Icelandic MP To Challenge US Court Ruling On Twitter Privacy

JabrTheHut writes "The Guardian has a story of how Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks volunteer, is challenging the U.S.'s acquisition of Twitter account information, IP addresses, mailing addresses and even bank information. The U.S. says it wanted these details to help with its investigation into WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Jonsdottir said, 'This is a huge blow for everybody that uses social media. We have to have the same civil rights online as we have offline. Imagine if the U.S. authorities wanted to do a house search at my home, go through my private papers. There would be a hell of a fight. It's absolutely unacceptable.'"

Re:Tweets are not private papers

[ClioCJS]

They aren't getting the tweets - those are a matter of public record. They are getting the IP addresses and meta data around the tweets. If you published a book, I don't need to subpoena the contents of the book. This is more like inspecting your original papers forensically to see where you were when you wrote the book. This isn't information you would be able to get from a published copy. You'd have to get the original pieces of paper it was typed on (assume it's 1970 for this metaphor!) -- something not in public (like tweet IPaddress meta data) -- to do forensic analysis to find that out.

Re:Amerika!

[binkzz]

Yet millions still flock here every year in the hopes of a better life. Hrmm... I haven't heard of hordes of people looking to improve their lot going to the backwards Eastern European country from which you're probably posting.

I think you overestimate it by a tad. There's no flocking, just over a million immigrants a year. If you look at immigrants per year per head of population, the US comes in 31st. [nationmaster.com] Just above most Western European countries, but way below Australia or Canada. Europe as a whole has a lot more immigrants per year than America does [wikimedia.org], and that includes Eastern Europe.

America hasn't been the promised land for a long time, and not that many people pick it out as the ideal place to live. It's just because American media doesn't cover any international news or events that Americans themselves don't realize this.

Re:"the same civil rights online as we have offlin

[GNious]

I think she'll get no argument there from the Dept of Homeland Security. DHS (literally translated to Russian, the acronym would be "KGB")

(KGB) (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti or Committee for State Security)

Re:"the same civil rights online as we have offlin

[Ihmhi]

"Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti", or "Committee for State Security". That's not all that far off from "Department of Homeland Security".

Re:Amerika!

[the eric conspiracy]

This is a prime case of lying with incorrectly quoted statistics.

The United States has BY FAR the largest net migration rate in the world. Over 5 millions per year. The 31 nations that have higher per capita rates are tiny countries in comparison to the US, and have a small European component. Europe may have more immigrants, but NOT CLOSE on a per capita basis.

Not only that, but in the same article you linked to it was stated that a 2009 survey found the US is BY FAR considered the most desirable destination in the world, with 165 million adults world wide giving it as it's first choice. Europe only got about 1/8 the number the US did.

Re:Amerika!

[Solandri]

I think you overestimate it by a tad. There's no flocking, just over a million immigrants a year. If you look at immigrants per year per head of population, the US comes in 31st. Just above most Western European countries, but way below Australia or Canada. Europe as a whole has a lot more immigrants per year than America does, and that includes Eastern Europe.

America hasn't been the promised land for a long time, and not that many people pick it out as the ideal place to live. It's just because American media doesn't cover any international news or events that Americans themselves don't realize this.

You're conflating two things - desirability as an immigration destination, and ease of immigration - and attributing both their effects to desirability as an immigration destination.

I'm only familiar with Canada so I'll use it as an example. It's a helluva lot easier to immigrate to Canada than to the U.S. When Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control, a lot of its residents tried to immigrate to the U.S., were declined, and immigrated to Canada instead which gladly accepted them. An immigration visa to Canada can be had in 1-3 years [cic.gc.ca], and you can apply for Canadian citizenship after residing there just 3 years. Wait times for a green card in the U.S. are 4-5 years for favored countries, even longer for other countries [wikipedia.org]. And you have to have lived in the U.S. for 5 years before you can apply for citizenship. The U.S. just makes it a lot harder to immigrate than other countries. Heck, it's a helluva lot easier just to get a tourist visa to Canada than to the U.S.

Re:Good luck with that

[the eric conspiracy]

Complete Nonsense. This material is covered under long standing US Law, the ECPA aka TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 121 PARAGRAPH 2703 part d, passed in 1986.

(d) Requirements for Court Order.â" A court order for disclosure under subsection (b) or (c) may be issued by any court that is a court of competent jurisdiction and shall issue only if the governmental entity offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation. In the case of a State governmental authority, such a court order shall not issue if prohibited by the law of such State. A court issuing an order pursuant to this section, on a motion made promptly by the service provider, may quash or modify such order, if the information or records requested are unusually voluminous in nature or compliance with such order otherwise would cause an undue burden on such provider.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act [wikipedia.org]