Judge Orders Twitter To Hand Over Occupy Protestor's Tweets

Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris suffered another legal setback today as a New York judge ruled that Twitter would be forced to release three months of Harris' tweets that prosecutors say relate to Harris's arrest at the occupation of the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1st, 2011. Over 700 protestors were arrested that day, including Harris and his friend Natasha Lennard, then a reporter for the New York Times.

The judge says get a warrant !

According to NBC New York:

Twitter has been ordered to give a New York City judge almost three months' worth of anOccupy Wall Street protester's tweets despite the social networking company's efforts to fight prosecutors' demand for the messages.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. also ruled Monday that prosecutors would need a search warrant -- not just a subpoena -- to get the final day's worth of tweets they seek from Malcolm Harris. That's because of a timeframe set by federal law.

Prosecutors say the messages could show whether Harris was aware of police orders he's charged with disregarding.

Harris

Harris, a self described 'commie' and a senior editor at The New Inquiry has been one of Occupy Wall Street's more flamboyant advocates. Some of Harris's antics are revealed in Steve Bannon's film Occupy Unmasked, including an episode where Harris started a false rumor that Radiohead would appear at Occupy Wall Street in order to increase attendance at the protests. Harris has also said that Glenn Beck was correct to say that the endgame of the Occupy movement was violent revolution.

Reached via Twitter for a statement, a defiant Harris said "I ain't done nuffin and the DA is a punk."

story from Breitbart

Does Harris Really represent "Occupy" ?

Dont put anything on the internet you wouldn't want your Mothe... I mean Police and US justice system to see...

Seeing how occupy was ran no one person was a representative or spokesman. But the judge is right when he said that tweets aren't private so they should have to hand them over to the court.

reply to post by xuenchen

Does Harris Really represent "Occupy" ?

That's the part you want to focus on?

While it may be true that Twitter, Facebook etc... are not private, do we really want precedent set for cases that aren't serious in nature?

reply to post by xuenchen


Here is a recent update to the story:

Twitter hands over Occupy Wall Street tweets

Twitter has handed over about three months' worth of an Occupy Wall Street protester's tweets to a judge in a criminal trial on Friday.

The social networking site had been threatened with steep fines if it did not comply with Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr.'s order this summer to turn over the records in the case of Malcolm Harris.

The Manhattan district attorney's office says Harris' messages could show whether he was aware of the police orders he's charged with disregarding. The case involved a protest at the Brooklyn Bridge last fall.

Twitter had said the case could put it in the position of having to take on legal fights that users could otherwise conduct on their own.

Just another reason not to use social networking sites like Twitter ... as if we didn't already have enough.