Twitter Must Hand Over Tweets of OWS Protester
Twitter is ordered to hand over tweets of an Occupy Wall Street protestor, or face a substantial fine.
The New York Post reports that Twitter has been ordered by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Sciarrino Jr. to hand over possibly incriminating tweets posted by an Occupy Wall Street protestor.
According to reports, Twitter, citing privacy concerns and other issues, fought with the District Attorney's office for months in regards to handing over deleted tweets posted by protestor Malcolm Harris. Twitter even filed an appeal against a subpoena to provide them in a criminal case, but the appeals judges ruled that the defense could not delay the criminal case. Thus Judge Sciarrino told the social network that it had until Friday to cooperate, or face a fine for contempt of court.
"They don’t want to go in contempt," said Martin Stolar, Harris' lawyer.
Harris was reportedly charged with disorderly conduct along with around 700 other protestors accused of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011. The tweets in question are no longer available online, but prosecutors claim that those specific tweets reveal that Harris knew that police informed the group that they could not walk on the roadway.
The OWS protestors naturally claim otherwise however, stating that the police intentionally corralled them onto the bridge so that they could be arrested for trespassing. Harris claims that he has done nothing wrong and continues to fight the court, yet many of those that were arrested have taken no-jail pleas, reluctant to battle the court system.
Because the judge can't put the "little blue bird in jail" for contempt of court, he said there would be a substantial fine if the tweets weren't in his hands by Friday. As an incentive to get what he needs, the judge also told Twitter's lawyers that the social website must disclose sensitive financial information so that he could determine the exact amount of the fine if Twitter didn't comply.
The court system generally believes that posts published on Twitter are public domain, therefore users have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Typically Twitter complies with orders for account information and messages, but didn't immediately comply in this particular case because, according to sources close to the matter, the prosecutors immediately approached Twitter with threats of criminal contempt charges.
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"It was a bit of a slap in the face," according to an unnamed source.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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devotiecon ReplyAs an incentive to get what he needs, the judge also told Twitter's lawyers that the social website must disclose sensitive financial information so that he could determine the exact amount of the fine if Twitter didn't comply.
I lol'd. -
blazorthon If twitter was so worried about this issue, then they should have made it impossible to recover the deleted tweets before they were in trouble with the law over this. I'm not justifying either side of this, just saying that it could have more or less solved this.Reply -
cheepstuff ReplyHarris was reportedly charged with disorderly conduct along with around 700 other protestors accused of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2012
... does anybody see a problem here?
Maybe I'm just crazy. -
cheepstuff ReplyHarris was reportedly charged with disorderly conduct along with around 700 other protestors accused of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2012
... does anybody see a problem here?
Maybe I'm just crazy. -
thefizzle656 "Harris was reportedly charged with disorderly conduct along with around 700 other protestors accused of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2012."Reply
More important than anything else in this article is the fact that the OWS protestors (as well as the court) apparently have a time machine. Or maybe this is like The Minority Report and the suspect is being convicted of a crime he has yet to commit. -
thefizzle656 blazorthonIf twitter was so worried about this issue, then they should have made it impossible to recover the deleted tweets before they were in trouble with the law over this. I'm not justifying either side of this, just saying that it could have more or less solved this.Reply
The issue I have is that they even keep deleted tweets. But I guess with Google an other tech companies doing the exact same with with all of our emails, etc there is no real incentive for Twitter to do any different. -
groveborn It's not a simple matter to instantly delete a post. There are millions of such request per day. It has to be queued in order to prevent utter chaos and crashing.Reply -
sun-devil99 ReplyHarris was reportedly charged with disorderly conduct along with around 700 other protestors accused of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2012.
So then does that mean it is not really September 2012 and the Mayan's were wrong? -
blazorthon grovebornIt's not a simple matter to instantly delete a post. There are millions of such request per day. It has to be queued in order to prevent utter chaos and crashing.Reply
That doesn't matter. The posts were already deleted. If Twitter's deletion methods actually deleted the posts rather than hiding them somewhere, then this would probably not be an issue or at least be less of an issue. -
blazorthon sun-devil99So then does that mean it is not really September 2012 and the Mayan's were wrong?Reply
The Mayan's long count calender doesn't have leap days. If you account for this discrepancy, it ended several years ago. Besides, the Mayans never said that the world would end at the end of their calender, that was a load of BS.