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Twitter Rejects Prosecutors' Subpoena For a User's Data Without Warrant
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."
That's fine. This is what due process is all about.
That's fine. This is what due process is all about.
Uh, due process? OK, how about root cause? Let's start at step one and answer the relevancy between someones private communications and a charge of disorderly conduct. What, are all OWS detainees winning the grand prize of an FBI file? Are they now considered domestic terrorists?
Kudos to Twitter and recognizing due process, but it is the least of our concerns here.
Pretty much every protester is considered a possible terrorist by the gov't today, and it's likely that most of the OWS protesters went in with the assumption that they were going to get a file opened on them.
And we are back to the 60s again when the FBI used to send people into churchs and other gatherings of non-violent organizations in order to spy on, and sometimes screw with, them. COINTELPRO shit. Pretty sad it only took ~35 years for them to start pulling the same stunts. We have some really short institutional memory.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
A police state? Perhaps not. A corrupt government? Definitely. TSA, Patriot Act, "for the children" excuses left and right, free speech zones, NDAA, completely idiotic wars...
As is contesting one. Civilized men settle their differences in courts of law.
Government: "Hand it over!"
Twitter: "No."
Both: "Rather than the government breaking out the tanks, and Twitter breaking out the Molotovs, why don't we just ask a judge how we should resolve this?"
Trial by observing the ritual combat of lawyers beats the hell out of the alternative.