Criminal Law
Court demands Twitter records of protester
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 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's not clear what specific evidence prosecutors are after. But the subpoena is a reminder that even short posts on social media sites can pose potential legal problems for their authors.
Harris said his lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild, will be filing 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.
COMMENTS
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02/03/2012 19:06:28
I got this too, and did exactly the same thing (I'll never click on a link in an email ulesns it's something I've been expecting to receive). You may want to redact your email address from the URL you posted