Twitter Subpoena Reveals Law Enforcement Monitoring OWS Via Social Media

[Huey P. Long]

Twitter Subpoena Reveals Law Enforcement Monitoring OWS Via Social Media
By CONNOR ADAMS SHEETS
December 27, 2011 7:53 PM EST

Twitter has been subpoenaed for information related to Occupy supporters' accounts, proving that law enforcement agencies have been monitoring OWS supporters' activity on social media. The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in Massachusetts is fed up with being mocked, ridiculed, and criticized by faceless Tweeters, so it's taking matters into its own hands.

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Benjamin A. Goldberger sent a subpoena on Dec. 14 to Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco requesting information on a number of accounts and hashtags associated with the Occupy Boston protest movement to assist authorities with an "official criminal investigation."

After receiving the subpoena, Twitter released it to a user listed in the subpoena per company policy, despite the fact that the D.A.'s office requested that "in order to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the ongoing criminal investigation, this office asks that you not disclose the existence of this request to the subscriber."

The user, who calls himself Guido Fawkes, is a popular conspiracy blogger whose Twitter handle is @P0isAn0N. He promptly posted the subpoena on Scribd, and it has since gone viral, casting a spotlight on the explosive issue.

Goldberger's move is just one more step in the lengthy tarring and feathering of the Occupy Wall Street movement's supporters sure to come now that winter has arrived and the media are focused on other matters.

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http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/273273/20111227/twitter-subpoena-reveals-law-enforcement-monitoring-ows.htm



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The Prince of Twitter
Saudi royal AlWaleed bin Talal just bought $300 million worth of everyone's favorite microblogging site. Here's why that might be a good thing.

BY FAISAL J. ABBAS | DECEMBER 28, 2011

When most people want to become involved in Twitter, they open an account. Leave it to Prince AlWaleed bin Talal, the Saudi media mogul who is King Abdullah's nephew, to buy a chunk of the microblogging site. The prince's company announced on Dec. 19 that it was investing $300 million in Twitter, officially bringing the site into the mainstream of the Saudi media scene.


Rightly or wrongly, social media is perceived as a revolutionary tool in Saudi Arabia -- one of the many factors that contributed to the Arab Spring. The association was so strong that a few days following the Egyptian uprising that brought down Hosni Mubarak, a Saudi official had to deny a rumor that the Saudi king had offered Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg $150 billion to buy his social networking site -- a bargain, the thinking went, if it helped him ward off further revolutions. And indeed, sites like Twitter and Facebook are rapidly growing in the kingdom, precisely because they allow voices that otherwise would not have been able to find an outlet to flourish.

For example, the hashtag #AlwaleedTwitter was quickly formed after the news of the prince's investment broke. Saudis commented, asked critical questions, and even poked fun -- imagining what would happen if the purchase of this "strategic stake" meant that the kingdom's religious police (officially known as The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Promotion of Vice) would now be allowed to rule the Twittersphere.
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/28/the_prince_of_twitter