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."

Comments

Re:Sounds nice

[Samantha Wright]

The secret is in the reading of TFA. Twitter's angry that the subpoena claims that Harris has no right to challenge it. The only circumstance allowed by the Stored Communications Act under which the subpoena is filed in which this right can be withheld is if Harris has "no proprietary interest in the content," which is patent bullocks and makes no sense. Officially the subpoena is being made by the prosecution in anticipation of a particular defence; by contrast I do believe a warrant requires suspicion of guilt before it can be issued. It's also very, very unnecessarily broad, and hence blatantly meant to fish for incriminating materials.

Re:Sounds nice

[__aaqvdr516]

TFA gives some pretty compelling reasons.

1. that the data belongs to Harris under Twitterâ(TM)s terms of service, and handing it over would violate both those terms of service and the SCA.

2. it argues that handing over Harrisâ(TM)s data would violate the Fourth Amendmentâ(TM)s protections against searches without a warrant, which it argues applies even when the government is seeking information about allegedly public activities like a userâ(TM)s tweets.

3. it points out that Twitter is in California, and argues that the New York prosecutors need to make their case to a California court to obtain Twitterâ(TM)s data.

All seem like valid arguments to quash a subpoena to me.

Re:Sounds nice

[cusco]

What, are all OWS detainees winning the grand prize of an FBI file? Are they now considered domestic terrorists?

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. All the ones that I've met did anyway (most of them probably already had one though, so they might not be representative).