Twitter Ordered to Disclose Data in WikiLeaks Investigation

Twitter will have to disclose information, including location-revealing IP addresses, on three account holders currently under investigation for their possible involvement with WikiLeaks, a federal judge ruled this week.

The New York Times reports that the Justice Department requested the information earlier this year, but did so without a warrant, a decision that helped turn the case into "a flash point for online privacy and speech." Twitter contacted the three account holders earlier this year to inform them of the demand for their information. None have been charged with a crime.

Judge Liam O’Grady ruled Thursday that the Twitter users had no expectation that their data would remain private, even if the data is not normally publicly disclosed by the service. The judge also refused a petition to unseal portions of the secret government orders sent to Twitter and other service providers.

The three individuals under investigation are Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir and Rop Gonggrijp. In October, the Wall Street Journal reported that Applebaum’s email account information from Google and Sonic.net, inc., a small internet provider, was obtained by the government through a secret court order.  Jonsdottir is a member of Iceland’s Parliament and has, at points, served as a spokesperson for WikiLeaks. Gonggrijp, a Dutch citizen, founded the now defunct Hack-Tic magazine and has spoken out against increasing government access to personal information online. 

As the Times explains, the Justice Department invoked the Stored Communications Act as justification for its request. The law, part of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, weakens the protection of individuals against unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment when applied to online information.

The argument goes, essentially, that Internet users routinely trust their security of information to third parties, and in doing so, they give up a reasonable expectation of privacy.  The Journal notes that the only prerequisite to a secret request under the act is "reasonable grounds" that the records would be "relevant and material" to an investigation.” 

The paper also explains that the law is routinely used to collect information, including "IP information, addresses of people a user has emailed and messages that have been stored at a service provider longer than 180 days." The law doesn't allow for the collection of newer messages without a warrant.

The laws pertaining to the case date back to 1986. Critics have argued that the everyday dependence on technology and third party service providers has changed so much about our relationship to, and expectations from, technology that the laws no longer adequately protect privacy online.