“Petitioners knew or should have known that their I.P. information was subject to examination by Twitter, so they had a lessened expectation of privacy in that information, particularly in light of their apparent consent to the Twitter terms of service and privacy policy,” wrote Judge O’Grady of the United States District Court in Alexandria, Va.

While most media outlets chose to look at the story from the standpoint of what it might mean for online privacy rights, David Gewirtz at ZDNet saw it as sending a message to foreign agents potentially working against American interests.

“A member of a foreign government stole information from our government and then used a social network, built, owned, and operated in our country to communicate with her collaborators,” Gewirtz wrote about one of three Twitter users in question, Birgitta Jonsdottir, a current Icelandic member of parliament. “This is not a privacy issue at all. It’s a national security issue and our courts were 100% correct in their determination.”