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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.
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
its not freedom of the press - its freedom of speech.
if you dont have freedom to know, and talk about what you know, then it means that you dont have freedom of speech, period. no amount of legal beautifying can change that fact.
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Yes, of course. Likewise, it's a long standing precedent that one has the freedom (hypothetically) to rob a bank and then face punishment after the fact. Did you think that was something new?
If "see, we punished these guys for saying that, and we'll do the same to you if you say that" isn't prior restraint then what would be?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The whole point of the first amendment is "congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech". That doesn't guarantee anonymity. The only thing that guarantees anonymity is the person exercising the freedom of speech and what steps they take to be anonymous. Using an interconnected computer network without taking steps beyond a clever nickname does no such thing.
As an non-US citizen.....
I would expect you to stop putting spending bills and prisoner transfers bills into one package.
It seems such a weird way of doing business. If a measure can't stand on its own, it shouldn't stand at all.
As a lawyer, I wish articles like this would link the decision at the very beginning or the very end of the article always. Here, no thanks to the /. summary!
Decisions relying on anti-"chilling effect" policy reasons for the conclusion tend to be at the appellate level, not the district level, and especially not at the magistrate level. Magistrates are appointed for a short number of years and are not Article III judges. Doing what the Article III judges (district, circuit, SCOTUS) say is of the utmost importance to them since Magistrates are basically merely auxiliaries or para-judges. So, no, magistrate judges will almost never rely on public policy concerns such as "chilling effects" to decide an issue. This is my experience as someone who used to work directly for a federal magistrate judge doing research for him.
Now, I humbly offer my analysis of the decision (apologies for it not being perfect writing, but it's Saturday, and the goal is just to shed a little light on what actually is going on in the decision):
Facts
Issues
Standing under SCA
No, they dont. SCA gives standing only if contents of communications are requested. The distinction between contents and records (non-content data such as ID, access time, etc.) is explicitly made in the law itself, so this isn't just semantics. Government wins issue 1.
Proper issuance of order
Users argue the government did not follow proper procedure to get the order. Users argue info requested is not relevant and material to investigation. Court says it is.
First Amendment
Users argue it creates a chilling effect on free speech by creating a "map of association." Court says that the association between these users was made publicly by the users themselves already, so no chilling effect in this instance can be had. This is where the whole "publicly policy" issue would come into play in an appellate court, but not in an Article I magistrate court. While it could have a chilling effect on other associations (which I personally doubt, as, IIRC from my use on Twitter, everyone's Twitter friend list is publicly accessible anyway), it's not for the magistrate court to decide. That would be for the Circuit or Supreme Courts.
Fourth Amendment
Users argue it's a warrantless search, and the requested IP addresses are "intensely revealing" as to location, including location within a home and movements within. OK, wtf is this bullcrap? Turning over an IP address will tell the police which room in a house you were posting in? That sounds really specious.
In any case, court enters into a "reasonableness" analysis as is de rigueur with Fourth Amendment issues--does the act infringe on expectation of privacy society consideres reasonable? There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in data voluntarily turned over to third parties. This may not be true if the EULA specifies that data will be kept private, but the court doesn't address this issue because the argument was never made. Instead, the court says: Look, you gave Twitter your IP address, so you can't reasonably expect it to be kept secret from police. Other courts have apparently said si