Monday, March 14, 2011

Wikileaks: Twitter must give information to authorities

A U.S. federal judge decided Friday, March 11, that Twitter would provide information about people in contact with Wikileaks, as he had ordered the Obama administration. Theresa Carroll Buchanan, Virginia federal judge has refused to cancel the order for the administration, she herself had confirmed in December that Twitter furnish information on the accounts of an Icelandic parliamentary, Birgitta Jonsdottir, an American computer scientist, Jacob Appelbaum, and Rop Gonggrijp, a Dutch collaborator Wikileaks.

She saw no basis for their fear that "the government draws up a" Contact Card "which violates freedom of expression" guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. "The court finds no violation of the First Amendment," said Ms. Buchanan. "The injunction on Twitter is not intended to monitor or control the content of messages or the names of those who follow them," she insisted.

"The court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that IP addresses and residence would be" very revealing "inside their home," the judge wrote. The judge also swept the complaint of Ms. Jonsdottir, who protested his membership in the Icelandic Parliament. "The injunction on Twitter is not looking for information on parliamentary activities in Iceland or the activities of Ms.

Jonsdottir," she said. "When Ms. Jonsdottir signed the confidentiality rules of Twitter, it has accepted the risk that the U.S. administration to have access to this information," he felt the judge. TENSIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND ICELAND "This is not our last word," he told Agence France-Presse Aden Fine, counsel for the American Civil Liberties defended the civil plaintiffs , citing its intention to apply to another judge, the same court but with authority over Ms.

Buchanan. "This ruling gives the government the ability to obtain personal information about Internet communications, in secret," lamented Mr. Fine. "This is not how our judicial system works," he added. Wikileaks has published on the Internet thousands of confidential documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as notes from American diplomats stationed around Tech News Buzz.

The record of an injunction on Twitter has created a stir among the United States and Iceland, the U.S. ambassador to Reykjavik in January having been summoned to the Foreign Ministry of Iceland.

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