Feds defend Twitter dragnet on WikiLeaks supporters. Judge Won’t Stop WikiLeaks Twitter-Records Request | Threat Level. The U.S. government is getting closer to getting data from Twitter about various associates of WikiLeaks. The people whose Twitter records were being requested had moved to throw out the government’s request for data, but a judge denied that motion Friday, ruling that the associates don’t have standing to challenge it. The judge also denied a request to unseal the government’s application for the Twitter order. Judge Theresa Buchanan, in the Eastern District of Virginia, ruled that because the government was not seeking the content of the Twitter accounts in question (.pdf), the subjects did not have standing to challenge the government’s request for the records. Content, under the Stored Communications Act, is “any information concerning the substance, purport, or meaning of that communication.”
The government is looking for data about the Twitter users’ accounts and how they are used, not the content of tweets or direct messages. Demand for Twitter details in Wikileaks probe upheld. 11 March 2011Last updated at 23:44 The three users of the Twitter social network are associates of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange A federal judge has ruled that the US government may demand that three associates of Julian Assange hand over Twitter account information in the criminal investigation into Wikileaks.
The three users of the social network had appealed against an earlier ruling. Their legal team had argued the request was a violation of their constitutional rights of free speech and association. The judge ruled that those freedoms do not shield members from complying with legitimate government investigations. Crime Scene - Judge to consider Twitter information request. A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday said she would consider an order that the social networking site Twitter must turn over three clients' personal information as part of the government's criminal investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Half a dozen lawyers for the three Twitter customers -- including Assange -- argued that their clients' information is protected by the First Amendment. The government has requested personal Twitter information for Assange, Bradley Manning -- the Army private who is suspected of supplying classified material to WikiLeaks -- Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks activits who is also a member of Iceland's parliament, and computer programmers Rop Gonggrijp, a Dutch citizen, and Jacob Appelbaum, an American. The case goes to the heart of the larger debate about WikiLeaks itself and whether the site's disclosing of thousands of classsified government documents was free speech or a violation of national security. "There is nothing burdensome.
Subpoena. (updated below – Update II – Update III) Last night, Birgitta Jónsdóttir — a former WikiLeaks volunteer and current member of the Icelandic Parliament — announced (on Twitter) that she had been notified by Twitter that the DOJ had served a Subpoena demanding information “about all my tweets and more since November 1st 2009.” Several news outlets, including The Guardian, wrote about Jónsdóttir’s announcement. What hasn’t been reported is that the Subpoena served on Twitter — which is actually an Order from a federal court that the DOJ requested — seeks the same information for numerous other individuals currently or formerly associated with WikiLeaks, including Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp, and Julian Assange. It also seeks the same information for Bradley Manning and for WikiLeaks’ Twitter account. The information demanded by the DOJ is sweeping in scope.
I’ll have much more on the implications of this tomorrow. Twitters chalenge: why? Alexander Macgillivray" />Secret subpoenas* information requests of the kind the Department of Justice sent Twitter are apparently not unusual. In fact, other tech companies may also have received similar WikiLeaks-related requests. But what is unusual in this story is that Twitter resisted. Which raises an interesting question: Assuming that Twitter was not the only company to have been served a secret subpoena order, why was it the only company that fought back? The answer might lie in the figure leading Twitter’s legal efforts, Alexander Macgillivray (right), an incredibly mild mannered (really) but sharp-as-a-tack cyber law expert. Twitter’s general counsel comes out of Harvard’s prestigious Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the cyber law powerhouse that has churned out some of the leading Internet legal thinkers.
The center was founded a little over a decade ago by none other than Charles Nesson, the famous defender of Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. Twitter Informs. Photo © 2008 walknboston | more info (via: Wylio)The US Department of Justice has served Twitter with a 2703(d) court order to reveal information about accounts related to people associated with WikiLeaks.
The order is a request for account data including the ominous “correspondence and notes of record related to the account” for users Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror), Rop Gongrijp (@rop_g), Birgitta Jonsittir (@birgittaj); Julian Assange and Bradley Manning from November 1, 2009 to present. Salon is reporting that the original (sealed) order was signed on December 14th by Judge Theresa Buchanan in Alexandria, Va. It gave Twitter 3 days to comply with the DOJ without notifying anyone involved. Then mysteriously, and possibly because a gag order on a 2703 (d) might be unconstitutional, Buchanan decided this Wednesday to unseal the document at Twitter’s request. After Twitter successfully balked, those targeted were then given 10 days to take legal action. On the court order (Gonggrijp) Dear journalists, Yet again I am being inundated with your e-mails, text messages, phone calls and unannounced house visits.
(The latter is new, unwelcome and the fastest way to get a non-expiring entry on my media blacklist.) I could easily spend all my time answering the same questions with the same answers instead of taking some time to think for myself. This is not your fault. What happened? On December 14 of 2010, the US Department of Justice has had a court order issued to force Twitter to send them various bits of information regarding my Twitter account as well as of the twitter accounts of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Birgitta Jónsdóttir and Jacob Appelbaum.
I found out about the order because Twitter did the right thing and successfully fought for a second court order so they were able to tell us. Apparently someone thinks that whatever records Twitter has regarding my account are “relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation”. Why did this happen? Twitter letter to R. Gonggrijp. RE:Twitter Subpoena.