Malcolm Harris' '@destructuremal' Twitter Posts Subpoenaed By New York Court

By By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Prosecutors have subpoenaed the Twitter records of an Occupy Wall Street protester who was arrested in October during a mass protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Jan. 26 subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office seeks "user information, including email address," along with three months' worth of tweets from @destructuremal, the Twitter handle for Malcolm Harris.

Harris, 23, a freelance writer and editor who lives in the New York borough of Brooklyn, said Tuesday that Twitter sent a copy of the subpoena to him on Monday. He posted it -- where else? -- on Twitter.

"When you get an email from Twitter Legal, you assume it's a phishing scam, trying to get your password," he said. "It turned out that it is a phishing scam, but it's from the prosecutors."

It is not clear what specific evidence prosecutors are after. But the subpoena is an example of posts on social media sites posing potential legal problems for authors.

Harris said his lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild, would file a motion to quash the subpoena. Twitter has agreed not to comply with the subpoena while Stolar prepares the motion, Harris said.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office declined comment.

The subpoena seeks Harris' tweets from Sept. 15 -- two days before the Occupy Wall Street movement began -- to Dec. 15. Harris is not sure what tweets could be fodder for prosecutors; Twitter's interface does not allow him to review all of his old tweets.

Stolar was not immediately available for comment Tuesday evening.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the case but confirmed that the San Francisco-based company's policy is "to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so," in order to protect users' rights.

Harris is one of hundreds of Occupy-related defendants whose cases are still winding their way through the court system. A special courtroom has been set up to handle more than 1,800 cases in New York, the vast majority involving misdemeanor charges.

He was charged with disorderly conduct and is due back in court on Feb. 29. Like a number of Occupy protesters, he has vowed to take the case to trial rather than accept a deal from prosecutors.

The National Lawyers Guild is representing many of the arrested protesters.


Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[NYLSBlog]

02:58 PM on 02/05/2012

Could Twitter face any legal consequences if it refuses to give up a user's account information to the police without first informing the user of a subpoena? Find out here:

http://www.lasisblog.com/2012/02/02/twitters-subpoena-policy-not-as-brave-as-people-think-it-is/

If you enjoy reading this piece, please leave a comment, or "like" us on Facebook!

[dbrett480]

07:39 PM on 02/02/2012

I thought tweets were publicly accessible, why is a subpoena even needed?

[DevonTexas]

09:51 AM on 02/02/2012

So much for Freedom of Speech, eh? I guess only Corporations will have that in post-millennium America

[AEX7]

09:02 AM on 02/02/2012

this is nothing but an intimidation stunt.

[Jenna Bean]

08:07 AM on 02/02/2012

Thank Deity our tax dollars are paying for things like this, because coupled with the failed WarOnDrugz, our over crowded prisons have closets I'm sure so certainly they can find room for tweeters, I mean I want my tax dollars being used against people that my politicians have deemed the enemy and not education reform or health reform or immigration reform or these things are important. Deeming ordinary citizens as enemies of the state and because they disagree with the status quo! RED ALERT PEOPLE!!!!

HASHTAG SARCASM

[blood1]

07:01 AM on 02/02/2012

DA of NYC goes phishing. I would laugh, except that this expedition appears to be yet another example of how politicians (yes bloomberg) are deep in the muck with the cities high rollers that are attempting to deny the rights of citizen's.

Once upon a time, we actually had Right's, but we are losing them one by one. Some repubs have whined and tried to belittle citizen's for using their rights. Whether one agrees with the ideology of OWS or not, being complacent will mean that when you want to criticize, you will be subject to this behavior.

[ScorpioTop]

05:05 AM on 02/02/2012

Time for an amnesty program like the Viet Nam war protestors got.

[Yota Daga]

02:25 AM on 02/02/2012

Don't see them subpoenaing Cheney's emails that got 4500 Americans Killed in Iraq and $4 Trillion taxpayer dollars down the drain?

[ScorpioTop]

05:01 AM on 02/02/2012

Or Darrel Issa's emails would make for some depressing reading.

[max pain]

02:15 AM on 02/02/2012

The Feds gave 14 trillion dollars to bankers how about printing a million for the rest of us citizens

[GrumpyOldGeek]

01:59 AM on 02/02/2012

This is a court-issued oder. To get such an order, a judge must agree that there's probable cause based on evidence and arguments presented by a prosecutor. Nothing is secret here. This is not a misuse of any authority whatsoever.

I suspect that the prosecutor has keyed in on the "destruct" term in his Twitter id. It's a fishing expedition. The order is likely to get tossed because of this. Lawyer's can't use subpoenae powers to go fishing.

It probably is a way to put pressure on the defendant to back off and pay a small fine rather than go through a court hearing procedure. Twitter and the defendant's lawyer see right through this tactic, of course. Judges can't change the order until the complaint is filed.

The court already knows that the defendant intends to proceed with a court hearing. By the way, the charge is a low order misdemeanor and state law probably doesn't permit a full jury trial. The Constitution guarantees the right to a jury for criminal charges, not misdemeanors.

[noahmarder]

01:03 AM on 02/02/2012

I usually support people's privacy, but I really don't see an issue here. The author of a tweet has no expectation of privacy, except possibly in the rare case that it was a private tweet to a person with whom any conversation would be legally privileged (spouse, doctor, attorney, pastor, etc). Anything posted publicly, or to people with whom conversation is not privileged, is fair game.

Of course, the bigger problems are the priorities of the NYPD and prosecutors, which are anything but legitimate.

[lastmanstanding99]

12:58 AM on 02/02/2012

They will never misuse the Patriot Act or the NDAA for indefinite detention, they said so! Remember, "They" is Everybody and Nobody!

[mikesw]

12:46 AM on 02/02/2012

I am glad Twitter notifies its users when it receives such requests. That's the right thing to do. I doubt FB and other media do that.

[USA Radical]

10:12 PM on 02/01/2012

F'kn Scary

[Marzapan]

10:05 PM on 02/01/2012

"Twitter's interface does not allow him to review all of his old tweets."

That's weird, mine does.