Skip to main content

Judge says U.S. government can have Wikileaks Twitter info

Image used with permission by copyright holder

U.S. federal district judge Theresa Buchanan has ruled the U.S. government can have access to Twitter account information of associates of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Buchanan finds that the account-holders do not have any legal standing to challege the government’s order for account information, since the order only seeks information about the accounts, rather than the contents of messages.

The ruling is the latest development in a process that began last December when the U.S. government served Twitter with an order seeking information about accounts belonging to several individuals associated with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Targets of the government’s investigation include Assange himself as well as Bradley Manning, who is suspected of leaking classified U.S. government information to Wikileaks. Other targets include U.S. representative Jacob Appelbaum, Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, and Dutch activist Rop Gonggrijp.

Recommended Videos

Although the government’s order is still sealed—and Judge Buchanan denied a motion to unseal it—the government is seeking full contact information for each of the account holders, IP addresses used to access the accounts, dates and times when the accounts were signed in to Twitter, and information about the amount of data exchanged via the accounts, as well as the IP addresses were communications were sent. Some of these items are not germane to Twitter, suggesting the order is a generic request that could be sent to any ISP or online service.

Wired has posed a copy of Judge Buchanan’s ruling (PDF).

The order was issued under the 1994 Stored Communications Act, which provides law enforcement agencies with access to transaction information and other meta-data about online communications, although not access to the content of the communications themselves. The request is believed to be in support of a grand jury investigation targeting Wikileaks for publishing classified U.S. government material. The order came to light because Twitter notified its users information had been requested about their accounts; there is no requirement that the government inform users it is seeking information about their accounts, and there is no requirement account-holders be suspected of any wrongdoing or criminal activity.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have indicated they intend to appeal the ruling.

Topics
Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
Can U.S. internet infrastructure handle increased demand? Experts weigh in
A man working from home.

As schools and businesses nationwide are urging staff and students to work from home due to the outbreak of coronavirus, experts have said that the U.S. internet infrastructure should be able to handle the increased strain on demand -- mostly. As reported by the Associated Press, experts are predicting that internet access will continue to be available, but some issues are likely to arise. People may have to settle for audio-only conferencing if too many people are trying to use videoconferencing at the same time, for example.

“The core of the network is massively over-provisioned,” Paul Vixie, CEO of Farsight Security and infrastructure expert told AP. As the national internet infrastructure has developed over time to handle bandwidth-demanding services like Netflix and YouTube, it should have no problem handling the increase in demand due to many people staying home.
Senators call for help from ISPs
Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and 17 of his colleagues called on the CEOs of major internet service providers to make accommodations for the spike in remote work caused by the coronavirus outbreak. As well as remote work, there is also an increased strain on internet services due to a rise in remote learning for schoolchildren and students, and remote telehealth services as well.

Read more
If you’re on Google’s One AI Premium plan, you now get NotebookLM Plus for free
NotebookLM providing summary of YouTube videos.

As reported by The Verge, Google is bringing the premium features from NotebookLM Plus to its One AI Premium monthly subscription plan. This includes more customization options and higher usage limits, along with extra security.

If you don't know much about NotebookLM, it's been around since 2023, and the Plus plan launched in December last year. It's described as an AI-powered research assistant and note-taking app, but it's not just trained on generic internet content like standard LLMs.

Read more
Computer engineer has a new idea to recover his $765M of buried Bitcoin
A Bitcoin.

Buried in a garbage dump in Wales, U.K., is a hard drive containing Bitcoin worth a colossal $765 million, according to computer engineer James Howells.

Howells accidentally discarded the smartphone-sized drive in 2013, but his local council has repeatedly refused him permission to enter the landfill site and search for it, citing factors such as environmental concerns and arguments over who is the lawful owner of the device now that it’s part of the dump.

Read more