Twitter must comply with a formerly secretive subpoena and hand user account information over to the Boston Police Department as part of a criminal investigation, according to a Massachusetts superior court judge’s ruling in a closed hearing on Thursday, the Boston Globe’s Metrodesk reported.
The ruling from the Suffolk Superior Court judge was a blow to one of the Twitter users named in the subpoena, @p0isAn0N, aka Guido Fawkes, and his lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union in Massachusetts, who filed a motion to overturn the subpoena originally served by the Suffolk District Attorney on December 14.
In the subpoena, the Suffolk DA requests that Twitter hand over all of @p0isAn0N’s account information and the account information of other users no later than December 28 as part of an unspecified criminal investigation by the Boston Police Department. Specifically, the subpoena requests “all available subscriber information, for the account or accounts associated with the following information, including IP address logs for account creation and for the period December 8, 2011 to December 13, 2011: Guido Fawkes, @p0isAn0N, @OccupyBoston, #BostonPD, #d0xcak3.”
Twitter originally refused to hand over the information, according to statements from @p0isAn0N to TPM, but now it appears as though the microblog will have to comply.
That’s because the Suffolk Superior Court judge reportedly did not agree with the ACLU’s rationale that the subpoena was invalid due to First Amendment protections afforded by federal statutes governing administrative subpoenas. But the ACLU could say little about the actual developments in the case as the judge also ruled to keep the hearing’s outcome and contents closed to the public.
“We are disappointed and concerned that a Suffolk Superior Court judge today held a secret hearing over the objections of lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, and then impounded all documents and motions filed in the case,” the ACLU of Massachusetts said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
Still, attorney Peter Krupp, acting on behalf of the ACLU in its defense of @p0isAn0N’s information, was able to tell TPM that no additional hearings had been scheduled and that the ACLU would decide how to proceed, if it all, within the next 10 days.
“We have to discuss and decide what to do,” Krupp said in a phone interview.
The subpoena, which the Suffolk DA requested remain hidden, was publicly tweeted and re-tweeted by several users, including @p0isAn0N, on December 23.
The case gained international media attention after Twitter sent emails to @p0isAn0N and other users notifying them that their information was being sought by the Suffolk District Attorney, despite the fact that the subpoena contained an explicit request not to alert users about the request and the related investigation.
As Twitter spokesperson Matt Graves told Read Write Web in defense of Twitter’s action to alert users: “We can’t comment on any specific order or request…However, to help users protect their rights, it is our policy to notify our users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so.”
Indeed, Twitter’s own guidelines for law enforcement state that: “Twitter’s policy is to notify users of requests for their information prior to disclosure unless we are prohibited from doing so by statute or court order.”
In addition to the subpoena, @p0isAn0N tweeted several taunting statements to the Boston-based authorities, including: “@Boston-Police why are you trying to subpoena my account? For free speech? #umad?” And: “Haha. Boston PD submitted to Twitter for my information. Lololol? For what? Posting info pulled from public domains? #comeatmebro.”
The content of the subpoena posted online would seem to indicate that the Boston Police Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Occupy Boston, the camp-in protests that occurred in the city’s Financial District beginning September 30 until December 10, when demonstrators were forcibly evicted by police and, in some instances, arrested.
Specifically, the investigation is reportedly focused on the October 21 hacking of websites of the Boston Police Patrolmens’ Association by hackers who self-identified with Anonymous, who said they were conducting the hacks in retaliation for the “unprovoked mass arrests” of some 141 Occupy Boston protesters on October 11. The hackers obtained and posted identifying information about Boston police officers online, and links of the information were tweeted by the @p0isAn0N and @OccupyBoston accounts.
The Suffolk District Attorney’s office declined to elaborate on the substance of the investigation, with press secretary Jake Wark telling TPM in a telephone interview that the DA’s office could not comment on ongoing investigations.
And yet, Wark also said that it would be “erroneous to link this [case] with Occupy Boston,” and that although “documents purporting to be subpoenas have been posted,” online, the DA’s office was “not in a position to elaborate whether or not they were authentic.”
The case marks the latest conflict involving Twitter, users and law enforcement requests for information. In November, a District Court in Virginia ordered Twitter to hand over user information requested by the Justice Department in its criminal investigation into the “Cablegate” scandal in late 2010, in which Wikileaks published hundreds of thousands of leaked, formerly classified U.S. diplomatic cables.
But the @p0isAn0N case may mark an even more important development in how social networks deal with law enforcement requests for information because it marks one of the first (and arguably most prominent occasions) in which: 1.) a user was notified of the request for information 2.) the user chose to challenge the request for information and 3.) the request for information came from an administrative subpoena, a routine filing, one of thousands of its kind that have been issued lately by law enforcement bodies in an attempt to secretly obtain Web user information.
“It’s very unusual that someone comes in and contests an administrative hearing,” Krupp, who represented the ACLU in Thursday’s hearing, told TPM. “These are becoming pervasive: Hundreds, perhaps thousands are going out every year requesting Internet-related information…But there’s no authorization for them to remain secret, to not disclose them to the subscriber.”
However, Krupp praised Twitter for its policy of notifying users for requests for law enforcement information, stating “Most [social networking] services don’t notify their subscribers and the services themselves don’t go in an challenge them. They have no interest in it…because they are granted immunity under the state statute if they comply.”
TPM has reached out to Twitter for more information on the case and will update when we receive a response.
Correction: This story originally incorrectly misspelled Peter Krupp’s last name. We’ve since corrected the error in copy and regret it.
Carl Franzen
Carl Franzen is TPM Idea Lab's tech reporter. He used to work for The Daily, AOL and The Atlantic Wire (though not simultaneously, thankfully). He's never met a button that didn't need to be pressed. He can be reached at carl@talkingpointsmemo.com.
I smell a rat.
Why would anyone subpoena a hashtag? The only reason is to compile a list of activists who would otherwise wish to remain anonymous.
This not investigating a crime - this is creating a list of undesireables to be singled out for a specific reason.
mikeybratz My though is, if they're going to subpoena the hashtags, everyone should use them so much that the process gets bogged down - if they want to monitor our free speech, lets SPEAK.
@OccupyBoston? Srsly? Not the right twitter account for Occupy Boston.....
right on twitter for playing cards up with its subscribers against secret courts!
What is the subpoena supposedly for? The information d0xed was merely an accumulation of information already publically available on the internet. There was no "hack" involved - just the use of search engines and other very legal information gathering techniques.
What crimes were committed?
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol Ball prepare to get d0xed. You're next. When you fail to adhere to the laws that are written and bend to political pressures levied by corrupt politicians and LEAs you line yourself up for the public scrutiny you properly deserve.
This is whole point of d0xing. What we have today is a widespread, egregious corruption and flaunting of the rule of law by pols and LEAs - who think that they can selectively pick and choose what laws they will and will not enforce - while using police authority to quell the dissent and outrage felt by the public at large when they see things like fraudulent banksters walk free.
Furthermore,
Many of us feel our only defense against this new emerging brand of contemporary fascism is to name names and reveal as much as we can about corrupt leadership. In effect, this is one the only few ways we can fight back.
Everything done is done through LEGAL means. This subpoena is a farce and it is a shame that this judge didn't stand up for the rule of law.
This is akin to issuing a subpoena for the private information of an anonymous blogger who says "I don't like ABC individual for whatever reason - they live here - this is their phone number - this is who their family is - their email is XYZ" and whatever else that is PUBLICLY available about the person specified.
This is nothing more than a retaliation against individuals trying to make a stand against corruption - and should serve as a clear warning to Internet users everywhere. Be careful what you say about who on the Internet - you might face subpoena.
Freedom of speech is essentially dead in America.
mikeybratz Do you know more about this case than is related in this story?
NCSteve 3.0
Go look at the d0x themselves. Anyone who has a certain degree of Internet savvy can compile information in this manner. Every county posts property tax and most legal instruments online. Also, many people leave their participation in social networks - like Linkedin for example - free and available. After that it's a matter of due search engine diligence, Intellius and other LEGAL online resources.
If you're handy with a computer then it's not all that difficult.
I DO HAVE A CERTAIN SHALL WE SAY INSIGHT TO THE PROCESS
Am I Guido Fawkes? No I am not.
People need to realize that the internet has not, is not and will never be secure and private. If this is what they can get away with legally, imagine the shit they're doing without getting legal coverage.
tHIS IS AN CRIMINAL abuse of FREEDOM by the Occupy Boston movement who probably ALSO DEPLETED the Boston PD's precious capcaiscin resources.
An amazing waste of tax payer money. Can anyone sue based on the fact this money is being wasted?
yyz84 No. No standing.
And, in any case, I'm having trouble understanding how anyone can draw conclusions about the propriety, or impropriety, of the subpoena based on the information provided in the story. All we know is that the D.A. subpoenaed information from someone's twitter account for use in a criminal investigation related to hacking. That investigation may, or may not, be bogus and the person involved may, or may not, be involved in the crime but we don't know. Certainly not from this story.
D.A.'s investigate crimes. In the course of doing so, they subpoena records that they think might be related to them. Everyone gets his day in court to test the propriety of the subpoena, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are satisfied and the world keeps turning without any descent into fascism. I'm not seeing how Twitter account info is entitled to protection from discovery by D.A.'s that, say, banking and credit card, are not.
NCSteve 3.0yyz84
The problem with this whole situation is that no crime has been committed. The claim is hacking, but nothing was hacked.
NCSteve 3.0yyz84 I can't speak for anyone else, but the most disturbing thing to me is that this is all being done in secret. Anytime we are dealing with first amendment issues, allowing secret court proceedings is a huge red flag.
NCSteve 3.0yyz84 Steve, you must be an atty who suffers from the delusion that our Constitutional rights still exist. Sorry, bro. That ain't so. :-(
Goodbye,Twitter.
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