by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
WikiLeaks' Twitter account details have been subpoenaed by US officials, the spokespeople for the website announced on Saturday, January 8, 2011. WikiLeaks added that they suspect that other American Internet companies were also being requested to hand over information about its activities.
WikiLeaks said, in an e-mail statement, that US investigators had gone to the San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. to demand the private messages, contact information and other personal details of founder Julian Assange and others linked to WikiLeaks – including the PFC Bradley Manning, the US Army intelligence analyst suspected of handing classified information to the site and a high-profile Icelandic parliamentarian.
WikiLeaks tweeted about the court order, saying it amounted to harassment and stated further that “If the Iranian govt asked for DMs of Iranian activists, State Dept would be all over this violation of 'Internet freedom'”.
And we can be very sure that that would be exactly what the US authorities would be saying about such actions would they happen in Iran or in other countries. But when it is they themselves, in the same way as with torture, etc., then that seems to be fine. Well, in fact, it is not.
A copy of the court order, dated Dec. 14 and posted to Salon.com, said that the information sought was "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" and ordered Twitter not to disclose its existence to Assange or any of the others targeted.
The order was unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter," WikiLeaks said in its statement. Twitter has declined comment on the claim, saying only that its policy is to notify its users, where possible, of government requests for information.
Others named in the order include, the US Army private suspected of being the source of some of WikiLeaks' material, as well as Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic lawmaker and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator known for her role in pioneering Iceland's media initiative – which aims to make the North Atlantic nation a haven for free speech.
The US is also seeking details about Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have previously worked with WikiLeaks.
The US State Department has said that the latest leak by WikiLeaks, the disclosure of thousands of confidential diplomatic cables,has harmed US diplomacy and could put human rights activists and others at risk.
WikiLeaks denies that charge, saying that Washington is acting out of embarrassment over the revelations contained in the cables.
Let's put it that way: If you don't want to find out how nasty you are then do no0t have that stuff stored electronically on computers but in other ways.
There are many WikiLeaks supporters listed in the US Twitter subpoena and WikeLeaks have issued a WARNING that all 637,000 @wikileaks followers are a target of US government subpoena against Twitter, under section 2.B of that legal document.
According to Wikileaks on Twitter it is too late to unfollow them now as the legal trick used is to demand the lists, dates and IPs of all who received their twitter messages.
All I can say is “holy shit!”, some people really have gotten their underwear in knots.
Again: If you do not want your nastiness to turn round and bite you in the butt then don't transmit them in that manner and especially don't store them on computer systems that can be hacked. Burn them to CD or whatever and store them in filing cabinets.
© 2011
