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Twitter Rejects Prosecutors' Subpoena For a User's Data Without Warrant

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-and-what-army dept.

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "In defense of user privacy, Twitter filed a motion (PDF) yesterday in a New York state court asking a judge to block a subpoena that would force the company to turn over the data of one of its users, Malcolm Harris. Harris was arrested in an Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge in October for 'disorderly conduct.' The company's lawyers claim that the subpoena violates the fourth amendment and Twitter's terms of service, which says that users' tweets belong to them and thus can't be handed over to law enforcement without their consent."

3 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Get a Warrant by Local+ID10T · · Score: 5, Informative

    But they will just come back with a warrant and make it 'difficult' for twitter.

    No. that will not make it difficult for Twitter. That will protect Twitter.

    Complying with a warrant provides legal grounds for Twitter to act. Giving out information without one opens Twitter up to lawsuits.

    --
    "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
    1. Re:Get a Warrant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not the *correct* way to get information, though.

      A person can be forced by subpoena to testify. They can be forced to produce their own documents, or documents they created for others. They cannot be forced by subpoena to provide other people's documents that the other people wrote for themselves. That requires a warrant, which has a higher standard.

  2. Re:Half right by Americano · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because the user has deleted all of his tweets before February 2012.

    The prosecution believes that his tweets (including those deleted) will contradict his "anticipated defense" - specifically, that he was induced or forced to step onto the roadway by police, rather than stepping out onto the roadway of his own volition, and obstructing traffic. For instance, if they can show he tweeted a photo of himself and some other protesters dancing around in the roadway minutes before he was arrested, it sort of torpedoes the "The police threw me into the street!" defense.

    The reasoning the court is using in supporting the subpoena (by rejecting the defendant's motion to invalidate it) is that the records are akin to bank records - they are *about* the user, but the user has neither possession nor a "proprietary" interest in those records - in other words, the records belong to the bank, and so a subpoena is sufficient for the bank to turn over records about the defendant. Given Twitter's terms of service (granting them a worldwide irrevocable license to reproduce, present and display... etc. etc.... your tweets) and the precedent of bank records, the judge has ruled that the defendant has no standing to challenge the validity of the subpoena.

    You can read the full order here, and it goes into fairly deep detail about the issue, and is a fairly straightforward read.