Pleased to learn that a federal criminal grand jury's subpoena to Twitter to get my personal info was quashed by the judge, despite my association with sketchy accounts like @Popehat and @associatesmind, whom the court refused to do any favors.
(Thread ...)

This started in 2017 with a Twitter thread about the interesting case of John Rivello, who was indicted for assault with "a deadly weapon, to-wit: a Tweet", where the tweet contained an allegedly seizure-inducing GIF and was sent to a known epileptic, @kurteichenwald.
Someone replied to the thread with a sarcastic dig at an FBI agent involved in the case (Nathan Hopp), and then someone else replied to that with a smiley-face emoji.
https://t.co/RcOphROvOP
https://t.co/X48C4ORZsI
Because that last, single-emoji reply was by someone the FBI was investigating (in a matter completely unrelated to Rivello), the feds reacted by demanding Twitter hand over all its information on everyone in the thread (for the suspicious act of being replied to by randos).
Twitter, through @PerkinsCoieLLP partner John K. Roche, admirably fought this subpoena on behalf of its users, three times: before a USMJ, then a USDJ, then the MJ again. The result was this sealed 35-page opinion (now unsealed):
https://t.co/HKlPBXe10E
The court rightly ruled that "Twitter has explained its clear interest in ferociously advocating for its users' First Amendment rights".
But the court only protected 2 of 3 anonymous speakers. @PogoWasRight had been in contact with @JShafer817 and blogging that his prosecution seemed to be vindictive, and these mere contacts were deemed sufficient to make her anonymity unworthy of 1A protection.
The weird bit is about the attempt to learn the identities of @popehat (unsecret alter ego of Ken White) and @associatesmind (whose screen name is Keith Lee with a blue check verifying that he is Keith Lee).
The feds farcically claimed Ken and Keith were not suspects, and the FBI were merely trying to get their contact information so they could ask for interviews. (They are both licensed attorneys whose up-to-date contact info is, by law, always publicly on file with their states.)
That's a pretty ridiculous excuse for demanding Twitter secretly hand over a list of all the IP addresses from which Ken or Keith had ever accessed Twitter, a list that would tend to provide a trail of where they had been at every moment they accessed Twitter from their phones.
But the judge said this is fine, and "the undersigned
cannot see how an IP address would reveal confidential communications". Sigh.
Anyway, in conclusion ...
Twitter's moderation/suspension decisions are often bad, but are not a 1st amendment issue. I appreciate that when the actual 1A shit hit the fan (i.e., actual gov't agents tried to expose our whole asses because a cop was insulted), Twitter threw down.
https://t.co/mEeZNZZRoN

More from Government

Labour Grandees are listed in Sir Keir Starmer's colleague Jeffrey Epstein's ''Little Black Book''; Blair, Mandelson and Alastair Campbell. COINCIDENTLY, Keir Starmer and some of the same people have connections to ANOTHER of the worlds most prolific peadophiles. #StarmerOut


Starmer failed to bring charges against Jimmy Savile for paedophilia. The decision was made despite the Crown Prosecution Service receiving substantial evidence of his crimes from witnesses and victims several years before Savile died in 2011. #StarmerOut
https://t.co/PNyX5uSAkw


With a past like hers, Margaret Hodge might show a bit more humility.
In the Eighties Hodge was aware of previous child sex abuse in the care homes for which she was responsible, and did nothing about it. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut

As leader of Islington Council, a post she held from 1982-92, Margaret Hodge was aware of previous, horrendous child sex abuse in the care homes for which she was responsible, and did nothing about it. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut #CSA

She was guilty of rather more than a casual failure of oversight. In an open letter to the BBC after it investigated a range of monstrous abuse (child prostitution, torture, alleged murders), Hodge libelled one of its victims as “seriously disturbed”. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut

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