Twitter told to hand over WikiLeak account info to US authorities

A US federal judge has ruled that Twitter must allow the Department of Justice access to the social networking accounts of WikiLeaks members, and also hand over any associated information such as known email addresses.

In a 20-page filing, US magistrate Theresa Buchanan deemed that the requirement for Twitter to release information as part of an ongoing criminal investigation was reasonable.

"The Court finds no cognizable First Amendment violation here. Petitioners, who have already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available, fail to explain how the Twitter Order has a chilling effect.

"The Twitter Order does not seek to control or direct the content of petitioners' speech or association. Rather, it is a routine compelled disclosure of non-content information which petitioners voluntarily provided to Twitter pursuant to Twitter's Privacy Policy."

Buchanan added that the Order does not demand the contents of any communication, and therefore constitutes only a request for records.

The US government originally subpoenaed Twitter in January, requesting personal details and tweets from key players involved with the WikiLeaks saga, including founder Julian Assange and Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir.

Requested information included all tweets since 1 November 2009, together with credit card details, connection records and IP addresses.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and they plan to appeal the decision on her behalf.

"This ruling gives the government the ability to secretly amass private information related to individuals' internet communications," said Aden Fine, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Except in extraordinary circumstances, the government should not be able to obtain this information in secret. That's not how our system works."

Jónsdóttir also acknowledged the ruling on Twitter saying, "Time to apply pressure on social media to move their servers out of the USA if this ruling holds, your info is not save [sic]."