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New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

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Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#21

Post by bunderbunder »

citizens wrote: post #11
bunderbunder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you mean to argue is that this data gathering needed to be done under court supervision, well, it was. A subpoena is the type of court supervision process that is applicable in this case. What the subpoena means is that an attorney got a court order compelling a party to provide evidence. Warrants are also issued by the courts, but they do something different: They permit law enforcement officials (not attorn…

I haven't bothered to verify the claim but the article states: "a law called the Stored Communications Act allows authorities to seek data like this without a search warrant"

Did some more looking into it.

Turns out that before the Stored Communications Act, the existing law gave people essentially zero right to privacy with respect to electronic communications that were stored by a third party. The pre-existing law was basically just the 4th amendment, and traditionally you relinquish your 4th amendment protections for any documents that you give away.

What the SCA did was to create some hurdles that had to be jumped over to acquire this data. They're not quite as strong as the requirements one needs to get to obtain a search warrant or anything like that, but they're a heck of a lot stronger than what existed beforehand.

So the SCA did not, in fact, allow authorities to "seek data like this without a search warrant." Much the opposite, really.

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#22

Post by sneak »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #4

Wait, I thought Twitter was going to change the world by allowing open communications channels to circumvent tyranny? Kind of a useless tool in that regard if it documents all your information and the company is willing to hand it all over at a moment's notice. Does Twitter have an official stance on this anywhere?

It's not a matter of whether they're willing or not. They're compelled to by US federal law.

The best part is, thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act, cops don't even need a judge or a warrant to get it anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter

From 2003 to 2006, the FBI averaged about 65,000 NSLs sent - PER YEAR.

Twitter has the username to ip+timestamp mapping, your ISP has the ip+timestamp to name+physical address mapping.

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#24

Post by guelo »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #4

Wait, I thought Twitter was going to change the world by allowing open communications channels to circumvent tyranny? Kind of a useless tool in that regard if it documents all your information and the company is willing to hand it all over at a moment's notice. Does Twitter have an official stance on this anywhere?

They were only referring to officially disliked tyrannies, not ours.

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#25

Post by tsotha »

Steveism wrote: post #15
bunderbunder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you mean to argue is that this data gathering needed to be done under court supervision, well, it was. A subpoena is the type of court supervision process that is applicable in this case. What the subpoena means is that an attorney got a court order compelling a party to provide evidence. Warrants are also issued by the courts, but they do something different: They permit law enforcement officials (not attorn…

As perviously stated, the article touches on data gathering from Twitter in another Wikileaks related case where data was legally seized without a warrant.

Right, and then tries to conflate the two.

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#26

Post by magicalist »

bunderbunder wrote: post #21
citizens wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't bothered to verify the claim but the article states: "a law called the Stored Communications Act allows authorities to seek data like this without a search warrant"

Did some more looking into it. Turns out that before the Stored Communications Act, the existing law gave people essentially zero right to privacy with respect to electronic communications that were stored by a third party. The pre-existing law was basically just the 4th amendment, and traditionally you relinquish your 4th amendment protections for any documents that you give away. What the SCA did was to create some…

Yes, the "third party doctrine." Really stupid stuff, especially in an age where we do almost everything over networks provided by third parties with services provided by other third parties, but our expectation is that the data we are transmitting should be as private as if we were storing documents in our home.

There is hope that some of this will be reversed, much like the supreme court ruled that phone conversations were private even though they were over third party connections, and how the SCA provides protections for things like email and (some) sever logs.

In the meantime, the government will continue to try to stretch what it is allowed under the third party doctrine without significant check.

Ars Technica had some good coverage last week of the Obama administration successfully arguing that law enforcement can request cell tower connections (giving a rough tracking of a phone's location) without a warrant:

The Obama administration laid out its position in a legal brief last month, arguing that customers have "no privacy interest" in [cell-site location records] held by a network provider. Under a legal principle known as the "third-party doctrine," information voluntarily disclosed to a third party ceases to enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. The government contends that this rule applies to cell phone location data collected by a network provider.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/obama-admin-...

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#27

Post by noduerme »

Is there, seriously, fucking nobody in that government with the brains or decency to step back and say, "Wait a minute. This is what Iran does. This is what Syria does. This is what the Libyan government tried to do. We cannot and must not go down the road of persecuting people for their speech or their beliefs."

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#28

Post by lallysingh »

noduerme wrote: post #27

Is there, seriously, fucking nobody in that government with the brains or decency to step back and say, "Wait a minute. This is what Iran does. This is what Syria does. This is what the Libyan government tried to do. We cannot and must not go down the road of persecuting people for their speech or their beliefs."

Nope (at least not elected), and the reason's simple: nobody smart wants to go through that level of BS for their daily job.

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#29

Post by jamesaguilar »

noduerme wrote: post #27

Is there, seriously, fucking nobody in that government with the brains or decency to step back and say, "Wait a minute. This is what Iran does. This is what Syria does. This is what the Libyan government tried to do. We cannot and must not go down the road of persecuting people for their speech or their beliefs."

The charges are not over his speech. He would not have been arrested for writing to the newspaper, yelling in the public square, or any number of other activities that would have gotten one arrested (and perhaps tortured) in those other countries. This is decidedly not what Iran does, or what Syria does.

In this country, you are entitled to speech, but you are not entitled to block other people's use of a major roadway. There's an enormous distinction.

That said, I don't really see why these guys want the Twitter information. The case seems to make itself pretty well ("Officer, did you see the defendant attempting to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge?" "Yes, I did. And here's the footage of the same." "The prosecution rests, your honor.").

Re: New York City Subpoenas Twitter For Occupy Wall Street Protester Data

#30

Post by jlarocco »

Daishiman wrote: post #19
jlarocco wrote: post #7

> U.S. activists who thought Twitter was a secure way to communicate during demonstrations may have another thing coming. People actually think this? I've never been a big fan of the occupy wall street crowd, and when I hear things like this, my opinion of them just keeps falling.

So you're forming an opinion of a group based on what one source claims that group thinks without having neither evidence nor quotes? Sounds brilliant.

The backing evidence would be the tweets, wouldn't it? This seems to be on the same level as those YouTube videos where the guys show themselves driving down the highway at 120mph, and eventually get caught because of it.

My opinion of OWS was formed using information from a variety of sources. This case is adding to an already negative perception. Perhaps this one thing wouldn't be enough to form a negative opinion, but the collection of what I've read about OWS has lead to a negative opinion, and this article just continues to enforce it.

Seriously, who thinks a company in the United States isn't going to comply with a subpoena? It's especially silly because a key issue of the protests is excessive wealth, and Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, is worth over $650 million.

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