Judge Rules Twitter Must Provide Tweets, IP Addresses to Prosecutors

Malcolm Harris

Earlier this week, a New York criminal court judge ruled that Twitter was compelled to release user information to prosecutors. In the ruling, the Manhattan DA won the right to access a user's tweets, IP address, saved and deleted messages, and other information that could possibly identify a user's location at specific points in time.

The defendant, Malcolm Harris, is charged with disorderly conduct stemming from Occupy Wall Street activities.

Twitter fought the court order to compel disclosure.

The story was reported in arstechnica.com, Talking Points Memo, and the San Jose Mercury News, and other media outlets.

Twitter's Transparency Report Notes Government Requests for Information

Twitter just released something called the "Twitter Transparency Report." The statement includes the number of requests from various world governments for "user information" and "to withhold content". The winner in this grim sweepstakes is none other than the United States. Of the 849 requests around the world, Washington generated 679 -- 75% -- of them. If you throw in Japan's 98 requests, that leaves the remainder of the world with 5% of the requests.

The announcement is quite interesting and, in a way, provocative. Thanks to the financial blog zerohedge.com for alerting its readers to the Twitter initiative.

Judge Turns Thumbs Down On Facebook "Like" As Free Speech

Bad news and Saturdays are historic dance partners. Today's hidden headline comes from Tidewater Virginia, where a US district judge ruled in a case involving Facebook "like" usage and free speech.

The case involved a sheriff who fired six workers for what the law enforcement official claimed was cause. Those fired claimed they were let go because they publicly supported the sheriff's opponent in an election. Some made their political preference known by using Facebook's "like" button.

The judge in the case, Clinton appointee Robert Jackson, ruled against the fired employees. According to an Associated Press report picked up in the San Jose Mercury News, the jurist did not view the "like" button as "expressive speech. In other words, it's not the same as actually writing out a message and posting it on the site."

If the plaintiffs can afford the appeal, one would expect them to pursue this matter in a higher court. It's a fascinating case with profound implications for free speech.

Feds Team With NFL To Use "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" Web Law To Seize Internet Domains

According to a report in tecca.com, and picked up by Yahoo News, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has had a recent flurry of Web enforcement activity. Using laws whose premise is seemingly "guilty until proven innocent," the Feds shut down over 300 Internet domains "suspected of violating NFL copyrights."

It is not comforting to know that the federales have worked overtime to mollify the anxieties of the powerful NFL-industrial complex. There are simply far more important issues to resolve than the aggressive protection of greedy football teams. The recent embarrassing hacking of a Scotland Yard-FBI conference call by Anonymous hints at the folly of putting commercial interests ahead of international security.

Far more disturbing is the serious wedge into civil liberties that the Feds' use of two civil statutes invites. Both liberals and conservatives (in the American political sense) should be alarmed by this development. The notion that the law is really being used as a hammer to protect powerful commercial enterprises makes one suspicious of the law's true purpose. (As I understand it, the legal references are 18 USC 981 and 18 USC 2323.)

The Feds' crackdown on NFL copyright violators comes on the heels of proposed SOPA legislation in Washington. The proposed law, a legal love child spawned by major entertainment firms, was shelved when a web-aware public deluged Congress with protest e-mail and phone calls, and major tech players brought out its heavy lobbying artillery against SOPA.

The law would have permitted a "guilty until proven innocent" approach to websites fingered for alleged "copyright violations." This approach emasculates Internet freedom of expression so that media moguls can sleep more comfortably at night. Meanwhile, despite all the whining from Hollywood (and its financial enablers on the East Coast), the movie makers and cable monopolists are making more money than ever. It is illuminating to watch back-to-back TV segments in which movie flaks complain about piracy, followed by a review of the week's box office receipts for new releases. Sadly, the irony of the juxtaposition is lost on the entertainment business' far from innocent power brokers.

I don't mean to diminish commercial piracy as an issue. However, "guilty until proven innocent" is the wrong way to stop the pilferage. To my mind, the law, as it was applied in the NFL case, is the guilty party. Of course, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and the NFL are welcome to prove their innocence in the online court of public opinion.

The Fiction of the GOP's Voter Fraud Claims

Today's Miami Herald includes a report on US Senator Bill Nelson's request for a Federal inquiry into new voting laws recently enacted in various states. The purpose of the new laws, Nelson suspects, is to muzzle likely Democratic Party voters. In most cases, Republican governors or GOP-controlled legislatures have put new statutes on the books which mandate heightened identification requirements for voter registration.

The GOP stance on this issue is that they're simply trying to prevent "massive" voter fraud and to thwart illegal immigrants from casting ballots in American elections. I wondered where these enormous numbers of fake voters could be found. I've voted, with the exception of one year, annually for more than three decades. I've voted in squalid inner cities and prosperous suburbs. I grew up in a small, very Republican town. I was too young to vote at that time, but my parents did vote and took the privilege seriously. They got accustomed to the election officials wearing GOP badges inside the polling area. No one ever complained or called the ACLU.

In all of these venues, the concept of waves of people appearing en masse at a polling station was simply a ridiculous notion. Those experiences led me to conclude that Republican efforts to inhibit the right to vote to as many people as possible is simply shameful. The action casts doubt on the validity of the Republican claim (especially the Tea Party faction's assertion) that they represent the majority of Americans. If that claim were true, the Republicans would want to register as many people as possible, so as to add the weight of numbers to their argument.

The Miami Herald article notes that investigations of voter fraud conducted over the years have conclusively shown the GOP assertions to be without merit. Among the probes was a federal investigation during the George W. Bush regime. (That investigation was especially ironic, given GOP's high-stakes voter fraud in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.) Yet, the Republican Party's baseless allegations continue, with plenty of people buying into them.

Voting is fundamentally connected to the rights of free speech and assembly. In the iterations of Occupy (fill in the blank), municipalities have squirmed over enabling these constitutionally guaranteed rights. What the Occupy phenomenon has brought to light is that those rights need to be reasserted, regardless of political perspective.