Information about the government’s WikiLeaks investigation, which has been mainly under the radar, surfaced this week in a federal courtroom in Virginia, where prosecutors argued for the right to force Twitter to provide detailed account information on users who are linked to the probe.
The Washington Post reported that “Tuesday’s arguments went to the heart of a larger debate about WikiLeaks – whether the posting of the documents was free speech or a violation of national security. They also provided a high-profile test of outdated rules about what data the government can seize in the new world of social networking.”
An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing one of the Twitter clients argued that releasing the information would violate the First Amendment right to free speech and the Fourth Amendment protection against unwarranted searches.
The judge, who originally ordered Twitter to provide the information, has taken the case under consideration.
The case once again points to the problem of outdated laws, in this case being used by the prosecution, being applied to today’s information technology.
As the Post article noted, “The number of court orders and subpoenas from authorities demanding that technology companies and telecommunications firms turn over information about their clients is rapidly growing. But the rules protecting personal information are spotty and not up to date with Internet technology. Experts say they were meant to deal with telephone records, not such evolving technology as e-mails and tweets.”
