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Court in OWS Twitter Case Gets it Wrong Again

16 points by panarky 14y ago

GauntletWizard 14y ago
As Twitter is archived in the Library of Congress, any tweets and their metadata is, should, and can be public record... presuming your profile is marked public. Information that is not publicly displayed, such as e-mail, phone number, etc, is what should be protected - and it seems the courts have yet again failed us, granting an overly broad request for discovery. Here's the question I've not seen answered - Were Mr. Harris's tweets private? If not, I really see no problem with identifying his words and the public portion of his location (I believe twitter only presents a few, not the full, significant digits of geodata). It's both more reliable and less invasive than asking local businesses "Did this man shop here?" which is a tried-and-true police tactic.
- sneak 14y ago
  Twitter logs the IP address of every single access to the site (though it is not made public on the web). IP address + timestamp + ISP subpoena == physical location. Also, you can bet that Twitter is internally storing all those significant location digits, even if they don't publish them. This is the troubling part.
briandear 14y ago
My question is why they need to prove the dude was on the bridge? Didn't they arrest him there? Regardless, assuming privacy rights when using a public social network is a bit of a stretch. Even phone records are subject to release with a warrant. If one is worried about privacy, then don't tweet or Facebook your damned location. The Twitter TOS might be illuminating for this case. If Twitter guarantees privacy then the defendant might have a civil case against Twitter if records are released. Though they do have indemnification clauses.. I'm not too sympathetic to this dude's plight, a reasonable person would expect arrest for blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. How many people were financially harmed by this guy's actions? Protest is one thing, but when his expression of his rights interferes with my right to get to work and earn a living, then he has very little moral ground upon which to stand.
- panarky 14y ago
  Maybe the district attorney isn't really interested in proving the defendant was on the bridge, but is using this trivial case as a pretext to get at his social network. The DA requested not only his location, but IP addresses used to access Twitter plus all email addresses linked to his account. Source: https://www.eff.org/cases/new-york-v-harris https://www.eff.org/cases/new-york-v-harris
  - greenyoda 14y ago
    Definitely a pretext. NYC would not expend all those resources just to convict someone of disorderly conduct (which is only a misdemeanor offense). And believe it or not, there are real crimes happening in NYC which the DA might want to spend a bit more time on, instead of going after protesters. As a taxpayer, I'd be very curious to know why my money is being spent on this.
panarky 14y ago
It's troubling that a city district attorney can compel the disclosure of non-public information without a search warrant. It's equally troubling that this lax standard is applied so routinely in the most trivial of cases. If we accept that participating in non-violent protest on the street instead of the sidewalk now justifies heavy-handed police action, we have bigger problems than loss of privacy.
- sneak 14y ago
  The rule of law in the USA is gone. The feds issue 60k+ NSLs annually, and you never hear about those. Because there's no oversight whatsoever, we have no idea how many of these are issued against people exercising their legal rights in the ways that the police state simply doesn't find convenient or appropriate. It's time to leave.
  - chc 14y ago
    There was no national security letter involved here, and as far as I can tell all parties did follow the law. As far as I can tell, it's actually Twitter's terms of service that caused the trouble here, as they deny you ownership of your own content and thus prevented Harris from defending the rights he gave up by tweeting. At any rate, this talk of national security letters sidestepping the law and all that seems quite beside the point. This was just an unfortunate interaction of valid laws and onerous terms of service.
    - sneak 14y ago
      My point was not that this was an NSL, but it's this bad even in the cases where we're _hearing about it_. Fact is, this is happening constantly, and in ways we can't even find out about to know how bad it truly is. There's no hope. Run.
btilly 14y ago
Access to location information is a complex issue. There are many reasons to want it, and many reasons to not want it given out. For instance should the police have the right to ask mobile carriers for a list of all people whose phones passed within 500 feet of a particular location at a particular time? What if that location was where a drive-by shooting happened? What if that location was where a protest happened? What if it is the CIA attempting to figure out who met with a known spy? Should a mobile carrier be allowed to sell location data to third parties? What if the party who wishes to buy it is your employer, who wants to check where you were when you were sick to identify people who might be interviewing elsewhere? During a divorce, should you be allowed to get your soon-to-be-ex spouse's location information? What if a restraining order was filed against you? I know that some of these questions have clear precedents, others have conflicting precedents. All are questions that people tend to have strong opinions on.

16 points by panarky 14y ago

As Twitter is archived in the Library of Congress, any tweets and their metadata is, should, and can be public record... presuming your profile is marked public. Information that is not publicly displayed, such as e-mail, phone number, etc, is what should be protected - and it seems the courts have yet again failed us, granting an overly broad request for discovery. Here's the question I've not seen answered - Were Mr. Harris's tweets private? If not, I really see no problem with identifying his words and the public portion of his location (I believe twitter only presents a few, not the full, significant digits of geodata). It's both more reliable and less invasive than asking local businesses "Did this man shop here?" which is a tried-and-true police tactic.

sneak 14y ago
Twitter logs the IP address of every single access to the site (though it is not made public on the web). IP address + timestamp + ISP subpoena == physical location. Also, you can bet that Twitter is internally storing all those significant location digits, even if they don't publish them. This is the troubling part.

briandear 14y ago

My question is why they need to prove the dude was on the bridge? Didn't they arrest him there? Regardless, assuming privacy rights when using a public social network is a bit of a stretch. Even phone records are subject to release with a warrant. If one is worried about privacy, then don't tweet or Facebook your damned location. The Twitter TOS might be illuminating for this case. If Twitter guarantees privacy then the defendant might have a civil case against Twitter if records are released. Though they do have indemnification clauses.. I'm not too sympathetic to this dude's plight, a reasonable person would expect arrest for blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. How many people were financially harmed by this guy's actions? Protest is one thing, but when his expression of his rights interferes with my right to get to work and earn a living, then he has very little moral ground upon which to stand.

panarky 14y ago
Maybe the district attorney isn't really interested in proving the defendant was on the bridge, but is using this trivial case as a pretext to get at his social network. The DA requested not only his location, but IP addresses used to access Twitter plus all email addresses linked to his account. Source: https://www.eff.org/cases/new-york-v-harris https://www.eff.org/cases/new-york-v-harris
- greenyoda 14y ago
  Definitely a pretext. NYC would not expend all those resources just to convict someone of disorderly conduct (which is only a misdemeanor offense). And believe it or not, there are real crimes happening in NYC which the DA might want to spend a bit more time on, instead of going after protesters. As a taxpayer, I'd be very curious to know why my money is being spent on this.

panarky 14y ago

It's troubling that a city district attorney can compel the disclosure of non-public information without a search warrant. It's equally troubling that this lax standard is applied so routinely in the most trivial of cases. If we accept that participating in non-violent protest on the street instead of the sidewalk now justifies heavy-handed police action, we have bigger problems than loss of privacy.

sneak 14y ago
The rule of law in the USA is gone. The feds issue 60k+ NSLs annually, and you never hear about those. Because there's no oversight whatsoever, we have no idea how many of these are issued against people exercising their legal rights in the ways that the police state simply doesn't find convenient or appropriate. It's time to leave.
- chc 14y ago
  There was no national security letter involved here, and as far as I can tell all parties did follow the law. As far as I can tell, it's actually Twitter's terms of service that caused the trouble here, as they deny you ownership of your own content and thus prevented Harris from defending the rights he gave up by tweeting. At any rate, this talk of national security letters sidestepping the law and all that seems quite beside the point. This was just an unfortunate interaction of valid laws and onerous terms of service.
  - sneak 14y ago
    My point was not that this was an NSL, but it's this bad even in the cases where we're _hearing about it_. Fact is, this is happening constantly, and in ways we can't even find out about to know how bad it truly is. There's no hope. Run.

btilly 14y ago

Access to location information is a complex issue. There are many reasons to want it, and many reasons to not want it given out. For instance should the police have the right to ask mobile carriers for a list of all people whose phones passed within 500 feet of a particular location at a particular time? What if that location was where a drive-by shooting happened? What if that location was where a protest happened? What if it is the CIA attempting to figure out who met with a known spy? Should a mobile carrier be allowed to sell location data to third parties? What if the party who wishes to buy it is your employer, who wants to check where you were when you were sick to identify people who might be interviewing elsewhere? During a divorce, should you be allowed to get your soon-to-be-ex spouse's location information? What if a restraining order was filed against you? I know that some of these questions have clear precedents, others have conflicting precedents. All are questions that people tend to have strong opinions on.