Twitter Subpoenaed in Occupy Wall Street Case

[Andy Chalk]

The consequence of not allowing tweets to stand as evidence is even more chilling to a free society.

But as evidence of what? What sort of disorderly conduct charge could possibly merit this kind of digging? I get nervous when the law is applied as a blunt object, and more and more that seems to be the norm.

And strict legalities aside, it's a little condescending to suggest that "we" should be able to keep people from organizing protests on Twitter because we're a free and open society. This is a more subtle and slow-moving application of the same anti-communications efforts seen in Egypt and elsewhere. That's not a hysterical statement, I'm not some nut screaming for an "American Spring," but let's not kid ourselves: The digital era has given individuals unprecedented means of communication and coordination, across cities and entire countries, and governments are still trying to figure out how to adapt to that. It's up to those same individuals to ensure that increased criminalization and denial of liberties is not a first-response reaction.

 

[LordFisheh]

Honestly, this seems fair enough. I seriously doubt the government cares what he was tweeting enough to run a conspiracy to find out. That's where most of the more wild conspiracy theories come from - people who want to feel that they're important, and what better way to do so that to convince yourself that the government not only has an interest in reading your mail but has sent MIB to do so.

And I have absolutely no sympathy for him if the disorderly charge is genuine. People seem to confuse 'protest' with 'get drunk and hurl abuse at police who haven't even done anything yet'.

 

[mutazoia]

Ok here's one to bake your noggins. What if they don't want a record of what was said, but a record of who responded? Since they know HE was there, perhaps they are trying to get legally verifiable documentation on who else was there that they didn't get the cuffs on. A simple copy/paste of his twitter account won't qualify as legal as any one could simply add or delete lines between the copy and paste steps, but if the twitter attorneys hand over the records its a direct chain of custody transfer from the official archived messages to the courts.

Now since we don't know for sure WHY they want those records, we're all just screaming at the wind here. Should Twitter have to turn over the records. As pointed out, your twitter account is hardly private so I see no reason why not. Should they have to keep quite on the matter, no. Definitely not for a petty D.C charge. Now if the charge was something serious (murder, drug/human trafficking, terrorism, etc.) I can see not divulging the request so as not to tip off the suspect that he's about to get caught.

And for the record,a Disorderly Conduct charge is basically a "We don't really have anything real to arrest you on but we want to throw you in a cell either to annoy you or until we find something solid to book you with" charge.

In the end we will have to keep track of this case and see the actual reason they want this information before we get our dander up. Don't get all panicky yet...but at the same time, don't let your guard down.

 

[oktalist]

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

NYC is Not restricting anything, they are just trying to find out what was said.

The point is, if people think they might get arrested if they criticise their government on the internet, then they will be less inclined to criticise their government on the internet, so it has the effect of restricting what people feel able to talk about.

The subpoena bothers me less than the fact that this guy is being charged with any crime in the first place.

Regardless of Harris' alleged crimes, the Twitter subpoena, if successful, will almost certainly have a chilling effect on its use in any kind of group activism, such as coordinating demonstrations and tracking detained demonstrators. And that's quite possibly the intent - deter similar "uprisings" in the future by restricting the ability of individuals to communicate.

In the USSR, every home had a telephone, but none had a telephone directory. True fact.

Also photocopiers were restricted goods.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Um, if they wanna know what he was tweeting about, can't they just look it up on Twitter? I mean, it seems like a subpoena is not really necessary here since tweets are basically public info for anyone with a Twitter.

 

[ablac]

The entire treatment of Occupy by the city of New York is horrible. Considering they are peaceful demonstrators, an impressive feat considering it has no true leadership and their demonstrations involve large groups of people, the 'tactics' being used are completely disproportionate even for the crimes they are being accused of (despite their innocence). I do hope this gets quashed as not only does it seem unconstitutional (I couldnt say right now im not from the US so i dont know the constitution very well but it seems dodgy) it is a clear threat to using networks such as twitter to organise or advertise any form of demonstration.

 

[Farther than stars]

Regardless of Harris' alleged crimes, the Twitter subpoena, if successful, will almost certainly have a chilling effect on its use in any kind of group activism, such as coordinating demonstrations and tracking detained demonstrators. And that's quite possibly the intent.

[...]

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.

If the intent of the subpoena is to have a chilling effect on the use of social media in these kind of situations, then why would the court order that Twitter shouldn't disclose that it was being subpoenaed? Moreover, if Twitter thought that such a chilling effect was a viable outcome, then why would they even disclose the information anyway? In my opinion all the court is trying to do is obtain information concerning whatever the case is about, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Farther than stars]

The entire treatment of Occupy by the city of New York is horrible. Considering they are peaceful demonstrators, an impressive feat considering it has no true leadership and their demonstrations involve large groups of people, the 'tactics' being used are completely disproportionate even for the crimes they are being accused of (despite their innocence). I do hope this gets quashed as not only does it seem unconstitutional (I couldnt say right now im not from the US so i dont know the constitution very well but it seems dodgy) it is a clear threat to using networks such as twitter to organise or advertise any form of demonstration.

I don't think the fact that there wasn't any leadership was impressive at all. In fact, it's far more difficult to have a representative leader the larger the group becomes and without a leader or leadership, there are no clear goals, there's no clear direction. Getting a large group together, however, is relatively easy. It's just about appealing to the bleating side of human nature and letting things carry on from there. And with that in mind, it's debatable whether the demonstrations achieved anything at all.

 

[Baldr]

The consequence of not allowing tweets to stand as evidence is even more chilling to a free society.

But as evidence of what? What sort of disorderly conduct charge could possibly merit this kind of digging? I get nervous when the law is applied as a blunt object, and more and more that seems to be the norm.

And strict legalities aside, it's a little condescending to suggest that "we" should be able to keep people from organizing protests on Twitter because we're a free and open society. This is a more subtle and slow-moving application of the same anti-communications efforts seen in Egypt and elsewhere. That's not a hysterical statement, I'm not some nut screaming for an "American Spring," but let's not kid ourselves: The digital era has given individuals unprecedented means of communication and coordination, across cities and entire countries, and governments are still trying to figure out how to adapt to that. It's up to those same individuals to ensure that increased criminalization and denial of liberties is not a first-response reaction.

Free speech is not a green light for criminal activity. You still got to obey the laws. Many cities have bent the laws as far as they could for these protesters. Given ample warnings and sufficient time. If they think they are above the law then they are no better then the people they are protesting.

 

[RJ 17]

I think it's too soon to make any real comment on this one, more details about the case need to be known. If it is indeed just a witch-hunt and this guy was nothing but one of the protestors who was arrested for Disorderly Conduct, then yeah, I think it's a bit ridiculous to want all his tweets. If they have strong reason to believe that he was doing something a bit more dastardly than conducting himself in a disorderly manner (and by "strong reason" I mean "we've already got evidence, the tweets will just be the finishing touch") then I think investigators have a right to such a subpoena.

As for whether or not this sets a dangerous precident about using things like Twitter to organize protests and such, I disagree. The right to protest is protected by our constitution, the right to riot is not. If your tweets are things like "We're all meeting at 15th street and we'll march to city hall" then I doubt investigators will be interested in using them as incriminating evidence. However if your tweets are "We're all meeting at 15th street. I've got the moltov's, someone else needs to bring some bricks" and low and behold there were a number of fires and windows busted out with bricks, I'd say that'd be pretty incriminating stuff for investigators to find.

I mean I'm a conservative, but even I don't think the government would go this far without proper reason. But then again I stopped paying attention to Glen Beck a long while ago.

 

[Strazdas]

Why not, i always beleived in total transparency and twitter giving court what was supposed to be public anyway isnt something "Evil". much more evil would be if court asked twitter to hide the information.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

IF your stupid enough to yell "hey i killed this guy earlier" in a bar or a high street, that would be counted as evidence too.

But the person who heard you would be able to be cross-examined.

Social media can't. And can be altered.

Let's say you've been wrongly charged with a sexual assault case. Looking through your post history, Twitter history, and Bookface history: Has there been any time where you have said something nasty about a girl?

That's now evidence of guilt. Circumstantial maybe, but enough to keep you in court longer...likely.

It's all about liberty creep. And as I said earlier, it's only happening to Occupy and the others; not the KKK, Tea Party, BNP or other groups where it could actually uncover some crimes.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

The consequence of not allowing tweets to stand as evidence is even more chilling to a free society.

But as evidence of what? What sort of disorderly conduct charge could possibly merit this kind of digging? I get nervous when the law is applied as a blunt object, and more and more that seems to be the norm.

And strict legalities aside, it's a little condescending to suggest that "we" should be able to keep people from organizing protests on Twitter because we're a free and open society. This is a more subtle and slow-moving application of the same anti-communications efforts seen in Egypt and elsewhere. That's not a hysterical statement, I'm not some nut screaming for an "American Spring," but let's not kid ourselves: The digital era has given individuals unprecedented means of communication and coordination, across cities and entire countries, and governments are still trying to figure out how to adapt to that. It's up to those same individuals to ensure that increased criminalization and denial of liberties is not a first-response reaction.

Free speech is not a green light for criminal activity. You still got to obey the laws. Many cities have bent the laws as far as they could for these protesters. Given ample warnings and sufficient time. If they think they are above the law then they are no better then the people they are protesting.

And he is indeed charged with disorderly conduct. What does what he Tweeted have to do with that charge. Especially what he Tweeted in the following months.

The problem is that releasing this information can have a chilling effect of people wanting to give voice to a protest. If you're suddenly under a full scale investigation for a minor thing you might not want to raise your voice. And I suspect (and hope) that that was Mr. Chalks reason for calling this a more subtle way of silencing people compared to dictatorships. More subtle, but even more chilling.

In Denmark in December a 1000 people was wrongfully arrested by the cops. Two courts have later ruled that the arrests were illegal and some of the treatment was torture. The cops then went on a crusade to root through innocent peoples past, social networks and connections. They actually tried to say in court that because one of their victims knew someone who had once been arrested that this was evidence of a crime. In a European country in 2011. A fucking disgrace. Luckily the court threw them out on their filthy pig asses.

But I see the two cases alike. It's a matter of the state trying to silence dissent by doing completely outrageous things to innocent citizens. And while this guy may not be innocent in the charge he faces, he most certainly is innocent of thought crime, which is what the Danish police tried to come up with and what I think this court is trying to do as well.

 

[Falseprophet]

And while a steadfast "up yours!" sounds fun and romantic, it also warns that failure to produce the documents could result in a criminal contempt of court charge, resulting in a $1000 fine and up to a year in prison.

So how far does this corporate personhood go anyway? If Twitter chooses not to comply, you can't really put a corporation in prison. And I'm sure $1000 is coffee money to Twitter. It would probably cost them more to have their lawyers and tech people comply with the request. Maybe "up yours" is the sensible response here.

 

[beniki]

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?

Not really... this is kind of the opposite. The idea of the court order is to bring any and all all hidden information into the public domain for perusal by both sides of a case. They're legally obligated to share the information with each other.

It's the same thing they do to get corrupt business' account books, and other information that the powerful would rather was kept hidden.

I know in the wake of SOPA and ACTA it's tempting to see government plots everywhere, but this is a simple information grab, and nothing more, and the way you legally get that information is through subpoenas and issued warrants. Yeah it's weird that they're going after his Twitter account, but they're probably looking for some hard evidence to make the charges stick on him... his responses make him sound a bit weasely, and he's probably doing a good job of defending his case.

So it could be a government conspiracy to prevent perceived revolutionary action (from a country with an obesity epidemic and more cars per head than anywhere else in the world), or just the action of a stubborn prosecution lawyer.

 

[ablac]

The entire treatment of Occupy by the city of New York is horrible. Considering they are peaceful demonstrators, an impressive feat considering it has no true leadership and their demonstrations involve large groups of people, the 'tactics' being used are completely disproportionate even for the crimes they are being accused of (despite their innocence). I do hope this gets quashed as not only does it seem unconstitutional (I couldnt say right now im not from the US so i dont know the constitution very well but it seems dodgy) it is a clear threat to using networks such as twitter to organise or advertise any form of demonstration.

I don't think the fact that there wasn't any leadership was impressive at all. In fact, it's far more difficult to have a representative leader the larger the group becomes and without a leader or leadership, there are no clear goals, there's no clear direction. Getting a large group together, however, is relatively easy. It's just about appealing to the bleating side of human nature and letting things carry on from there. And with that in mind, it's debatable whether the demonstrations achieved anything at all.

What i found impressive is that the demonstrations remained peaceful without there being a leadership. Many peaceful movements have only really been so as a result of strong leadership, something clearly not present with occupy. While i feel they are trying to achieve too much and have descended into simple capitalism hating they have managed to gain press on things such as ridiculous inequality and the fact that money in politics destroys democracy. But yeah i can see where your coming from. One thing, the bleating nature of humanity, what did oyu mean by that

 

[Urameshi13]

Good, I hope they throw the book at him and all the other Occupiers who felt it more necessary wreak havoc than actually address the problems which led people to protest.

There is a MASSIVE difference between assembling peaceably to protest and trespassing and causing havoc. Anyone who can't tell the difference between that is part of the problem.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

What?
How can a website be a witness?

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

I know. I'm confused too.