Protester challenges Twitter subpoena

AN OCCUPY WALL STREET protester and journalist whose Twitter traffic was demanded by the Manhattan district attorney is challenging the subpoena.

The account belongs to Malcolm Harris, who goes by the name of @destructuremal on Twitter. The Manhattan district attorney's office is after his user information, email address and three months' worth of tweets from around the time that the Occupy Wall Street protests started in New York City.

However, Harris is challenging the subpoena, and said at the time that he had the support of Twitter and a week long grace period in which to do that. Now that week is over, and his lawyer, Martin Stolar has filed a motion to quash the subpoena.

#NLG atny Martin Stolar motions to quash subpoena sniffing for mos. of tweets and private data from @destructuremal. ow.ly/8U3wF

— NationalLawyersGuild (@NLGnews) February 6, 2012

National Lawyers Guild member Stolar is arguing that the request is too invasive, too broad and could be used as a fishing expedition for investigative purposes, according to a blog on the New York Times web site.

His motion says, "Such use of a subpoena cannot be countenanced by the court, and the subpoena must therefore be quashed."

We have asked for more information. µ