The US
Attorney-General has brought an action against Twitter, demanding that
it disclose the names, dates and locations of all persons who have used
its services to receive messages from Wikileaks or Mr Assange.
It is
understood that Twitter will resist the order, so as to protect the
privacy of its customers.
Assange said today "This is an outrageous attack by the Obama
administration on the privacy and free speech rights of Twitter's
customers - many of them American citizens. More shocking, at this time,
is that it amounts to an attack on the right to freedom of association,
a freedom that the people of Tunisia and Egypt, for example, spurred on
by the information released by Wikileaks, have found so valuable".
On December 14, 2010, the US Department of Justice obtained an Order
requiring Twitter turn over records of all communications between
Wikileaks and its followers. This Order was acquired through the use of
the "Patriot Act", which establishes procedures whereby the Government
can acquire information about users of electronic communication networks
without a Search Warrant, without Probable Cause, without
particularizing the records that relate to a proper investigatory
objective—and with without any public scrutiny. The basis for the Order
remains sealed and secret.
Whilst happy that Twitter plans to resist the subpoena, Wikileaks said
it was confirmed that other service providers like Google and Facebook
and Yahoo may also have been served with a production order back in
December, at the same time as Twitter, and may already have provided
information to the government by way of a deal under the secrecy
provisions introduced by the Patriot Act. "We are all asking all service
providers to explain whether they too have been served with a similar
order, and whether, they have caved into it" said Mr Assange.
Tuesday’s case in Virginia, involves the United States government
seeking to obtain vast amounts of private information that would
jeopardize and chill First Amendment rights of association, of
expression, of political assembly, of speech. At its essence it seeks
information that can be converted into a list of individuals, across the
globe, who have followed, communicated with, and received messages from
WikiLeaks – the very sort of government intrusion into basic freedoms
that the Supreme Court ruled was prohibited by the First Amendment.
WikiLeaks will not participate directly in that proceeding because it
believes that the US lacks jurisdiction over expressive activities
beyond its borders, but it strongly supports the associational rights of
its followers and all who work toward a more open society.
Mr Assange will not himself be intervening in the action against Twitter
because as an Australian who has committed no criminal act on US
territory, he claims that the American courts have no jurisdiction over
him. The head of his UK legal team, Geoffrey Robertson QC, has brought
in Alan Dershowitz, the distinguished Harvard Law Professor, as part of
the team to advise on the US Attorney General's actions.
END
Tomorrow (Tuesday morning [Feb. 15, 2011]), a federal magistrates court in Virginia's
national security heartland will be the scene of the first round in the
US government's legal battle against Julian Assange. 
