by KEVIN POULSEN
Three WikiLeaks associates entangled in a federal grand jury probe in Virginia asked a federal judge Friday to reverse a ruling that would hand over records of their Twitter use to federal prosecutors, arguing that the ruling violates a federal statute and the constitution.
The 41-page filing (.pdf) argues that Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan, in Alexandria, Virginia, erred earlier this month when she ordered Twitter to turn over non-content information on the Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks activist Jacob Appelbaum, Dutch businessman Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland’s parliament who helped WikiLeaks prepare a classified U.S. Army video for release last April.
They’re asking for a U.S. district judge to overrule the magistrate. “It’s an appeal, so you can’t really put in much that’s new,” says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing Jonsdottir in the case. “But we did point out that the magistrate got some things wrong.”
The government has agreed not to press Twitter for the records until the appeal is done, says Cohn.
The Justice Department’s demand for the records is part of a grand jury investigation that appears to be probing WikiLeaks for its high-profile leaks of classified U.S. material. The government is seeking the records under 18 USC 2703(d), a provision of the 1994 Stored Communications Act that governs law enforcement access to non-content internet records, such as transaction information.
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