice department had asked Twitter to hand over her information. The US authorities are trying to build a criminal case against the website after its huge leaks of classified US information.
"[It is] very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," the interior minister, Ogmundur Jonasson, told Icelandic broadcaster RUV. "This is even more serious when put [in] perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added. Iceland's foreign ministry has demanded a meeting with Luis Arreaga, the US ambassador to Reykjavík. No one at the US embassy in Reykjavík was available for comment.
Iceland blasts US demand. Politicians in Iceland have hit out at a US request for Twitter to hand over details of a member of the country's parliament because of her connections with WikiLeaks. A subpoena for parliamentary representative Birgitta Jonsdottir's details was issued as part of an investigation involving several individuals associated with the whistle-blowing website. Skarphedinsson denounced the US demand as 'intolerable' Icelandic Foreign Minister Oessur Skarphedinsson said it was not acceptable that US authorities had demanded the information. "According to the documents that I have seen, an Icelandic parliamentarian is being investigated in a criminal case in the United States for no reason at all," Skarphedinsson told Icelandic public radio RUV. "It is intolerable that an elected representative is being treated like that," he said. 'Serious and peculiar' On Twitter, Jonsdottir said that she would call Iceland's justice minister to discuss the request, and hinted that she felt menaced by the US request.
Iceland Review. Interview channel 4.