Twitter Subpoenaed in Occupy Wall Street Case Pages PREV 1 2 | |
That's exactly what it is. It's a shame that it seems to be happening more and more. | |
Look at the wording of the request. Lets say I have two twitter accounts, one under my real name that I use for communicating in a sanitised fashion(so as not to upset friends, coworkers, bosses etc), and one under a pseudonym on which I post opinions which would be considered offensive or bizarre to those people(and before you jump to an extreme, remember that about 90% of what so called "netziens" would consider normal, hilarious, or appropriate, is considered completely fucked-up by the world at-large). Lets say that on my named account, I made only innocuous tweets during the specified period. Lets also say that on my pseudonymous account, I vented my anger at the police for their violent and unjust arrests, and called for more people to come down to the protest. Ooops, that "disorderly conduct" charge is now "incitement to riot" and "threatening an officer of the law". That's the precedent they want to set, the ability to contact a social media site, under any legal pretense(disorderly conduct is pretty much the most minor offense possible other than littering), and have them disclose all communications potentially made by an individual, rather than having to go to all the time and effort of first proving that any particular pseudonymous account belongs to any particular individual, or go through the usual legal procedures necessary to obtain someone's communications. It allows the prosecution to trawl your tweets for whatever period of time they specify, looking for anything you posted on any account associated with you which can be twisted to make you look bad in front of a jury. It allows the police an avenue to go on fishing expeditions; they can mass-arrest protestors, as they do now, for a minor and meaningless charge like "disorderly conduct", and then trawl everyone's twitter to try and find something else they can charge you with. These sorts of actions are designed to deter protestors from going, or even expressing their dissenting views in public, for fear anything they talk about, even under a pseudonym, can be analysed with hindsight and twisted to fit whatever narrative the authorities are spinning. Andy's spot on; in a dictatorship, they simply ban things - in a democracy, they chip away at them piece by piece, with plenty of people ready to defend their actions as minor, unimportant, or ready with the old "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" attitudes, until eventually they've achieved the same result, it simply took longer and didn't damage their public image substantially. | |
Disorderly conduct? What the fuck is that, and why does it warrant this? And cant they just check his twitter acount? | |
If he signed up with his actual name and his actual email then yes they can say he did it. Twitter would have a record if he had filed a hacker complaint at the time or that he changed his password. And also Twitter isn't anonymous you tag YOUR name to it with a handle so that you can get tagged and retweeted easier. Also who the hell would hack a twitter? If saying your twitter was hacked was a legitimate excuse then Christopho-whatever could have pulled that excuse out of his ass and then went further and said everything he had was hacked and that he didn't say any of that stuff. *EDIT* Oh and it also keeps track of where and how you post your tweets so hacking is less of a valid defense if its all off the same IP or device. | |
But as evidence of what? What sort of disorderly conduct charge could possibly merit this kind of digging? I get nervous when the law is applied as a blunt object, and more and more that seems to be the norm. And strict legalities aside, it's a little condescending to suggest that "we" should be able to keep people from organizing protests on Twitter because we're a free and open society. This is a more subtle and slow-moving application of the same anti-communications efforts seen in Egypt and elsewhere. That's not a hysterical statement, I'm not some nut screaming for an "American Spring," but let's not kid ourselves: The digital era has given individuals unprecedented means of communication and coordination, across cities and entire countries, and governments are still trying to figure out how to adapt to that. It's up to those same individuals to ensure that increased criminalization and denial of liberties is not a first-response reaction. | |
Honestly, this seems fair enough. I seriously doubt the government cares what he was tweeting enough to run a conspiracy to find out. That's where most of the more wild conspiracy theories come from - people who want to feel that they're important, and what better way to do so that to convince yourself that the government not only has an interest in reading your mail but has sent MIB to do so. And I have absolutely no sympathy for him if the disorderly charge is genuine. People seem to confuse 'protest' with 'get drunk and hurl abuse at police who haven't even done anything yet'. | |
Ok here's one to bake your noggins. What if they don't want a record of what was said, but a record of who responded? Since they know HE was there, perhaps they are trying to get legally verifiable documentation on who else was there that they didn't get the cuffs on. A simple copy/paste of his twitter account won't qualify as legal as any one could simply add or delete lines between the copy and paste steps, but if the twitter attorneys hand over the records its a direct chain of custody transfer from the official archived messages to the courts. Now since we don't know for sure WHY they want those records, we're all just screaming at the wind here. Should Twitter have to turn over the records. As pointed out, your twitter account is hardly private so I see no reason why not. Should they have to keep quite on the matter, no. Definitely not for a petty D.C charge. Now if the charge was something serious (murder, drug/human trafficking, terrorism, etc.) I can see not divulging the request so as not to tip off the suspect that he's about to get caught. And for the record,a Disorderly Conduct charge is basically a "We don't really have anything real to arrest you on but we want to throw you in a cell either to annoy you or until we find something solid to book you with" charge. In the end we will have to keep track of this case and see the actual reason they want this information before we get our dander up. Don't get all panicky yet...but at the same time, don't let your guard down. | |
The point is, if people think they might get arrested if they criticise their government on the internet, then they will be less inclined to criticise their government on the internet, so it has the effect of restricting what people feel able to talk about. The subpoena bothers me less than the fact that this guy is being charged with any crime in the first place.
In the USSR, every home had a telephone, but none had a telephone directory. True fact. Also photocopiers were restricted goods. | |
Um, if they wanna know what he was tweeting about, can't they just look it up on Twitter? I mean, it seems like a subpoena is not really necessary here since tweets are basically public info for anyone with a Twitter. | |
The entire treatment of Occupy by the city of New York is horrible. Considering they are peaceful demonstrators, an impressive feat considering it has no true leadership and their demonstrations involve large groups of people, the 'tactics' being used are completely disproportionate even for the crimes they are being accused of (despite their innocence). I do hope this gets quashed as not only does it seem unconstitutional (I couldnt say right now im not from the US so i dont know the constitution very well but it seems dodgy) it is a clear threat to using networks such as twitter to organise or advertise any form of demonstration. | |
If the intent of the subpoena is to have a chilling effect on the use of social media in these kind of situations, then why would the court order that Twitter shouldn't disclose that it was being subpoenaed? Moreover, if Twitter thought that such a chilling effect was a viable outcome, then why would they even disclose the information anyway? In my opinion all the court is trying to do is obtain information concerning whatever the case is about, nothing more, nothing less. | |
I don't think the fact that there wasn't any leadership was impressive at all. In fact, it's far more difficult to have a representative leader the larger the group becomes and without a leader or leadership, there are no clear goals, there's no clear direction. Getting a large group together, however, is relatively easy. It's just about appealing to the bleating side of human nature and letting things carry on from there. And with that in mind, it's debatable whether the demonstrations achieved anything at all. | |
Free speech is not a green light for criminal activity. You still got to obey the laws. Many cities have bent the laws as far as they could for these protesters. Given ample warnings and sufficient time. If they think they are above the law then they are no better then the people they are protesting. | |
I think it's too soon to make any real comment on this one, more details about the case need to be known. If it is indeed just a witch-hunt and this guy was nothing but one of the protestors who was arrested for Disorderly Conduct, then yeah, I think it's a bit ridiculous to want all his tweets. If they have strong reason to believe that he was doing something a bit more dastardly than conducting himself in a disorderly manner (and by "strong reason" I mean "we've already got evidence, the tweets will just be the finishing touch") then I think investigators have a right to such a subpoena. As for whether or not this sets a dangerous precident about using things like Twitter to organize protests and such, I disagree. The right to protest is protected by our constitution, the right to riot is not. If your tweets are things like "We're all meeting at 15th street and we'll march to city hall" then I doubt investigators will be interested in using them as incriminating evidence. However if your tweets are "We're all meeting at 15th street. I've got the moltov's, someone else needs to bring some bricks" and low and behold there were a number of fires and windows busted out with bricks, I'd say that'd be pretty incriminating stuff for investigators to find. I mean I'm a conservative, but even I don't think the government would go this far without proper reason. But then again I stopped paying attention to Glen Beck a long while ago. :P | |
this has nothing to do with freedom of speech. IF your stupid enough to yell "hey i killed this guy earlier" in a bar or a high street, that would be counted as evidence too. Freedom of speech doesn't nullify the value of things you say, just allows you to say them without risk of getting arrested for pro or negative stances on anything really. | |
Why not, i always beleived in total transparency and twitter giving court what was supposed to be public anyway isnt something "Evil". much more evil would be if court asked twitter to hide the information. | |
But the person who heard you would be able to be cross-examined. Social media can't. And can be altered. Let's say you've been wrongly charged with a sexual assault case. Looking through your post history, Twitter history, and Bookface history: Has there been any time where you have said something nasty about a girl? That's now evidence of guilt. Circumstantial maybe, but enough to keep you in court longer...likely. It's all about liberty creep. And as I said earlier, it's only happening to Occupy and the others; not the KKK, Tea Party, BNP or other groups where it could actually uncover some crimes. | |
And he is indeed charged with disorderly conduct. What does what he Tweeted have to do with that charge. Especially what he Tweeted in the following months. The problem is that releasing this information can have a chilling effect of people wanting to give voice to a protest. If you're suddenly under a full scale investigation for a minor thing you might not want to raise your voice. And I suspect (and hope) that that was Mr. Chalks reason for calling this a more subtle way of silencing people compared to dictatorships. More subtle, but even more chilling. In Denmark in December a 1000 people was wrongfully arrested by the cops. Two courts have later ruled that the arrests were illegal and some of the treatment was torture. The cops then went on a crusade to root through innocent peoples past, social networks and connections. They actually tried to say in court that because one of their victims knew someone who had once been arrested that this was evidence of a crime. In a European country in 2011. A fucking disgrace. Luckily the court threw them out on their filthy pig asses. But I see the two cases alike. It's a matter of the state trying to silence dissent by doing completely outrageous things to innocent citizens. And while this guy may not be innocent in the charge he faces, he most certainly is innocent of thought crime, which is what the Danish police tried to come up with and what I think this court is trying to do as well. | |
So how far does this corporate personhood go anyway? If Twitter chooses not to comply, you can't really put a corporation in prison. And I'm sure $1000 is coffee money to Twitter. It would probably cost them more to have their lawyers and tech people comply with the request. Maybe "up yours" is the sensible response here. | |
I stick to my statement, people should be held accountable if what they say is damning to them. Regardless if it was out loud or in a blog. | |
Not really... this is kind of the opposite. The idea of the court order is to bring any and all all hidden information into the public domain for perusal by both sides of a case. They're legally obligated to share the information with each other. It's the same thing they do to get corrupt business' account books, and other information that the powerful would rather was kept hidden. I know in the wake of SOPA and ACTA it's tempting to see government plots everywhere, but this is a simple information grab, and nothing more, and the way you legally get that information is through subpoenas and issued warrants. Yeah it's weird that they're going after his Twitter account, but they're probably looking for some hard evidence to make the charges stick on him... his responses make him sound a bit weasely, and he's probably doing a good job of defending his case. So it could be a government conspiracy to prevent perceived revolutionary action (from a country with an obesity epidemic and more cars per head than anywhere else in the world), or just the action of a stubborn prosecution lawyer. | |
What i found impressive is that the demonstrations remained peaceful without there being a leadership. Many peaceful movements have only really been so as a result of strong leadership, something clearly not present with occupy. While i feel they are trying to achieve too much and have descended into simple capitalism hating they have managed to gain press on things such as ridiculous inequality and the fact that money in politics destroys democracy. But yeah i can see where your coming from. One thing, the bleating nature of humanity, what did oyu mean by that | |
Good, I hope they throw the book at him and all the other Occupiers who felt it more necessary wreak havoc than actually address the problems which led people to protest. There is a MASSIVE difference between assembling peaceably to protest and trespassing and causing havoc. Anyone who can't tell the difference between that is part of the problem. | |
What?
I know. I'm confused too. | |
The law doesn't work that way though. One is not allowed to use one investigation to find evidence of an unknown crime intentionally. They have pushed the limits of the investigation here in an attempt not find evidence of the crime (being so minor they should already have enough if they can do it), but to find evidence of something else not covered by the initial investigation. That is why search warrants always have very clear aims and targets (only allowed to check living room not bed rooms, or search physical property but not digital). A warrant gives you ablity to search for evidence to support a stated investigation only. Another way to look at it is: if an officer breaks into someones house and finds them torturing someone, they can stop them but they cannot use that testimony in court against the person, because it was obtained without reason and illegally. I do find it troubling that they even allowed it in court considering the basic information given. The attempt to keep it secret as well isn't making me want to support the state on this either. | |
Oh, I was using sheep as a metaphor for how humans flock together. That's all really. Some interesting points you made there though. Food for thought. | |
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I think western governments are really quite scared of the internet at the moment. The Arab Spring, London riots and Occupy protests have made them realise that they can't control public opinion anymore because we can all talk to each other in real time.
Case in point