Slashdot Mirror
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."
There is a threat to democracy, quick, suspend all civil liberties!
Individuals are entitled to say as they wish to each other in their private lives, the moment that is stopped in the name of 'national security' when they are discussing politics is when you should get the hell out.
To where is the only real question.
Looks like they are requesting personal data of an Icelandic Member of Parliment
I see a minor diplomatic incident on the horizon.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
... in the US government's life of doing whatever the hell they want without a court involved if they're caught with their pants down. But that's not what's scary - it's that this will happen without objections, other than a silent whisper from the victims here, effectively quenched by a public that wants to read more about Khloe Kardashian getting her own reality show. Heck, it hasn't even been established in a court that what has been leaked could be endangering lives. But who cares?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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.
"So this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause."
When you have a facist/nazi/evil/whatever state you have people getting taken from their homes for not supporting the glorious leader/fuhrer/overlord/whatever and protesting?
Good times.
Wouldn't the Wikileaks people be encrypting their messages?
Palm trees and 8
That's actually a bigger worry IMHO than whatever random stuff is on Twitter. The flow of cables from Wikileaks has dried up. They hardly released any at all since the new year.
Given that only 2000 of them have been released out of 250,000 they need to be stepping up the pace dramatically if they want these cables to ever see the light of day. But the exact opposite is happening. Is the biggest leak in history destined to actually be the smallest thanks to infighting and problems at Wikileaks, I wonder?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/state_dept_launching_democracy.html
..the State Department says, it's launching a Twitter contest to "tweet what you think democracy is in 140 characters or less." The person who gets the most "unique re-tweets" will receive a Flip Video HD Camcorder." ....
"Evan Williams [co-founder of Twitter] says Twitter fundamental to government"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8563109.stm
"open exchange of information will prevail in most regions, but we don't have any specific plans in China or other areas where we're blocked"
All sounded so cool when it was aimed at
Welcome back to reality. Enjoy the gems from WikiLeaks, note whats missing and welcome to the honeypot.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Well, at least, I'd hand them a gigantic picture of a whale. "Sorry, your legal standing is over capacity."
I suspect that one of the problems they are having is manpower; they need the 'big' news organizations to help them sift through all the cables and see what can be released and whether those need redacting, but those organizations are now very busy handling the news around the whole affair. And the wikileaks people themselves may be a bit preoccupied with several legal procedures. There are other internal problems at wikileaks but I do not think that those are the only reasons the flow seems to dry out.
Is the biggest leak in history destined to actually be the smallest thanks to infighting and problems at Wikileaks, I wonder?
I suspect that if it gets too mired someone will just release a full dump.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So they are demanding the personal information of a Non-US citizen, that's not in the country and did not access Twitter from within the United States? Nor did any of them commit any sort of crime on US soil. Could a middle eastern country charge my wife for wearing a bikini to the beach in Florida and then demand her personal information from Twitter?
This would be wise, given the memory and attention span of public opinion.
if only
Of course part of the problem here is that they really don't use the "wiki" in Wikileaks. At least in theory they were going to be using wiki or wiki-like tools that would let newcommers and ordinary people help with the processing of the information, but apparently that has been thrown out the window. Yes, it started that way, but it isn't any more.
Certainly something like Distributed Proofreaders could help in processing the information, to show what a "crowdsourcing" model or at least community development effort could look like without the wiki itself.
Yeah, there is political infighting, but a great deal of that is self-inflicted. There is a need for something like WIkileaks and I'm glad that they are doing what they are doing, but they also need to get their act together if they are going to pull through this as well. That Julian Assange couldn't keep his pants zipped up has also hurt a whole bunch too.
I love how a document marked "Limited Official Use" makes it onto the internet and then here, I guess the biggest problem with our government is apparently nobody can read....
What is happening here is the application of war tactics applied by the US defense department, only Wikileaks has no WMD's only words. Perhaps the defense department can justify its military spending by using its stock of WMD's???
There is a genuine and serious need for psychiatric evaluation, constraints and care of what is apparently many in government, specifically the defense department and defense contractors like Halliburton.
Consider the following and how so far out of line it really is, to the point of insanity. Who are we ever going to go to war with that would justify this level of military spending? Add to the US spending that of allies that the US would not go to war against. And then consider what the last link presents.
Clearly, absolutely, without doubt, there is solid evidence of insanity of some in very dangerous positions. They need to be identified, removed from their positions and treated for their mental disorders.
What's wrong with this picture?
http://bit.ly/ey8svA
http://bit.ly/hHIwSs
http://bit.ly/9BDHA7
http://bit.ly/hsrMaE
vs.
http://bit.ly/8iTYUu (even if adjusted for inflation [x2]) Maybe the way to deflate so called terrorism is, instead of acts of destruction. correct real problems.
You can't really wiki anything that requires secrecy. It's not practical do do background checks and personal interviews with tens of thousands of volunteers.
Regardless of how you feel about it, this would seem to be a sign the US Government's tactics are working.
Twitter has been ordered to produce
The following customer or subscriber account information for each account associated with Wikileaks; ...
Were I Twitter, I would send them thousands of account records -- Every user that has ever mentioned Wikileaks via Twitter and let them sort it out themselves.
The order said they must produce the information, but did not specify that the info must not be anonymized, or mixed in with thousands of other accounts.
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??
Everything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. The connections you make, the things you read, everything. The government has too much power and by indulging in these useless social media activities, people are making themselves into potential targets by participating in them. Say you were curious about wikileaks and subscribed to Assange's twitter. Well guess what, now the government knows who you are, you are on yet another list and only because you were curious about what he had to say.
I'm not condemning social media as much as I am condemning this sort of behavior from government. But while the government IS behaving this way, people should be more careful in response.
When Yahoo executives grilled by US Congress over giving up private info of email accounts to China, which was linked to two guys jailed for "leaking state secrets."
May be twitter can use that as a defense?
If Twitter doesn't move to quash this, fuck them.
Isn't this normal? I mean if the government is building a case against Manning, they are probably going to subpoena companies that they think have evidence that will help their case. The three are hardly just "supporters" of Wikileaks, they were named producers of the "Collateral Murder" video.
If this were the police state people think the US has become, they wouldn't need subpoenas. The government would have just raided the place.
Normal for a hypocritical government perhaps - but other countries were denied access to US records and personnel when they were investigating serious crimes that actually did involve deaths (Nugan Hand coronial inquest and inquiry). When we want information - US says fuck you, when the US wants information the US says fuck you. This is not going to end well.
The Order states among other things, that _
"IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the application and this Order are sealed until otherwise ordered by the Court, and that Twitter shall not disclose the existence of the application or this Order of the Court, or the existence of the investigation, to the listed subscriber or to any other person, unless and until authorized to do so by the Court"
_ and within a couple of hours you can find the copy all over the Net, as usual. Another bright action from the U.S. Department of Justice? Hey guys, it is a joke, isn't it?
_nice!
C'mon Rush, don't hold back...
Why not? Supposedly the whole point of Wikileaks is to uncover secrets and to push them into the open, not to be gatekeepers over what is secret.
There is some legitimate concern over protecting the privacy of "innocent people" who may be mentioned in some of the content. I do think it may be possible to train tens of thousands of people to be able to discretely and quietly remove that kind of information which can do unintended harm, but it certainly wouldn't be easy.
What is the whole point of the secrecy anyway with Wikileaks, beyond that simple goal of processing the information to protect privacy? And more significantly, who is Wikileaks going to get "clearance" from in terms of a background check? The FBI? Department of State? Yeah, I'd like to see that happen.
An unknown, over funded, non IPO (private) internet entity that spreads massive amounts of expensive freedoms and democracy - for profit entrepreneurship at its best.
The potential targets is spot on. Flush people out by helping their generations "Pentagon papers" via the anonymity of the internet.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Once the information is in the public, it can't be made secret again.
I'd suggest somebody read a little used document I suppose, at least if you claim to be an American: The U.S. Constitution. Most particularly the first article of amendment. What WIkileaks is doing clearly falls within the realm of that document where congress is explicitly prohibited from making a law in the first place to restrict such speech.
You can't really wiki anything that requires secrecy.
I thought the "leaks" part of wikileaks was an indication that secrecy was what was being avoided. The whole point of the project was to be a conduit through which conscientious individuals could bring information to the public; information that an agency or corporation might be trying to hide because it would expose activities that are illegal, immoral, or harmful to the public welfare.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
All that would get you is a hefty fine for deliberately misinterpreting the subpoena to waste the state's time.
"The government would have just raided the place." -
A public trial rolls back the public perception of whistleblowing protection laws and corrects past misunderstandings about feee speech - very chilling, final and wonderfully legal.
Raids make people sit up, blogs/sites remember the names, keep details about their final work, foreign accredited journalists and domestic citizen journalists sniff around finding witnesses, details leak again....
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I don't see how that follows. Most of the cables will be dull, and extracting good information tedious. Some initial keyword searches will pull up juicy gossip, eg "Iran". As you pick off the low hanging fruit, it will be harder and harder to find dramatic ones to release. The last one about US happy to let Japan kill whales is of passing interest, but hardly on the same level as Saudi Arabia wanting to bomb Iran. There may be a couple of bomb-shells being kept back, but probably not. The best stuff may already out there.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
By posting this on slashdot you are making a record of your dissent. It wouldn't be hard for the feds to find it and find you.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
_ open your eyes then. terrorists are so picturesque with a fine rethoric + they have great fireworks. we love t-boys, twitter loves them + we all love you.
If this were the police state people think the US has become, they wouldn't need subpoenas. The government would have just raided the place.
Yes, let's not pretend the USG doesn't respect the rules of national and international law. I mean it's not like they say f... the law whenever it suits them, it's not like we could accuse them of torture, illegal renditions, pressuring foreign governments into discontinuing criminal investigations against American officials, distorting or plain ignoring international law, unlawful killings of foreign citizens, holding people for years without any regard for any laws whatsoever, illegally spying on American citizens.
Oh wait...
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
A law was broken? So what? You are probably breaking more than a dozen laws a week, just by living and breathing, taking shortcuts over the lane, missing some info on the tax report, etc. If someone is out to get you, they can easily find something on you, or fabricate evidence against you.
If you had any spine left in your body AC, you would ask yourself WHY someone put their LIFE on the line to disclose this information, and why someone else do EVERYTHING in their power to stop it..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Next we'll see is people put on no-fly lists, just because they're friends with Assange.. And yet, the sheep keep defending their inadequate two-party system.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
They'll have to imprison all of us. Eventually "they" will, if people never stand up for themselves.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
That's not a smart move, unless the court order reasonably suggests that, it's highly likely that the judge would find Twitter in contempt of court for doing that sort of thing. Judges get rather pissy when they think they're being disrespected or disregarded, and parties that pull that sort of thing tend to get deal with gruffly.
The govt had given access to it to millions of background-checked people.
See how that worked for them.
That's not true. PFC Manning, assuming he was the leak, would be guilty. However, it's not a death penalty offense and unless you've got evidence that somebody helped him procure the information that he leaked, he'd be the only one that would be guilty. There is no culpability for Wikileaks releasing information that was leaked to them, they are not an investigative organization, they only leak what people voluntarily provide them.
It's not like we can't accuse them of violating the law in this very case.
Mannings is being held in inhumane conditions, and has been for several months. He's forbidden from exercising in his cell, he's kept in solitary confinement, he's forbidden from having sheets and pillow.
Basically, they took every single thing that a prison can do as punishment (Although he's been a model prisoner) and as safety (He is not even slightly suicidal or dangerous and there's no grounds for denying him bedsheets) and did it to him, and then added some things that you can't do to prisoners, like forbid them from exercising in their cell.
About the only thing that's justifiably is maybe keeping him away from other prisoners. Everything else is clearly designed to punish someone who has not had his trial start.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The geatest risk to US innovation and continued dominance in Internet business is NOT regulation. It is the DoJ. In the future start ups are going to avoid the US because they can present the increased privacy as a selling point to consumers.
So you don't know the Men In Black. Good. They don't exist. Now close your eyes, muffle your ears and soon everything will be OK again. Do it NOW.
I am wondering if they are going after the guys because they are trying to help Assange continue his website , thereby allowing the continuation of the wool being taken off us residents (and the worlds) eyes, as to how bad the us gov. treats others....or is there a legitimate reason, like maybe they are criminals that rape and pillage, ....oh wait, yeah probably not.
What court is going to give the go ahead on this, oh wait, yeah ...again,....that would be a US court, run on US soil, even though twitter is not a US entity.....hmmm...will be following this one closely. This reminds me of the guy who got so pissed off at someone, that anyone after that he comes across, gets the same treatment no matter if the person did anything or just said hello....the US gov. needs to back off.
They don't care about the lunatic fringe they care about the masses. The lunatic fringe is already unafraid/uncaring about government opinion. Any action against them makes them martyrs to themselves and others like them. No the government wants joe-shmoe so they can put the fear in the other joe's.
Before everybody jumps to conclusions, from the actual subpoena, the information being turned over is contact information - names, mailing addresses, methods of payment, if applicable, ip addresses, etc., specifically excluded is the content of the tweets. In short, it appears they are 1) trying to see where the data came from -- if US, then US laws pervail, 2) how to contact individuals and 3) if money exchanged hands, from what countries did that occur.
These are all things that any investigation would look at. If this were 30 years ago, the subpoena would be to the phone companies instead of Twitter.
Since it was announced some time ago that the DOJ was investigating the leaks, there isn't any news here. If they had hacked Twitter to get the information, then that would have been newsworthy, but as it stands, it appears that the DOJ is following the laws in the US to obtain the information they are wanting in their investigation.
Woosh!
Sure, if you dont mind being held in contempt, thats a brilliant idea-- give the finger to the court system.
The article sounds like they are after info from key people known to be affiliated with Wikileaks.
The headline makes it sound like they wanted information on everybody on Twitter who has ever posted anything supportive of Wikileaks.
There is a rather significant difference between the two.
That is because if the headline were accurate, nobody would read the article.
BTW, I already commented on this article or I would have modded your post up (even though you are an Anonymous Coward).
The geatest risk to US innovation and continued dominance in Internet business is NOT regulation. It is the DoJ. In the future start ups are going to avoid the US because they can present the increased privacy as a selling point to consumers.
This is simply not true. The greatest risk is US policy that borderlines on fascism. The DOJ is just the legal enforcement arm of the US government. In otherwords, they are tasked with carrying out the enforcement of those policies which are set by others.. They, the DOJ, are not the problem themself and focussing on them as the problem allows for the real erosion of rights and privacy to occur unabated.
Events such as this encourage business to move their servers to somewhere safe. Just like off-shoring jobs is a reaction to higher costs and lack of government protection of local jobs. If the government keeps doing this then eventually the only thing left in the USA will be law offices, lobbyists, and politicians.
Everything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. The connections you make, the things you read, everything. The government has too much power and by indulging in these useless social media activities, people are making themselves into potential targets by participating in them. Say you were curious about wikileaks and subscribed to Assange's twitter. Well guess what, now the government knows who you are, you are on yet another list and only because you were curious about what he had to say.
I'm not condemning social media as much as I am condemning this sort of behavior from government. But while the government IS behaving this way, people should be more careful in response.
Who would have guessed we would be the next Iran?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
http://www.militarybudget.info/WorldwideSpending.html
http://www.militarybudget.info/WorldwideMilitaryExpenditures.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_Breakdown_for_2011
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/01/06/Gates-Shrinking-budget-means-fewer-troops/UPI-42921294353456/?dailybrief
vs.
http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/TLSF/theme_a/mod02/www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.shtml
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Profit, schphofit, we can print as much money as we want; POWER trumps Profit.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It's not free speech, it's treason. Saying Obama sucks is free speech but publishing secret docs is treason. The penalties include death. Aiding in treason is treason.
Nah, the best option in these situations is always to print out the records and have them couriered to the government agency who requested them.
Um, no. It's not really treason. And it is definitely not treason for all non-Americans involved.
If this is private and confidential information, shouldn't it be already be published on Wikileaks?
wut no profit????
When you have power, you don't need profit. Profit is for those who want to advance in the game. You don't need to advance in the game when you own the game and make all the rules to the game.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
For military personel it is treason, for anyone else it is not. Especially when the group releasing the documents are not American, they have no duty to keep the secrets of foreign nations. Heck, you are not required to keep the secrets of your own goverment either. When the pentagon papers were published by the New York Times, and Nixon had them taken to court, the supreme court found 6-3 in favor of the New York Times publishing the documents.
"Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."
—Justice Black
So in the closest case we have to Wikileaks, the supreme court ruled it was the newspapers RESPONSIBILITY to report the lies of our government to us. If you want to hide your head in the sand, obey big brother at all times, and never question your government, move to to China, they appreciate your kind there. America was founded on the idea of an open democracy by the people for the people, not some secretive government that disappears people who disagree with it for "treason". But the reason the governments are scared of Wikileaks is because a lot of people in government do things that if their people found out, would have them thrown out in seconds. Every time wikileaks releases more documents, the government starts banging the treason drum, saying it puts our troops at risk. As of yet not one single Wikileak can be blamed for causing the death of an American soldier. They said the same thing about the Afghan war document leak in august. The secretary of defense himself said "the review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure." Those were military communications, and these are diplomatic cables, which are far less likely to endanger troops, and far more likely to embarrass two faced diplomats who are being caught saying one thing to the public and another in private.
The truth of the matter is 911 was an incredibly successful attack on the freedoms of Americans. No group had ever been as successful at changing American views and ideals since the founding fathers. Since then large portion of Americans can be herded wherever the government wants you by using words like "National Security" and "terrorism", people willingly give up freedoms that our grandfathers fought for and often paid for with their lives. That one attack did more to bring us closer to a 1984 style big brother controlled America, where any dissent is crushed and called treason, than any effort by any group. People willingly give up their freedoms and rights in exchange for protection from the terrorist bogeymen. Hell they don't even need to get actual protection, most people are perfectly happy with the bullshit security theatre their goverment puts in place (at great public cost) that will do nothing to stop another attack. America may once have been the land of the free and the home of the brave, but it is quickly turning into the land of the totalitarian democracy, the home of cowards who hide behind their governments skirts.
The cables are probably included in the encrypted "insurance" file that WL has already released. Assange isn't the only one with the key. If things get ugly it will pop up on the net.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Ah, yes, in your universe, we PUNISH people without actually having a trial first.
You goddamn fascist asshole.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Oh no, there's a TON more. They haven't released nearly everything. Don't forget that they have to pore over hundreds of thousands of documents, checking them for authenticity (someone might have pumped bogus information in), and protecting identities if it's necessary (ie, intelligence sources). You think everything in Assange's insurance file is out there already?
Last time i looked treason by a member of the military does make it punishable by death.
I know you're being funny, cynical, or sarcastic. But the simple fact that such a sentence with the words "the feds" instead of "the KGB" exists today and is even perceived as remotely plausible, shows how deep we stooped from our previous moral high ground of the "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave."
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Hide in plain sight. The guy with virtually no online presence is much more suspicious than the guy with an average looking Facebook.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
And how is exposing corruption in the government treason? To me it looks a lot more like patriotism.
... and then they built the supercollider.
So, it's ok for authorities to lie, cheat, bribe, kill, torture, etc, and the very act of exposing them is a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment?
They subpoenaed some information; that's not "death or life imprisonment".
You're so fucked.. Just watch your country go down in flames
It's much worse in Europe and elsewhere, and Europeans are too stupid to even realize it. Inform yourself about the laws!
Moxie Marlinspike got pulled out of an airport security line, was questioned and had his computers searched because he's a friend of a friend of someone working for Wikileaks.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Of course part of the problem here is that they really don't use the "wiki" in Wikileaks. At least in theory they were going to be using wiki or wiki-like tools that would let newcommers and ordinary people help with the processing of the information, but apparently that has been thrown out the window. Yes, it started that way, but it isn't any more.
Certainly something like Distributed Proofreaders could help in processing the information, to show what a "crowdsourcing" model or at least community development effort could look like without the wiki itself.
Yeah, there is political infighting, but a great deal of that is self-inflicted. There is a need for something like WIkileaks and I'm glad that they are doing what they are doing, but they also need to get their act together if they are going to pull through this as well. That Julian Assange couldn't keep his pants zipped up has also hurt a whole bunch too.
Or, and I know this is a WILD idea, one could give information directly to multiple news outlets anonymously. Just a crazy thought.
What happened was that a prosecutor asked for some fairly basic personal data. The US legal system requires review through a judge who decided that the release of this data was justified, but mandated disclosure. Furthermore, if Twitter and the affected individuals have an opportunity to challenge the decision. That's the legal system working the way it should.
Europe has mandatory data retention of this kind of information as part of an EU directive, and many nations have gone beyond even the already serious requirements that the directive imposes. Police in many European nations can get at this data without any kind of judicial review and you never even have a chance of finding out that you have been investigated. Show me a European nation where your data would be better protected from police and prosecutors than in the US.
And anybody who thinks that what Assange did wouldn't lead to prosecution in Europe is even more naive. Merely making fun of the state can land you in jail in European nations, as can insulting politicians and churches. Release of some of the cables is likely actionable in Europe simply because it portrays people in a bad light. It's a purely political decision that European nations haven't started prosecuting Assange for these releases directly; they certainly have the laws and information to do it.
Wake up, folks. In the US, at least people complain about this stuff. Europeans just submit to their governments unquestioningly.
Why do they need to get the info from Twitter? Couldn't they just be tracking IP access at key edge routers and back trace that to the users ISP account?
If someone is posting on twitter that they like wikileaks, they are also most likely a user who is actively visiting the site... meaning there is definitely a IP trail from their ISP to one of the wikileaks mirrors.
IF they need to get twitter account user info, I would assume that means there is already a database of everyone accessing the site to begin with... Yay government!
I know. It sucks. America is the land of the free (if you are rich and/or in government), home of the sheep.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It's a wake-up call that most of the social media services we use are based in the United States, and thus subject to such subpoenas. I think the US government's eagerness to spy on internet communications puts US-based social media companies at a severe disadvantage in the global marketplace. But some of this blame must fall on the companies themselves. If Twitter is so concerned with free speech and democratic thought, they should be encrypting all DMs such that only the sender and recipient have the keys to unecrypt the private conversations.
It's ironic that the State Department encouraged Twitter to keep their service running 24/7 during the "Green Revolution" in Iran, which encouraged political and anti-regime dissent in that country through tweets, but when it comes to political dissent against the US government, suddenly these same government vanguards need to rifle through users' digital belongings in the middle of the night.
One can only hope that this will start to bring about a new generation of decentralized, non-commercial social media services such as Diaspora.
The truth of the matter is 911 was an incredibly successful attack on the freedoms of Americans.
Sadly, it appears very true. In one brutal attack Al-Qaeda has transformed the most powerful nation on earth into a nation of sheep that are being fleeced by the Haliburtons of the world.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison... great men with high ideals. I hope their hard work is not wasted.
BM3
Dud, the idea of mass population reduction is not something I'd post if there wasn't more information I've come across. I.e. Chemtrails. I didn't believe it till I saw it myself going on and I even took some pictures of contrails being put down over Atlanta along with contrails in the same photos around 5pm. Later learned earlier that morning they were putting them down over North Carolina, apparently working west. Here is a video well done http://vimeo.com/16219493
Of the files in the wikileaks released archive of torrents http://wikileaks.ch/file/wikileaks_archive.7z is one on sterilization study and a few others catholic church related that are not available via torrents.
and there is more...
http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/56612/End_Game__Population_Reduction_Plans_/ and there are other videos as well on this. i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiFcGRmagmk
I'm also quite aware that for some people, perhaps such as yourself, you cannot handle the truth or figure if you can't do anything about it them out of mind is better.
Among those tens of thousands of individuals would be people who log everything they can get and sell it to interested parties.
As you have to be a *insert this months bad term here* if you have even thought of reading what they had to say.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Amazon has already removed them from our kindles..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
NO! While the government is behaving this way, people should be rioting in the streets!
Where are all the armed bears you are so proud of?
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Sometimes, I think I must have picked a very bad nick. I'm definately not inside the herd-think that is in here at least (phew for that ;)
I certainly will not justify government actions that is provably among those listed, and I think being scanned on social medium owned by corporations, by the government, just reeks of McCarthyism all over again. Especially so, when Wikileaks itself has broken NO LAWS. This is abuse, and will be abused, by people in high positions that want to cover their asses. If this is a new "war on wikileaks", it shows how badly these people need to be replaced before they do even more harm. They don't understand democracy and the internet, and they certainly will do everything in their power to seize more power, using every avenue to fool the public about it.
I'm not quick to believe conspiracies (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saHs6J0OXVI&feature=related for my take on most conspiracy theories), however any wise person is now taking note that the well USA is tumbling down nowadays looks very much like corporate fascism. Maybe we need to experience it, to avoid the same damages in the future that is soon to unfold? Sadly, people seem so immature these days, it seems the lesson needs to be learned the hard way.
But I'll keep on posting. Eventually, usually, my points become validated in future events, be it new technical innovations or exposure of lies and deceit.
I vividly remember seeing GWB live on TV talking about how "a new intelligence report" showed EVIDENCE of WMDs in Iraq. For some reason, my gut sometimes reacts when someone is lying, and it did. I told all my friends that this was a lie. We started SMS campaigns how this was a war on false premises.. Basically, most my friends and relatives told me this can't be true. They "must" know something Blix and UN workers don't. But of course, it was all a big fat lie to justify going to war, something GWB had wished for a long time, revenge for his dad or just to take down "one of their own guys gone bad" (bad being the "other side", by definition of course). The "intelligence report" that justified the whole Iraq war was never found, and that should tell you something. How do these guys get away with it?
Clinton had to leave office for lying about the "definition of sex" (wether oral sex is "sex" or not!), while GWB has yet to be convicted of his crimes against humanity. Oh brother! What a circus!
People are sheep, even on /.. Just because a leader says to kill, people do it without any thought of who they are, what they're doing and what the consequences are (which is wisdom).
People blindly believe in religion, one-sided science and governments because of intelligence and flawed logic. It has no relationship with how wise they are, unfortunately.
Sometimes you have to listen with your heart, not dogma, and that is the only way to truly know something intuitively.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
The list of people/accounts that they requested data on is pretty limited - and they're not even requesting that the accounts be shut down.
These aren't just Wikileak supporters (I imagine Twitter has thousands). These are people who are closely related, and some cases (formerly) a part of Wikileaks.
Probably, the DoJ is building a case against Assange (and probably others) and needs to be able to verify the identities of individuals whose Twitter accounts tweeted statements the DoJ wants to use in evidence.
How are you going to hold in contempt a whole company?
Everything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law.
I would say, "does anyone need more reason to quit doing anything that is hosted on a service in the US where their personal information can seemingly be requested or taken at any time by the US government"?
I think this is less of a case about it being 'social media' and more of a case about being careful in what jurisdiction you're hosting potentially sensitive stuff. If Twitter was a service hosted in a country with a little more of a grasp on reality you'd probably be less concerned about it - same if you were just hosting a blog, or a website that mirrored the wikileaks cables, or whatever. ... as long as your target country wasn't on that growing list of ones that would just do what the US government told them to do anyway, of course
It is *only* through these new forms of communication and mass organizing that modern governments can be opposed. Being more careful only serves to empower them. If twitter/etc become a problem we can find a replacement but as a whole, we should *embrace* rather than hide from the new tools at our disposal for collectively organizing.
People without a significant online record, including naked pictures of themselves online, should simply not be allowed near government anymore.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Look again, then, and this time pay closer attention to the definition of "treason."
"IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the application and this Order are sealed until otherwise ordered by the Court, and that Twitter shall not disclose the existence of the application or this Order of the Court, or the existence of the investigation, to the listed subscriber or to any other person, unless and until authorized to do so by the Court" _ and within a couple of hours you can find the copy all over the Net, as usual. Another bright action from the U.S. Department of Justice? Hey guys, it is a joke, isn't it?
From the article on Salon:
It was issued on December 14 and ordered sealed -- i.e., kept secret from the targets of the Order. It gave Twitter three days to respond and barred the company from notifying anyone, including the users, of the existence of the Order. On January 5, the same judge directed that the Order be unsealed at Twitter's request in order to inform the users and give them 10 days to object; had Twitter not so requested, it would have been compelled to turn over this information without the knowledge of its users.
Kudos to Twitter.
ok, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason " I think this will do : United States Code at 18 U.S.C. 2381 states "whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." The requirement of testimony of two witnesses was inherited from the British Treason Act 1695. Since according to the US, people lost their lives due to information leaked that gave al-Qaeda information about informants i suspect this will fit the bill. The clause that will be used is," giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere", Should i even remind you that he took a oath to defend the US??? I think if you read the link it is even more surprising what other countries consider treason. I know taking a oath and keeping your word or being expected to keep that oath is so 1930- 1950 ish , but the military still expects it. .
The clause that will be used is," giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere",
It would have to be stretched beyond the limit of sanity to make THAT case.
Admittedly, "sanity" isn't anywhere to be found on the USG's character sheet these days.
You can't really wiki anything that requires secrecy.
I thought the "leaks" part of wikileaks was an indication that secrecy was what was being avoided. The whole point of the project was to be a conduit through which conscientious individuals could bring information to the public; information that an agency or corporation might be trying to hide because it would expose activities that are illegal, immoral, or harmful to the public welfare.
WikiLeaks has been removing certain names, places and dates in an attempt to avoid endangering individuals.
And prove to me that the "Men in Black" actually exist. Really. And they have agents that look like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith too?
Sell to whom? The information would all be out in the open anyway. I suppose that you have hundreds of people with "check user privileges" on Wikimedia projects who discretely log and sell everything they can get to interested parties too?
It isn't as if this information is being kept from those who would screw you over. It just isn't available to "the general public".
Back in the 50's-60's the cia was using LSD on unsuspecting hospital patients for decades in another country. Apparently all this was without the permission or knowledge of the host country. Perhaps this occured in far more countries than we will ever know, and it may be why many leaders now are not so enthusistic about an alliance, friendship, partnership or aid from the united snakes of america. As far as that goes I do not believe any restitution, apology, nor remedy was ever provided by the usa, and have continued to observed all the activities and subterfuge of an unbridled secret society plunging itself into even more surreptitious, devious and lecherous activities.
Now maybe a good time to start distancing ourselves from the ever lying and cheating, self proclaimed protector of "rights" and "freedoms" that are the over-rich, over-privileged, ever-mouthy, uncaring and incompassionate, arrogant and self-righteous kings and queens in those united snakes. I am not so taken by the myriads of movie and entertainment crap put out by a vain, self-congratulating glutton that could actually be helping the world instead, and help even its own people thousands of times better, to real altruistic ends. They hold the "public good" up as the reason for everything, convicing you that when you vote you actually have a voice and participation in government (you do not and is why ur system is so fkdup), and contribute to their brand of freedom (you do not), but the administration does nothing to really help the plight of the common person.
You can not tell me, or even START to pretend, that it is entirely inconceivable that the united sucks of america would not bomb their own people for some secret gambit strategy to create a carte blanche bonanza to squelch individual rights and freedoms. Fk! they have bombed friendlies and allies often enough in battle - despite all their so called smart technology, advanced communications devices, IT, and the fact that they are ever presently practicing wars they have instigated throughout decades. They have done it before, to their own people, calling it tests of vectors and distribution patterns of virals. This hatred for the French population for being independant enough, free enough, to suggest so in a book 6 months after the 911, is ridiculous. Oh yes!! Everyone is just so jealous of the states. lmfao!. People question the lunar landings, why is it so hard to believe that they have not either orchestrated the ruse from the start, or at the least actively contribute and support in many unkown ways to the holy wars?
As mentioned previously, in the 1770's the u.k. had an annual budget of 80,000 pounds just for the Secret Service, I do not think that fact was ever wasted on the 4 fathers. I remember the boasting in the 1960's of the technolgy to filter and monitor all communications taking place in the world, of spy satellites that could discern objects on the ground anywhere in the world smaller than 1 meter. In the 1960's!!!!!! And yet here we are today half a century later, 50 years later, rifling through their so called secure communications channels merely to demonstrate to the rest of the world that they are a secret and evil power that is out of control. What happened to all these capabilities, sharpened by years of experience and technological innovation, in being able to identify threats? Perhaps if they were not picking fights with disadvantaged countries advancing merely finacial interests . . .
I would be oh! so greatly worried that the united snakes of america: 1) can not be bothered, 2) do not have the know how or abilities, 3) nor the wherewithall, to be able and protect the intellectual property and communications of its own people, most especially at an obvious point of vulnerability. Perhaps if they paid great minds to do great work instead of highering reach-around, gladhand suck ups, or allowing millions of corrupt, fktard execs that decide on any solution they want (are paid/graft/payola to invest in) instead of what is best, they wou
No, but the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do. Anybody trying a stunt like that would be slapped with sanctions under Rule 11 in short order. And ordered to go back and do it right.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
The problems is those news outlets might be tightly connected to the government in some way , so they might all decide to do nothing with it , to protect themselves ( given the treatment wikileaks is getting , you can't exactly blame them )
Slipping shoelaces ?
in everything.
twitter is trivial to clone, its just a web based irc with a massive database backend.
any one wanna make a safe wikichat.ICELAND alternative
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Laws that restrict speech based upon time, manner, or place restrictions have proven to be "constitutional", but you had better explain how that applies to Wikileaks. Laws that define the speech itself are almost universally declared unconstitutional.
But then again, most judges forget there is also this silly clause "congress shall pass no law". It means exactly that and nothing more or less. I can't help it if judges can't read something like the constitution in the first place, and it is a slippery slope if you decide to pass any law that restricts free speech in any way.
Using the excuse of "national security" to prevent individuals from spreading information based upon a contract has merit, where that individual is breaking an agreement if they divulge the information. That exists with trade secrets as much as it applies to classified information. The difference is when an uninvolved third party has the information and what the rational basis for preventing them from further dissemination of the information may lie. If you restrict that in any way, you have essentially killed off anything resembling journalism... which is precisely the point of the 1st amendment.
You can't put stuff into Pandora's box once it is out, no matter how hard your try. Any legal restrictions to do so are futile and can only become more repressive to the point that free speech in any form is a meaningless exercise.
I just can't stand people being sheep in accepting what the courts rule, as if the courts are the ultimate arbitrator of what is constitutional and washing their hands of the matter as if nine men alone run the government or ought to run the government. As citizens we can and indeed we must be holding our government officials to a higher law, and complaining about abuses to the foundational principles when they happen. What is going on with Wikileaks is an abuse of these foundational principles even if the courts are whitewashing the whole thing as if it was legal.
Unfortunately, all rights are alienable.
Just study the meaning of "Supoena the ____ (online) accounts of Supporters."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Ouch! Indeed! That is how the chilling effect begins: people start whispering to each other instead of talking out loud at the water cooler; unspoken glances are used to arrange gatherings of no more than three in quiet attics and basements. I am thinking that perhaps a better response would be for EVERYONE to start following Julian Assange on Twitter no? Then Twitter could simply say: here is the list; all 190+ million users and their access records; have fun!
PaulW, IT Consultant
Perhaps only provide a hard copy as well. I know folks below have said this would get you a fine. But this method of data swamping in useless formats is often used to delay or thwart these types of requests.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
That Julian Assange couldn't keep his pants zipped up has also hurt a whole bunch too.
Why does this matter? He's a single man, he can fuck who he wants.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The problem is that he didn't care who he was messing around with, and one of the idiot bimbos decided to file rape charges... putting him in the position to get screwed over in more ways than one.
I personally don't care what he does or with whom he does it... male or female... but the point here is that randomly and indiscriminately banging on any available tail does have its consequences. It is also a common way that most law enforcement agencies and many governments use to catch somebody if they can't get you on anything else.
If you are going to be leading a "revolutionary idea" that is certain to draw political flak, you need to high slightly higher standards than that average schmuck... at least if you want your political concept and movement to have any sort of traction and not get bogged down with a legal morass. In other words, Julian Assange pretty much shot himself in the foot here.