Twitter Subpoenaed in Occupy Wall Street Case

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Okay take a step back. All they're doing is trying to look at what messages Harris sent over this time. Haven't actually tried to restrict ANYTHING.

If I was to commandeer the CCTV cameras around your city to verify your movements - without telling you why, would you not find that suspicious?

Especially if there were certain movements you don't remember, given it has been some time.

Can you positively swear, on the Bible, that you did not walk along this street - where the alleged murder happened - on that date?

The Prosecution says you did, and here's the evidence...

While an Eye-Witness can be judged, how do you judge a Tweet?

If every Tweet you've made, or every post here, had to stand up in court as evidence towards your "lifestyle"...how long would any of us last? Who here hasn't wished ill-health on Lucas, Kotick or others?

Can you be judged by words, rather than actions? It's the Freedom to speak without being judged in hindsight that's at stake here.

Before you go into the difference in actions taken against Occupy rather than the Tea Party or others.

For instance:

So Obama has thrown in his lot withSilicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery. -

https://twitter.com/#!/rupertmurdoch/status/158317988284596224

That's defamation and libel on PotUS. In Blighty that would be high treason, I believe. And I didn't need a court order to get that.

 

[Gilhelmi]

Am I the only one who is siding with NYC on this?

1. NYC is Not restricting anything, they are just trying to find out what was said.
2. NYC has good reason to investigate what occurred during the Brooklyn Bridge mass arrests. We do not fully know what happened.
3. Tweets are not private. If I go out to a bar and rail for something that is questionably legal, the state does have the right to ask people, who were there, what I said. And they have the right to subpoena the surveillance tapes that the bar has.

If I made a website that was open to the public (ie I do not limit who can be users of the site) then the police, and anyone else, has the right to read what I post. If a police officer followed the guy on twitter, would there have been a problem?

FLT

 

[McMullen]

...Twitter was also ordered "not to disclose the existence of this subpoena to any party [as] such disclosure would impede the investigation being conducted and interfere with the enforcement of law," but Harris said it sent him a copy of the document anyway.

And that, my friends, is the most significant part of the article. I find it hard to believe that there's any legitimate reason for them to give that order.

Same as not presenting evidence in military tribunals because doing so "is a danger to national security".

 

[2fish]

We decry communications blackouts in oppressive regimes like Egypt and Syria, but isn't this really just a more subtle approach to the same thing?

In the words of the government, "we got us a freedom hatin' commie red here".

But yes, you are correct. This one may make it up the court system, but I doubt it will get to the supreme court as it won't hit any constitutional rights hard enough to get their attention. I mean he posted the stuff on twitter, law will probably say it is the same as if he screamed it on the streets.

I hope they drop this one though as it leaves a bed taste in my mouth. I mean without seeing the tweets what did he do that was wrong? Disorderly conduct is a nice catch all sort of crime.

 

[gyroscopeboy]

Malcolm Harris should be charged with not having a job.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Maybe it's time for people who want privacy, to move back to Usenet to post messages. It's old, but you cannot easily be tracked on it....

 

[aashell13]

I really don't find this alarming. Twitter isn't private, it's never pretended to be. And they did issue a subpoena, so there's due process involved. It's not like the FBI or DHS just called twitter and demanded everything out of the blue.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Maybe they want to get him on terroristic comments like they did the Englanders?

 

[aashell13]

We decry communications blackouts in oppressive regimes like Egypt and Syria, but isn't this really just a more subtle approach to the same thing?

I don't follow. How is subpoenaing a few weeks worth of tweets for a court case tantamount to a communication blackout? Especially given that twitter is the internet equivalent of screaming something on a street corner.

 

[CheckD3]

How about the fact that though it's his account, there is no proof of exactly WHO posted what. A hacker could have easily taken it over and posted anything on it. While this may not be the case, what proof do they have that HE was the one who wrote everything that was wrote? No video evidence, and technically, any post on the internet is anonymous in the digital age when there are identity thefts around.

 

[wsmieszek]

Umm... what happened to the world while I was away?!

 

[Therumancer]

This is very disturbing, I don't like the idea of the goverment able to get this kind of information for purposes of a police action over organized civil disobeidience. I believe people have a right to privacy, and something like this should go well beyond a court just being able to subpeona a service provider. They should have to go through a process very similar to obtaining permission to do a wiretap... perhaps that happened and it wasn't covered, but I doubt it.

The real issue here is that Twitter is rolling over as opposed to defending it's users right to privacy. Typically in such cases it hasn't been the user who has been put into a position of needing to defend themselves and come up with a way to prevent the information, but the information service itself defending it's integrity and the client's right to privacy.

See, as bad as the goverment doing this is, it's even worse when you see things like Twitter cooperating with it as opposed to throwing up their own walls and protesting.

It's going to be darkly amusing if a group like Anonymous finds a way to terroize Twitter and knock it offline for it's billions of users, and people start wondering "OMG, what did Twitter do"... I'm surprised this isn't getting more attention.


That said I don't use Twitter or even carry a mobile phone usually (for a number of reasons). To be honest I kind of feared things might go in this direction for a while now, but it moved faster than I expected. The potential for getting into people's business through interlinked phones, especially ones used as personal organizers, was always there, and we saw things with the police tracking people via cell phones and such (which has become so common they even use it for TV police dramas), but I thought we had at least until 2020 before data itself was going to be legally collected and used this way for petty crimes.

Basically not only is Big Brother watching, but your carrying him around in your pocket and whispering in his ear.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

We decry communications blackouts in oppressive regimes like Egypt and Syria, but isn't this really just a more subtle approach to the same thing?

That's kind of what I was thinking. It sets the precedent and people are less likely to tweet about what they feel is unjust action by the authorities <.<

 

[Spaec]

This doesn't seem to be a free speech issue or such, they're just trying to find out what he wrote, but do they even need to subpoena his tweets? They're not private, that's sort of the point - especially if he wanted to tell people what was happening on the bridge.
This blunt approach again kind of points out how the people running things are out of touch with technology.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

We decry communications blackouts in oppressive regimes like Egypt and Syria, but isn't this really just a more subtle approach to the same thing?

I think western governments are really quite scared of the internet at the moment. The Arab Spring, London riots and Occupy protests have made them realise that they can't control public opinion anymore because we can all talk to each other in real time.

Spoiler: Case in point

 

[DJDarque]

We decry communications blackouts in oppressive regimes like Egypt and Syria, but isn't this really just a more subtle approach to the same thing?

That's exactly what it is. It's a shame that it seems to be happening more and more.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Disorderly conduct? What the fuck is that, and why does it warrant this?

And cant they just check his twitter acount?

 

[Krion_Vark]

How about the fact that though it's his account, there is no proof of exactly WHO posted what. A hacker could have easily taken it over and posted anything on it. While this may not be the case, what proof do they have that HE was the one who wrote everything that was wrote? No video evidence, and technically, any post on the internet is anonymous in the digital age when there are identity thefts around.

If he signed up with his actual name and his actual email then yes they can say he did it. Twitter would have a record if he had filed a hacker complaint at the time or that he changed his password. And also Twitter isn't anonymous you tag YOUR name to it with a handle so that you can get tagged and retweeted easier. Also who the hell would hack a twitter? If saying your twitter was hacked was a legitimate excuse then Christopho-whatever could have pulled that excuse out of his ass and then went further and said everything he had was hacked and that he didn't say any of that stuff.

*EDIT* Oh and it also keeps track of where and how you post your tweets so hacking is less of a valid defense if its all off the same IP or device.