Vol. 76/No. 21      May 28, 2012

In addition to gaining access to Harris’ Twitter account messages, New York prosecutors want his “user information, including email address.”

Harris was among 700 arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in an Occupy Wall Street march last October. He was charged with disorderly conduct.

In February, Harris filed his own motion against the subpoena. Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. ruled April 20 that Harris didn’t have the legal standing to make the motion because Twitter owns the rights to his “tweets.”

Twitter’s 10-page memorandum against the judge’s order writes that its “terms of service expressly state: ‘You retain your rights to any content you submit, post or display on or through the services.’”

In January 2011, the U.S. Justice Department ordered the tweets of Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottìr be released as part of an investigation into Wikileaks. In November a judge ruled against Twitter, forcing the company to turn over the information. Jonsdottìr only heard of the subpoena request after Twitter challenged the court order.

In a related case of privacy rights of Twitter users, Austin Carroll, a senior at Garrett High School in Indiana, was expelled in March for posting messages with profanity on his personal account. When a student logs in on Twitter, the school system tracks all tweets, regardless of where they were made, the school principal said to Indiana’s News Center March 23.
 
 
Related article:
Muslims push challenge to US gov't 'no fly' list
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home