A federal judge in the court of the Eastern District of Virginia granted the prosecutor access to some Twitter accounts for the Wikileaks case, including e-mail addresses of Internet users and all related information. It 'happened Friday, when Judge Theresa Buchanan rejected the arguments raised by the American Civil Liberties (ACLU), by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and by some private lawyers representing the owners of the Twitter account.
The argument is simple: "The right to privacy is protected under federal law by the First Amendment, which guarantees, inter alia, freedom of speech and press, and the Fourth Amendment." The latter states that "everyone's right to security of person, property, the press and the acts and proceedings against unreasonable intrusions can not be violated and can not be established by any provision to the contrary, if not on reasonable grounds.
" In practice, defending the city from search, arrest and unreasonable seizure by the state. The Buchanan immediately rejected appeals to two key amendments to the U.S. Constitution by claiming that the First Amendment is not involved, since the activists "have already made publicly available to comment on Twitter and their relation to fact." In addition, users "according to the Fourth Amendment does not have an interest in the privacy of their IP addresses: Federal law does not apply because prosecutors are not asking for the contents of the user community." The government then, as interpreted by the court, would have the right to know their account and related data.
One might ask, of course, if indeed the U.S. government is not interested in reality the content of messages on Twitter, in emails and so on. And because he wants to know the e-mail addresses of users. The 20-page decision of Judge Buchanan to represent a clear victory for the U.S. Justice Department, which saw the order as part of the preliminary hearing before the Grand Jury.
They will examine, in proceedings behind closed doors, the evidence provided by the public prosecutor. If deemed sufficient formally accuse the leading exponents of WikiLeaks, including of course the founder, Julian Assange, of having committed criminal offenses under U.S. law. The defendants would then be put on trial.
Twitter accounts which had to provide data are those of the best-known activists who fought to WikiLeaks. One is Birgitta Jónsdóttir, since 2009 member of the Icelandic Parliament and parliamentary committees, for NATO, Foreign Affairs, environment, information technology standards of the European Parliament and the Truth Commission and a former writer, artist, designer and Web developer .
Another user is Jacob Appelbaum, an independent computer security researcher who currently works for the University of Washington, a permanent member of the Tor project - a system which aims to ensure online anonymity - and the official representative of the Hope Conference of WikiLeaks 2010, the "conference of hackers on planet earth." The other Twitter account has been violated Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp, one of the founders of the Internet service provider XS4ALL.
The order also requested records relating to Assange and Bradley E. Manning, born in 1987, the U.S. soldier arrested in Iraq in May 2010 on charges of passing confidential information to WikiLeaks. None of them objected to the decision of the judge, the lawyers said the prosecutor office, although Twitter since January they had been warned that he had been officially asked to provide information on their account.
But until last month Twitter has not disclosed anything that was not already public and has taken action in favor of privacy to not deliver the data of employees of Wikileaks. The WikiLeaks site has not exercised his right to object. Jónsdóttir, Appelbaum, Gonggrijp, Manning and Assange have asked for and received documents relating to the legal case being made public.
Partially granted a request by Buchanan, but found that some documents relating to the grand jury remain secret because they contain "sensitive and confidential data such as the identity of targets and witnesses in this criminal investigation." It is likely that the best defense for Assange and his team, and for the future of WikiLeaks, whether the case is an internationally renowned choral and raise protests from those who believe in the cause of freedom of the Net and the right to anonymity.
It also appears likely, having received a request to make the material public, the message content Jónsdóttir, Appelbaum, Gonggrijp, Manning Assange and are liable to endanger state security or pose a serious offense. Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that his organization is ready to do battle with another appeal before District Judge then, if necessary - and will probably be necessary, he added - at a Court of Appeal.
The representative office of the prosecutor instead. not have a personal statement. The Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, an international organization working for mutual dialogue between the parliaments, for peace and cooperation among the nations and to establish representative democracy everywhere, it is in favor of Jónsdóttir.
The order of Judge Buchanan is not the traditional subpoena, that the summons. It is rather the order in 2703 (d), namely the "Required disclosure of customer communications or records", which allows the police or the courts to obtain private data from an Internet service provider or a web site "are relevant and provide material for criminal investigation.
" It also includes e-mails and documents relating to accounts. This is a point that violates the privacy rights of citizens because the ordinance in 2703 (d) is very wide, which allows to request any information on the contacts associated with this account. In practice, allows Web access to information from relatives, friends and contacts simple, private or business, users, and logs of connections during the sessions (for chat) and the registration in case of messages, and the recording of any kind of activity of another user and from that account.
Following the decision of the court Buchaan Jónsdóttir said in a Twitter message that "it is time to put pressure on social media to move their servers outside the U.S.. If that order remains in force, your information is not safe. " 
The argument is simple: "The right to privacy is protected under federal law by the First Amendment, which guarantees, inter alia, freedom of speech and press, and the Fourth Amendment." The latter states that "everyone's right to security of person, property, the press and the acts and proceedings against unreasonable intrusions can not be violated and can not be established by any provision to the contrary, if not on reasonable grounds.
" In practice, defending the city from search, arrest and unreasonable seizure by the state. The Buchanan immediately rejected appeals to two key amendments to the U.S. Constitution by claiming that the First Amendment is not involved, since the activists "have already made publicly available to comment on Twitter and their relation to fact." In addition, users "according to the Fourth Amendment does not have an interest in the privacy of their IP addresses: Federal law does not apply because prosecutors are not asking for the contents of the user community." The government then, as interpreted by the court, would have the right to know their account and related data.
One might ask, of course, if indeed the U.S. government is not interested in reality the content of messages on Twitter, in emails and so on. And because he wants to know the e-mail addresses of users. The 20-page decision of Judge Buchanan to represent a clear victory for the U.S. Justice Department, which saw the order as part of the preliminary hearing before the Grand Jury.
They will examine, in proceedings behind closed doors, the evidence provided by the public prosecutor. If deemed sufficient formally accuse the leading exponents of WikiLeaks, including of course the founder, Julian Assange, of having committed criminal offenses under U.S. law. The defendants would then be put on trial.
Twitter accounts which had to provide data are those of the best-known activists who fought to WikiLeaks. One is Birgitta Jónsdóttir, since 2009 member of the Icelandic Parliament and parliamentary committees, for NATO, Foreign Affairs, environment, information technology standards of the European Parliament and the Truth Commission and a former writer, artist, designer and Web developer .
Another user is Jacob Appelbaum, an independent computer security researcher who currently works for the University of Washington, a permanent member of the Tor project - a system which aims to ensure online anonymity - and the official representative of the Hope Conference of WikiLeaks 2010, the "conference of hackers on planet earth." The other Twitter account has been violated Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp, one of the founders of the Internet service provider XS4ALL.
The order also requested records relating to Assange and Bradley E. Manning, born in 1987, the U.S. soldier arrested in Iraq in May 2010 on charges of passing confidential information to WikiLeaks. None of them objected to the decision of the judge, the lawyers said the prosecutor office, although Twitter since January they had been warned that he had been officially asked to provide information on their account.
But until last month Twitter has not disclosed anything that was not already public and has taken action in favor of privacy to not deliver the data of employees of Wikileaks. The WikiLeaks site has not exercised his right to object. Jónsdóttir, Appelbaum, Gonggrijp, Manning and Assange have asked for and received documents relating to the legal case being made public.
Partially granted a request by Buchanan, but found that some documents relating to the grand jury remain secret because they contain "sensitive and confidential data such as the identity of targets and witnesses in this criminal investigation." It is likely that the best defense for Assange and his team, and for the future of WikiLeaks, whether the case is an internationally renowned choral and raise protests from those who believe in the cause of freedom of the Net and the right to anonymity.
It also appears likely, having received a request to make the material public, the message content Jónsdóttir, Appelbaum, Gonggrijp, Manning Assange and are liable to endanger state security or pose a serious offense. Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that his organization is ready to do battle with another appeal before District Judge then, if necessary - and will probably be necessary, he added - at a Court of Appeal.
The representative office of the prosecutor instead. not have a personal statement. The Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva, an international organization working for mutual dialogue between the parliaments, for peace and cooperation among the nations and to establish representative democracy everywhere, it is in favor of Jónsdóttir.
The order of Judge Buchanan is not the traditional subpoena, that the summons. It is rather the order in 2703 (d), namely the "Required disclosure of customer communications or records", which allows the police or the courts to obtain private data from an Internet service provider or a web site "are relevant and provide material for criminal investigation.
" It also includes e-mails and documents relating to accounts. This is a point that violates the privacy rights of citizens because the ordinance in 2703 (d) is very wide, which allows to request any information on the contacts associated with this account. In practice, allows Web access to information from relatives, friends and contacts simple, private or business, users, and logs of connections during the sessions (for chat) and the registration in case of messages, and the recording of any kind of activity of another user and from that account.
Following the decision of the court Buchaan Jónsdóttir said in a Twitter message that "it is time to put pressure on social media to move their servers outside the U.S.. If that order remains in force, your information is not safe. "
- Twitter must give user info in Wikileaks probe (11/03/2011)
- US Judge Orders Twitter To Give Up WikiLeaks Data (12/03/2011)
- Twitter must give user info in Wikileaks probe (11/03/2011)
- U.S. Government Wins Access to Twitter Accounts of WikiLeaks Supporters (12/03/2011)
- Twitters-fear - Gov't wins WikiLeaks legal skirmish (11/03/2011)
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