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US Judge Orders Twitter To Give Up WikiLeaks Data
cultiv8 writes "A US judge Friday ordered Twitter to hand over the data of three users in contact with the activist site WikiLeaks. 'US Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan rejected arguments raised by the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a host of private attorneys representing the Twitter account holders, who had asserted that their privacy was protected by federal law, the First Amendment, and the Fourth Amendment. Buchanan rejected each of the arguments in quick succession, saying that there was no First Amendment issue because activists "have already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available." The account holders have "no Fourth Amendment privacy interest in their IP addresses," she said, and federal privacy law did not apply because prosecutors were not seeking contents of the communications.'"
If somebody at Twitter deleted those accounts, or at least deleted the identifying information and it couldn't clearly be established who had done it... what could the US government do to Twitter as a corporation? Even a large fine would probably be worth it in the long run from all the goodwill and positive feedback they'd get from their users.
saying that there was no First Amendment issue because activists "have already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available."
Its like McCarthyism all over again.
I thought the point of the first amendment argument was that this sort of action would have a chilling effect on free speech, not that the twitter users were having their free speech rights directly violated...
Palm trees and 8
I can't wait for his time in office to end.
Gitmo will be closed and indefinite detention will end.
There will be no more illegal wiretaps.
oh boy. one great display of freedom after another - freedom to commit war crimes and hide it from public that is. and it is not treason to commit war crimes behind the backs of the elected people - but to let people know it - or, even more, people TO know it.
Read radical news here
2008, let's see:
Progressive President, Democrats in charge of the US House and Senate.
Soooo, Patriot Act not repealed, illegal wiretaps not stopped, the prison at Guantanamo stays around.
Get it through your heads: Even putting the "preferred" people in charge of the US government - it still acts as your enemy.
Will you PLEASE stop voting to fund the beast that is the US government? Without the money it feeds on, it won't be able to steal your freedoms.
Because if it isn't clear by now that supporting higher taxes for "investments" isn't going to help anyone but the political class and their rich hangers-on, you've been duped.
The right to speak anonymously in order to protect one's self from retaliation from individuals or oppressive, tyrannical or vengeful governments is an ESSENTIAL part of the first amendment protection. So the judge is simply wrong about this. Having the right to speech is only part of the first amendment. Having the right to free speech without fear is the rest of it.
First, the point is not that this will effect the participants ability to say whatever they said. The point is that it will effect future participants willingness to say things. It's about the chilling effect, not about the given participants first amendment rights exactly.
Secondly, I do have a privacy interest in my IP address. If I didn't, then why do services like Tor exist to hide it? If nobody cared about that, then nobody would use Tor, but many people clearly do. So people do have a privacy interest in their IP address. So the 4th amendment does apply.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
This.
>there was no First Amendment issue because activists "have already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available."
The tweets are already published. If they weren't illegal what are you pursuing them for?
So, somebody tweets something in support of Wikileaks, you want to hunt them down to send them to Guantan, and there's no 1st amendment issue.
At this rate Tunisia (which just abolished its state security) and Egypt (whose people raided their state security HQ) will be freer than the "land of the free".
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Getting a ruling in your favour in the US is just a matter of finding 'a' judge somewhere whose *opinions* align with yours.
That is, before the Internet, there really was no effective way to publish anything to a large audience without leaving a trail that would expose the author's identity to anyone who cared to do the leg work.
I'm sure people such as Silence Dogood or Deap Throat would disagree.
Have gnu, will travel.
One of the things that seems to be happening here is that USA Federal case law is beginning to define the difference between privacy, with its constitutional protections, and anonymity, which for all practical purposes only came into existence with the rise of the Internet. That is, before the Internet, there really was no effective way to publish anything to a large audience without leaving a trail that would expose the author's identity to anyone who cared to do the leg work.
I'm sorry, but that is a total falsehood. Amonymous publishing was part and parcel of political movements for centuries. Pamphleteers didn't always sign their names, as noted here
Anonymous pamphleteering was part of the American Revolution. The same way that samizdat was part of the fall of Soviet Russia.
Wikileaks may have inspired people in the Middle East to riot and overthrow their governments
This is a bad thing? Corrupt governments need to be overthrown (or at least someone needs to make an attempt). That said, their actions are not the fault of WIkileaks, but their own. Merely revealing the facts does not put the blame on them. It's a shame people are dying, but it is not the fault of Wikileaks. If they put someone worse in charge, then that is again their own fault. They merely act on the information given to them, and if they do it foolishly, that is not Wikileaks' fault.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!