Here we go again
WikiLeaks staff are apparently bracing themselves for a legal fight after finding out that the US has demanded that private messages and details on some group members' Twitter accounts should be revealed.
US officials have issued subpoenas to make its Twitter demands and WikiLeaks reckons the US is also putting pressure on other social networks and ISPs to give up their private information, The Independent reported.
Unsurprisingly, WikiLeaks' main man, Julian Assange is reportedly one of 4 WikiLeaks collaborators to have a subpoena on their accounts and said: "If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out."
The desire for such information could suggest that an investigation before a possible US grand jury hearing is already under way, searching for any links with Bradley Manning, the US army intelligence analysts who is thought to have handed over the secret information to WikiLeaks that sparked the whole US embassy cable-gate debacle.
High profile Wikileaks collaborators Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum have reportedly also been targeted.
A court order issued in December reportedly told Twitter not to tell anyone (especially the targets) about the subpoenas as they are part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Apparently they were finally made public after Twitter took the issue up in court.
Assange's lawyer called Mark Stephens reportedly said that WikiLeaks will challenge the order in court.
"We are in the process of implementing a challenge to the subpoenas and flushing out any others. We think there are subpoenas for Facebook, Skype, internet service providers and other official media," he reportedly said.
Rules state that WikiLeaks only has 10 days to challenge the subpoenas after the targets are officially informed of them. Apparently Jonsdottir has got hers but reportedly posted on Twitter that she has "no intention" of willingly handing any information over.
Gonggrijp reportedly said: "It appears that Twitter, as a matter of policy, does the right thing in wanting to inform their users when one of these comes in. Heaven knows how many places have received similar subpoenas and just quietly submitted all they had on me."
While it is reportedly Twitter's policy to let its users know about requests for information there is apparently no news from Facebook or Google as to whether they have received similar requests.
