Twitter once again finds itself at the center of a conflict over the right to anonymity on the Web, this time in a case involving a sympathizer with the Boston offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The Boston Globe reports that in a court hearing on Thursday in Boston, a lawyer working on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts will attempt to have a subpoena issued to Twitter quashed on First Amendment grounds. The police in Boston and the Suffolk County district attorney issued the subpoena in an effort to get information about the Twitter account @P0isAn0N and other activity on the social network related to the Occupy Boston protests. The owner of the @P0isAn0N account had also linked to personal information about Boston police officers that had been stolen in a hacking attack.
Twitter has been a strong defender of its users? rights to protect their anonymity, a stance that puts it in conflict with others who say the Web would be a better place if anonymity was discouraged or disallowed. Last month the company lost a fight to withhold information about three users who were supporters of WikiLeaks.
ReadWriteWeb reported on Tuesday that in the Boston case, Twitter apparently ignored the authorities? request that it keep the existence of the subpoena a secret. A link to a copy of the subpoena was posted by @P0isAn0N, which taunted the Boston police about it. A Twitter spokesman said it was company policy ?to notify our users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so.?
The authorities in Boston face a challenge on another level. As BoingBoing pointed out, the subpoena appears to have been drawn up by someone who is unclear on the difference between a Twitter account and a hashtag.
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/29/daily-report-a-legal-battle-over-a-twitter-users-identity/
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