Prosecutor subpoenas Wall Street protester’s Twitter account

A WALL STREET protester and journalist has had his Twitter account subpoenaed by a US prosecutor after he was arrested while participating in the Occupy movement.

The account, which belongs to a Malcolm Harris, or @destructuremal, is being targeted by the Manhattan district attorney's office, which is seeking its user information, email address and three months' worth of tweets.

The subpeona served on Twitter threatens it with punishment should it not comply, and came to light after Harris posted it via his Twitter account late on 30 January.

"This Twitter account has been subpoenaed to testify against me by the state of New York," he wrote. "Does witness intimidation work against corporate people? I swear to god I'll kill that little bird if you say a f*cking word," he added in reference to the micro-messaging web site's bird motif.

We have asked Twitter for comment, but until we receive that it does appear that Harris is calling for support by the company. "Twitter said one week till they hand the info over to Cyrus Vance's NY DA office unless there's a motion to quash or another reason not to," he said in a later tweet.

"Come on @Twitter, yall have bomb-ass lawyers: a 3.5 month scope on my account dating back > a month before my alleged crime? Called fishing," he added, "Final thanks to @Twitter and @Safety for the heads up on the subpoena, let's beat this together #opsubpoenathis."

Harris already has a lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild, who is about to file a motion to quash the subpoena. Twitter has agreed to keep the account details to itself while this is being prepared. µ