Twitter Responds to WikiLeaks Document Demand by Feds–But Who’s Next?

[Turborama]

Source: All Things Digital

by Kara Swisher

Posted on January 8, 2011 at 12:25 AM PT.

Twitter has been ordered by a U.S. federal judge to turn over documents related to several people involved with WikiLeaks to the Justice Department.

Tonight, a Twitter spokeswoman responded to a request for comment on the situation:

“We’re not going to comment on specific requests, but, to help users protect their rights, it’s our policy to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so. We outline this policy in our law enforcement guidelines.”

In an onstage interview I did with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo at a D@CES event last night in Las Vegas, he referenced the issue, but would not give any specifics. While he said he could not talk about WikiLeaks specifically, he indicated that he disliked government mandates to keep things quiet and reiterated Twitter’s desire to connect people with useful information.

“We’re going to lash out at things that prevent us from doing that, as aggressively as we can,” said Costolo, who also used Twitter crackdowns in China as an example.

Read more: http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110108/twitter-responds-to-wikileaks-document-demand-by-feds/?mod=ATD_skybox

[timtom]

1. What's that sound?

Why, it's naught but the ratchet tightening one more notch...

[villager]

2. But it's *our* guy tightening the ratchet and stripping our rights, so it must be *okay*...

n/t

[timtom]

4. Oh...yeah...I'm cool with that!

NOT!!!

Playing chess, indeed!

We're on the same team, you and I.

[Mark Maker]

3. As Wikileaks has shown, can there be any expectation of privacy

for anything, especially when it concerns electronic media? It would seem that if you have ANY information that you don't want spread all over the place be careful where you keep it.