ACLU and EFF are in court against Twitter ID requests

FREEDOM GROUPS the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will be in a US federal appeals court today as they fight government attempts to get internet user IDs without warrants.

The ACLU and EFF are pushing back government advances on Wikileaks and Twitter where, they argue, there is a threat to liberty and privacy and want it made public whenever the government requests access.

"Government efforts to get information about people's Internet activities raise serious constitutional issues, and the public has a right to know what the government is doing," said Aden Fine, the ACLU staff attorney who will argue before the appeals court today..

"An open court system is a fundamental part of our democracy, and the very existence of court documents should not be hidden from the public. That's not how our judicial system works, and we're hopeful that the court will put an end to this secrecy."

The ACLU and EFF are representing Twitter users (PDF) Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliament member, security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and Dutch activist, hacker and XS4AL member Rop Gonggrijp, and want access to any orders sent by the government.

They are challenging US District Court Judge Liam O'Grady's November decision refusing to "unseal or publicly list all orders that may have been sent to companies other than Twitter and any related motions and court orders".

The orders requested extensive information about the account holders, including the email addresses and IDs of people that they communicated with, including direct messages. µ