WikiLeaks Supporters' Twitter Accounts Subpoenaed

HJED writes "The US Justice Department has served Twitter with a subpoena for the personal information and private messages of WikiLeaks supporters. There's a copy of the subpoena here (PDF); boing boing has a detailed article. Twitter has 3 days to turn over the information."

Icelandic MP supeanad

[SomethingOrOther]

Looks like they are requesting personal data of an Icelandic Member of Parliment [guardian.co.uk]
I see a minor diplomatic incident on the horizon.

Twitter knew since December 14th

[data2]

Twitter has known about this for >3 weeks, but they were forbidden to tell the affected persons about it. It seems like to they had to go to court just to give them this information.
News like this just makes me sad about the state of liberties in the USA.

Re:Icelandic MP supeanad

[IamTheRealMike]

Uh, US diplomats were already tasked with illegally obtaining DNA and credit card numbers of other countries civil servants and politicians at the UN. That didn't seem to cause any diplomatic incident at all, so I really doubt the IP address of some Icelandic MP will even cause a ripple.

Re:Just another day...

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA: There was a court order

RTFAA (again): there only was a court order because Twitter chose to get the courts involved. The original request came directly from the government.

And you say there were no objections, but there were, by Twitter, who insisted that the subjects of the court-ordered release of data be given notice and the opportunity to appeal.

Indeed. The initial request was for Twitter to turn over the information without even notifying the victims. Twitter declined, and the court agreed with them.

Also, the court does not have to find that there are lives in danger when issuing a subpoena, only that there is reason to believe that a criminal act has occurred.

Of course. That's not to stop the propaganda machine from saying otherwise, though.

Why is this a surprise? A law was broken..

[Anonymous Coward]

In case everyone has forgotten it is against the law to release classified documents in the US and in most other nations. This includes people who assisted in the release making them an accomplice to the crime. PFC Bradley Manning who stole the documents and sent them to Wiki will likely either be put to DEATH or sentence to life at hard labor.. Even if you are glad the "MAN" got his . It is still against the law and subject to the law. Until someone changes that law. Just like all the attacks on companies who pulled support of Wiki, all the ISPs have to keep information about everywhere you go for over two years. Every byte you transmit or receive. Chances are they already know who all were in on it. We are not talking about M$ or the RIAA we are talking about "A" federal government. I suggest looking up ESPIONAGE. Again why it this a surprise??

Re:To quote Padme...

[Cwix]

Mosey around the intertubz for a while. Slashdot has been keeping the discussion "reasonable" in comparison to some of the other forums out there. Seems to be quite a few people who would like nothing better then to send anyone even remotely involved straight to gitmo for some "enhanced questioning."

Re:There is a threat to democracy!

[__aaqvdr516]

How does Twitter being served a subpoena suspend anyone's civil liberties? While it's true that you're allowed to say anything you want, it is another matter when crimes have been committed. A subpoena could expose those crimes. Please notice I said "could" and not "will". Just because you happen to agree with what Wikileaks does, doesn't mean that some people connected with Wikileaks haven't committed any crimes as defined by US law.

It should be no surprise that if you use any services from companies owned by citizens of the US, your data is subject to scrutiny by US officials. As for the Icelandic official, they should have known that anything that they wrote using Twitter was being hosted in the US and that they have no control over it. Ignorance is never an excuse in matters of the law.

Re:Shouldn't have a leg to stand on

[hedwards]

If you'll notice from the subpoena, 2 of the names are Manning and Assange, the others are ones which I'm not familiar with. While the subpoena is somewhat light on the details, I would assume that whatever argument was given for the request complied with the normal rules. Otherwise they would have sent in a national security letter and avoided the courts.

Under the Bush administration, they wouldn't have gotten a subpoena. Because they believed the President had unlimited powers when at war.

Not that I'm thrilled with his performance, but a lot of that is the fault of people like you for failing to comprehend that there are differences, even if they're not as substantial as they ought to be. And at any rate, this is still a lot better than what McCain was offering up.

Additionally, he has limited power as the President, he's been trying to close GITMO, but without the ability to move at least some of the inmates to US courts for trial and possible incarceration, it's really hard to get other countries to buy into taking them off our hands. Which is totally shocking that they'd expect us to eat our own cooking.

Re:Shouldn't have a leg to stand on

[timbo234]

Australia is filtering the net

No we're not, the necessary legislation was never even introduced to parliament. Even if it was, and somehow managed to get voted through, it would be killed in the senate due to the changes brought about during the recent election - the government got its arse kicked over issues like this.