When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite - Winston Churchill
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Court orders Twitter to hand over user data in Wikileaks case
A US FEDERAL JUDGE has ordered micro-blogging web site Twitter to hand over information relating to three of its users in an investigation of Wikileaks, denying the users a number of requests in their appeal.
Earlier this year US authorities ordered Twitter to hand over data, including internet protocol (IP) addresses, that identified three former Wikileaks volunteers - Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp, and Birgitta Jonsdottir.
The users attempted to fight the order, claiming that their IP addresses should be treated as private information, that the demand was not related to Wikileaks, and that their right to free speech was being suppressed, but this week the judge did not agree with any of these claims.
"The information sought was clearly material to establishing key facts related to an ongoing investigation and would have assisted a grand jury in conducting an inquiry into the particular matters under investigation," said Judge Liam O'Grady, according to the New York Times. "Petitioners knew or should have known that their IP information was subject to examination by Twitter, so they had a lessened expectation of privacy in that information, particularly in light of their apparent consent to the Twitter terms of service and privacy policy."
O'Grady added that the terms of service for Twitter meant that users were handing over their IP addresses and could not expect privacy in regards to them, which sets a potentially worrying precedent for future cases where people can be identified and prosecuted through their use of social networks.
The judge also dismissed a request to have the Department of Justice's reasoning for seeking the information exposed.
"Today is one of those 'losing faith in the justice system' kind of days," Appelbaum tweeted.
Jonsdottir, a member of the Icelandic parliament, tweeted, "We should use it to help [people] understand what they are giving up when they agree to privacy policy with social media."
She also responded to one user asking if she would be extradited, "... not to my knowing... that would of course never work - iceland [government] stands firmly behind me." µ
Tags: Internet
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They should really do something about that law using the term 'expectation of privacy' since you can easily argue that in the US you cannot expect privacy under ANY circumstance, so that vague statement makes the laws on privacy null and void.
And to the previous commenters: retarded troll comments are retarded, there is no doubt for anybody that sees them.
It's very cool that they keep arresting Antisec members and prosecuting them for hacking. These guys must be pretty dumb to not know they are being tracked.
The US government are the criminals, and they have nowhere to hide thanks to Wikileaks.
They can run... but they can not hide.