
Twitter hands over messages at heart of Occupy case - anons2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19597437
======
brown9-2
It seems to me that Twitter has upheld the user's privacy as best they could.
There is only so far they can go in fighting a court order.

Disregard for privacy would have the company turning the data in question over
to authorities whenever they asked, without so much as a subpoena or court
order. That doesn't sound like what has happened here.

There is a legal process and like it or not, companies have to abide by it.

~~~
mtgx
From what I've seen many think the judge is in the wrong to not even allow
them to appeal. Why wouldn't the judge allow them to appeal? Makes no sense.

[http://gigaom.com/2012/09/12/the-facebook-addicted-judge-
and...](http://gigaom.com/2012/09/12/the-facebook-addicted-judge-and-the-
little-blue-bird/)

~~~
tptacek
Huh? How does a judge "not allow someone to appeal"?

Twitter and the NYCLU are alleging that by holding Twitter in contempt for not
honoring a court order, the judge is effectively infringing on their right to
appeal. That's a sane argument, but it isn't the same thing as "not allowing
them to appeal". Moreover, if there was a clear and urgent grounds for appeal,
the appeals court could expedite the challenge. They haven't.

------
jph
Twitter is consistently working for legal user privacy, even in the face of
this U.S. setback. (I'm not affiliated with Twitter, I just follow them).

Read about the Digital Due Process alliance here, including Twitter:
<http://digitaldueprocess.org/>

"An alliance of tech companies including Twitter, Google, Amazon.com, Apple,
AT&T, Facebook along with nonprofit groups called the Digital Due Process
Coalition has been pressing the U.S. Congress to update federal privacy law to
reflect today's cloud computing era, but has enjoyed only limited success so
far. "

~~~
sneak
These huge companies (I'm looking at you, Google) can choose to operate (or
not) under the draconian jurisdiction of the USA, where the PATRIOT Act's NSLs
have completely evaporated due process at the federal level.

It's been in place for over a decade now. It's not going anywhere. Yet these
companies are still installing new servers within the borders.

At which point does the blame shift from the lawmakers to the complicit? Is
the ten years between October 2001 (PATRIOT) and October 2011 sufficient? If
not, then what is?

~~~
brown9-2
How do you expect them to do business in the US or have employees in the US
while avoiding the PATRIOT Act? What is Google or Twitter realistically to do
here - shut down business in the largest market and highest-skilled workforce
in the world?

edit: Also, it seems to me like your argument could be extended from the
companies that provide services in such a jurisdiction to the people that _use
such a service in such a jurisdiction_. At what point do we blame Twitter
users for an (unrealistic) expectation that their data will never be turned
over to authorities?

~~~
sneak
I emigrated from the US leaving friends and family behind four years ago for
just this reason.

~~~
tokenadult
_I emigrated from the US leaving friends and family behind_

To which place? What are the laws there about subpoenas of the records of
online interaction?

------
driverdan
Here's a PDF of the June ruling which discusses the legal issues:
[http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/owsharristwitterdec63012.pd...](http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/owsharristwitterdec63012.pdf)

It's a fairly easy read and is interesting. There are a number of issues at
stake, primarily who has standing to quash the subpoena and should a warrant
be required.

Looking at this solely as a geek and not taking into account the legal issues,
any information that has been publicly available on the net at any point
should be considered permanently public. If you don't want something to be
public don't post it publicly.

~~~
brown9-2
The ruling is very interesting, thanks for posting.

It seems the main issue is whether the defendant has the right to sue to
intervene when Twitter is subpoenaed to turn his information over to third
party (the People). That is a bit different than the way most of the media
coverage is framing the issue.

------
OzzyB
_> If the messages were not handed over on 14 September, Twitter would have
been in contempt of court and faced substantial fines. _

So pay the fines, take a stand.

You have $1billion dollars right? Put it to some good use.

~~~
luu
That's a game that twitter can't win. The fines will keep escalating until
twitter folds. What does it cost the judge to keep doubling the fine until it
eats up $1B? Maybe five cents of ink each time. What does it cost twitter?
$1B.

~~~
OzzyB
They could win in the court of public opinion if they yell loud enough. This
is politics nothing else.

Could you imagine the headlines/press if the judge levies a fine of even
$100mil+?

Here are some for fun:

 _"Twitter forced to consider termination of 300 employees after partisan
Judge <name> levies $300million fine because of Twitter's refusal to destroy
the public's trust."_

 _"Twitter CEO <name> asks the Obama Administration why, in light of severe
employment and a depressed economy, it's willing to force a shinning example
of American innovation and job growth into bankruptcy. The Romney camp
responds by accusing President Obama of flip-flopping on his campaign stance
of being 'for a free and open internet'"_

... and so on and so forth.

~~~
luu
Can you point to an example where the legal system was changed so easily
through protests, and say why that applies here?

It took fifty years of a well executed and persistent legal strategy to go
from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown v. Board of Education. Plessy lost the test
case and had to pay the fine. The equivalent here is to pay $1B in fines.

I'm not saying that fear of terrorism or other boogeymen is as entrenched as
racism was in 1896, but if it was that easy to change, we wouldn't have the
TSA and all this other nonsense. We wouldn't be instituting policies that
erode privacy, the same way the UK has been over the past couple of decades. I
remember when I was a kid, and people talked about the stuff happening in the
UK as if it was on the moon. Now that's normal. I would love it if that
changed, if someone would put in the sort of effort the NAACP did from 1909 to
1954. But, I don't expect twitter to risk bankruptcy doing it.

Even if the founders are completely selfless and willing to throw away their
fortunes, they'd probably feel that they have a responsibility to their
employees to not run the company into the ground to prove a political point. I
wouldn't be surprised if it's not even possible to do it, given twitter's
legal obligations. The VCs might be able to step in and get management removed
if they start burning money on political causes. And, if they're going to do
that, why shouldn't they just donate it to starving children in Africa?
Because it's not their money, not in that sense. It's one thing for Bill Gates
to take the money he's made off of MS stock and spend it on causes he
supports. It's an entirely different thing for the CEO of a company to use
company funds to support the same causes.

I should point out that, at least the NAACP managed to accomplish something,
which doesn't always happen. I have radical leftist friends. They go to
protests, get beaten up by the police despite protesting peacefully, and are
often charged with crimes, so that it will look like they're just trying to
get out of something if they complain about the police. It's been happening
for decades, and nothing has changed. It's possible to make a stand, and for
no one to care.

The alternate headline, call it the fox news headline, if you like, goes
something like this

 _Twitter CEO refuses to pay fine yet again, company is held in contempt
again. Twitter's complete disregard for the legal system comes on the heels of
. . ._

------
cypherpunks01
Here's an account of the incident, written by defendant Malcolm Harris in
October 2011: <http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/a-bridge-to-somewhere/>

------
motoford
Twitter wants this both ways, they say it's the users' data when requested to
turn it over, but they say it's their data when a user wants to use a 3rd
party client to access it.

------
guelo
The state's hunger for information about all of us is really something that
ought to give us pause as we continue to move more of our lives online. Things
that were impossible for the state to know in the past, such as our location
and our thoughts at specific points in time, are now claimed to be
indispensable to them.

------
Autious
It sounds like the user had removed the tweets from his account to hide them
from public viewing. (I might be wrong here, not the point)

But, is there some law or other reason that Twitter would continue to store
tweets that have been removed by its users?

~~~
elarkin
There very well may be a legal requirement. There is with email. If I
understand right, a company must retain all communication for something crazy
like 3 years.

------
accarrino
this is unfortunate, especially since Ben Lee, Twitter's legal counsel, took a
stand supporting users earlier this week.
[http://blogs.lawyers.com/2012/09/twitter-users-rights-for-
no...](http://blogs.lawyers.com/2012/09/twitter-users-rights-for-now/)

~~~
jph
Twitter is still supporting the users; Twitter waited until the last possible
day to turn in the records and in addition has protected the tweets from being
used until after an appeal process.

~~~
danboarder
No; Twitter originally argued that privacy laws were being violated by this
request. They should have stuck to this position and contested any contempt
fines. Someone has to be willing to get involved and challenge this if privacy
law is indeed being violated by the district attorney or other parties in
these cases.

~~~
brown9-2
It seems to me that the appeal is already a form of contest.

