Twitter Fights US Court For WikiLeaks Details

An anonymous reader writes "Micro-blogging site Twitter is opposing an order from a US court to reveal the account details of supporters of WikiLeaks. Twitter has called on Facebook and Google to reveal whether they also received similar court orders. As part of the US government's investigation into WikiLeaks, a court ordered Twitter, in mid-December, to give details of accounts owned by supporters of the whistle-blower site. Twitter has protested against the subpoena and informed the individuals whose account information has been requested, while raising the possibility that other social networking players have received similar orders."

Comments

Another salvo in the war

[Anonymous Coward]

Most don't realize it, but this whole Wikileaks thing is the beginning of World War III. It is just very weird, very slow, and very online.

Re:Another salvo in the war

[netsharc]

How about a US citizen who's been arrested and tortured in Kuwait, and has been put in a no-fly-list by the boogie-man-fearing DHS, and for what reason? He's of Somalian origin, moved to Virginia as a baby, US citizen, but traveled to study to Somalia, it was too dangerous, so he moved to Kuwait. And the sharp-as-nails FBI/CIA/fucking morons thinks: he's Muslim, lived in Virginia (so did al-Awlaki), he traveled to Somalia (al-Awlaki's there!), he must know something!

So they got him, tortured him, he's not said anything because he knows nothing, and now they're (the US) stuck having committed crime against him.. and they still put him in a no-fly-list... well done, fucking morons.

Google "Gulet Mohamed" if you didn't know about this.

So...

[Black Parrot]

What makes you a "supporter" ?

Re:Ok, some clarification.

[ScentCone]

Considering this whole 'grand jury' process is going on in secret

Are you putting 'grand jury' in quotes because you don't think there is such a thing, or because you think it actually has a different name? A grand jury is actually called a grand jury, and there actually is such a thing. And the deliberations are secret because many times the grand jury actually decides NOT to indict someone, and this way the initial evidence or prosecutorial arguments put forth while trying to get an indictment aren't spread all over the place. Which is nice, if it turns out the grand jury doesn't find it even worth indicting you, right?

why should we be confident that there's a due process behind deciding whose IP addresses are being fished out of Twitter?

Because the validity of the evidence (and the means by which it was collected) will be evaluated during a trial and argued over by everyone involved ... including by at least one appeals court, depending on how things turn out. A subpoena comes from a judge, not from a cop or prosecutor.

the whole point of Wikileaks is that you have a drop-box to leak documents, but it's clean hands from the other side

The implication, by the "hacker" that Manning was chatting with, is that Wikileaks may have worked directly with Manning to set up a place for him to dump the stolen documents. Essentially, helping him to steal them. The communcations surrounding the act of moving those quarter million stolen documents off of government systems and onto Assange's systems are what are in question here. If it turns out that there was coordination between them, that does indeed make a big difference.