Verdict on Wikileaks investigations

U.S. authorities can sniff data in Twitter

Has the U.S. Justice the right to obtain the data in investigations
of Twitter users around the world? In the case of Wikileaks, a judge
has now confirmed this. Activists speak of a severe blow to freedom of
expression and privacy.

The online message service Twitter is handed over to the U.S.
Department of Justice data on the accounts of three Wikileaks
supporters - this statement has now confirmed a district judge in the
U.S. state of Virginia.
Click to enlarge

Wikileaks supporters (Archive picture): no protection by the U.S.
Department of Justice.

Stakeholders and the civil rights organization Electronic Frontier
Foundation (EFF) expressed disappointment. "With this decision the
court says all users of online services, based in the U.S. that the
U.S. government has a secret access to their data," criticized the
Icelandic member of parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir, one of the three
persons whose data is the U.S. Justice has requested.

The decision was "a big step backwards for the legacy of the U.S. in
the freedom of expression and the right to privacy."
Display

The dispute concerns in particular the IP address, which is the unique
machine identifier for the publication of certain tweets (messages).
Judge Liam O'Grady had now returned to Alexandria in the U.S. state of
Virginia, the Board of stakeholders that are associated with the IP
address and private information about their whereabouts. An IP address
could not be evaluated differently than a phone number.
No disclosure statement

Thus the district judge confirmed a decision by Federal Judge Theresa
Buchanan in March this year. This was, with the transfer of data would
not violate privacy rights.

The judge leaned back, the demand of the plaintiff to disclose the
statement to Twitter. The United States had a "compelling interest to
protect their ongoing investigation" and that weigh more than the
interests of stakeholders and the public interest, was O'Grady. From
this disclosure, the plaintiffs hoped to evidence whether other
Internet companies were ordered to disclose data. Twitter had informed
its members from the statement of the judiciary.
U.S. programmers also affected Appelbaum

Affected by the arrangement next Jonsdottir are also the U.S.
programmers Jacob Appelbaum and Dutch Rop Gonggrijp. All three - as
well as countless other Twitter users - have been mainly in the autumn
of last year raised about the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and the
publication of internal memos from U.S. embassies around the world.

The U.S. government has been trying for some time to take action
against Wikileaks, because it holds the secret revelations of
classified diplomatic and military end Peschen reports about the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan illegal.

In London, Assange fears that he might be on the order of the British
judiciary to his deportation to Sweden and then expelled to the United
States. The Swedish Justice investigating him for sexual harassment.