Talk:WikiLeaks-related Twitter court orders

Inclusion of See Also: McCarthyism

As I understand it, twin tools of McCarthyism were (1) overreach of subpoenas (for which see article main page); (2) 'loyalty' investigations, for which see Presidential Executive Office memorandum advocating the use of psychologists to profile grumpiness as a gauge of trustworthiness (sic). http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/OMB_Wiki_memo.pdf (p.6). If one Googles 'McCarthyism Twitter Subpoena' this connection has been drawn more than once. Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 02:09, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• WP:ALSO asks that editors use "editorial judgment and common sense." Two editors have claimed that they exercised those things in removing that link, and they have explained in their edit summaries why they reached the conclusion that the link should be removed. The more you insist, the more you sound like a POV warrior. Drmies (talk) 03:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

One of these editors and I have a more than healthy and ongoing relationship, with the occasional POV flare-up, but mutual, I think, respect. You are the other editor. Please respond to points raised supra under WP:AGF. Another editor tacitly accepted the point so that's 2 vs 2, with one editor providing reasoning supra. I have reduced my illustrative waffle to make point more succinct. Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 03:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I also think one of the two editors against inclusion removed the section "The information demanded included names, addresses, telephone numbers, bank account details, credit card numbers, as well as destination email addresses and IP addresses associated with any communications stored for these accounts, thus implicating also all those who follow WikiLeaks' 'so-called tweets'" claiming it was not in the references, which I believe it is (though please let me know otherwise if not), so perhaps he is not yet fully informed of such issues. Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 03:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand from the WP:See also policy that 'Links included in the "See also" section may be useful for readers seeking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question' and that 'Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous.'

I'm therefore proposing to add once again McCarthyism, since Iceland politicians have reacted to alleged overreach re subpoenas, with the annotation '- an instance of the overreach of subpoenas'. Is that acceptable to all? Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 05:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No. Not acceptable. You are pushing the WP:POLE the wrong direction. Instead, work on being a reputable editor. --S. Rich (talk) 05:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

And there was me thinking I was but feeding the WP:Ducks BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 05:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to draw links to McCarthyism when such a link is not clear and unambiguous. It's a problematic term, as we discussed on the Assange talk page not long ago, and I don't think it is a relevant See Also link. The annotation you propose is verging on OR. BTW it's also strongly discouraged to link to another namespace as you have now done. (bear in mind that SPADE and DUCK is talking about user interaction and actions, not article content. We don't "call a spade a spade" in article content, which is what WP:TRUTH explains)--Errant ^(chat!) 12:43, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

McCarthyism - current use - 'subverting civil rights in the name of national security' BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 14:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but do you have a strong source to link this with McCarthyism? This is all I could find, and it is not sufficient for me. SmartSE (talk) 14:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

OR

Twitter's decision to notify its users of the subpoena attracted considerable media attention; appears to be original research. None of the cited sources directly make this point. Instead there are "media attention" on the issue. I may have missed the specific cite that support this because they are all fairly lengthy - so if this is correctly cited, sorry. Otherwise it should be removed. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Good point, thank you, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 12:23, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No worries, it is damn easy to do things like that :) --Errant ^(chat!) 12:30, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Name of Article

Should this be Twitter Subpoena? Or Twitter WikiLeaks Subpoena? Or what? Thanks, BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 15:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Whatever it should be, "subpoena" should not be capitalized. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Other naming difficulties:

• WikiLeaks claims evidence suggesting subpoeanas also issued to Google and Facebook, which could/would require a second future renaming
• It was the US DOJ that issued the subpoena

So a possible descriptive name (satisfying the precision criterion in WP:NAME) could in principle be United States Department of Justice subpoena of Twitter (and maybe Google and Facebook) in relation to WikiLeaks. But it's a bit long - it doesn't satisfy the conciseness criterion. And it violates WP:CRYSTALBALL.

How about the recognizability criterion?

Google (including the quotation marks):

• "twitter subpoena" About 20,800 results
• "twitter wikileaks subpoena" About 4,000 results
• "twitter subpoena over wikileaks" About 668 results (but sounds a bit awkward to me Boud (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC))
• "twitter subpoena of wikileaks" 4 results
• "United States Department of Justice subpoena of Twitter (and maybe Google and Facebook) in relation to WikiLeaks" No results found

precision: WP:NAME: "Be precise but only as precise as is needed." There is at least one other Twitter subpoena that seems to have been reported widely in the press.

Google:

• "twitter subpoena" wikileaks About 11,700 results (after 7 days)
• "twitter subpoena" corbett About 5,050 results (after 8 months)

On average, that makes the USDOJ twitter wikileaks subpoena about 60 times as widely reported as the Corbett twitter @bfbarbie/@CasaBlancaPA subpoena.

IMHO Twitter subpoena should do for the moment. We could add in

This article is about a subpoena issued to Twitter by the United States Department of Justice in relation to several people associated with WikiLeaks. For other uses, see WikiLeaks-related Twitter court orders (disambiguation).

in the future if other Twitter subpoenas become notable enough as an independent subject. For the moment i just see the one paragraph in Tom_Corbett#2010_gubernatorial_bid.

Any objections to Twitter subpoena? (as article name, this is not the place to discuss whether subpoenas of Twitter are a Good Thing or a Bad Thing)

Boud (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

i don't see how anyone can object to dropping the "S" to "s", and it's probably better to make at least this name change while there are not yet many links to it. So i'm going to be bold and do it now... Boud (talk) 02:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

TODO: Other related articles

Why was Twitter the only company to challenge the secret WikiLeaks subpoena? This article gives some more (speculative) depth in judging why Twitter seems to be setting a precedent: http://www.fastcompany.com/1716100/why-twitter-was-the-only-company-to-challenge-the-secret-wikileaks-subpoena Boud (talk) 20:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

NYT article on how '1986 Privacy Law is Outrun by the Web' http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10privacy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss BrekekekexKoaxKoax (talk) 01:53, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Judge rule twitter give records

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/judge-denies-on-twitter-case/

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/US-Judge-Rules-in-Wikileaks-Twitter-Access-117853068.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12720631

http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=0&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=twitter+subpoena&oq=twitter+su

Requested move 26 April 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 18:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

WikiLeaks-related Twitter subpoenas → WikiLeaks-related Twitter court orders – The orders were issued under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) with corresponding 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b) gag orders, and were not subpoenas or national security letters.

18 USC 2703(b)(1)(B) clearly differentiates between (i) "an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena" and (ii) "a court order for such disclosure under subsection (d) of this section". The order unsealing the gag order clearly identifies the subject of the gag order as a 18 USC 2703(d) order, and the subsequent appellate decision in the case clearly does as well:

This case involves the § 2703(d) orders pertaining to the Government’s request for records of electronic communications relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. ...

The advance-notice requirement expressly applies to administrative subpoenas, grand jury subpoenas, trial subpoenas, and court orders for disclosure under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d). But despite the seemingly broad advance-notice requirement, the statute provides that the court may delay notice pursuant to § 2705 if, in the case of a court order, ...

Another court opinion goes into the subject as well, but does not discuss subpoenas or national security letters (other than in passing). Because they are different.

Clearly, it is this order to unseal that the news articles are referring. It is clear that this order to unseal is about a 18 USC 2703(d) order. It is clear there is a difference between these orders, subpoenas and national security letters. Therefore this page should be moved. --Relisted. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC) --Int21h (talk) 06:27, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support. "Subpoena" seems too limited a word for the various court orders potentially covered by a list like this. Dralwik|^{Have a Chat} 16:02, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Orin Kerr (in the Volokh Conspiracy) also says as much: "The 'subpoenas' used in this case are actuallly 2703(d) orders, issued under 18 U.S.C. 2703(d), part of the Stored Communications Act." Int21h (talk) 07:41, 26 April 2014 (UTC) This DOJ document explains that 2703(d) orders are different than subpoenas: they can do more. Int21h (talk) 07:45, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Differentiating between the different types of subpoenas and orders

There are a bunch of different types of methods that the government can use, and it seems much of the media has confused them. Its understandable, as the law is the set of books that everyone has supposedly memorized, yet very few could afford to buy, and even fewer have actually read. Here is a rundown of what I understand about the types of orders available:

• Subpoenas. These are what everyone is used to. They themselves have a weird provenance and a multitude of subtypes, but its simple enough.
• National security letters/national security gag orders. Authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 2709, part of the Stored Communications Act, itself part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which provides that "no wire or electronic communications service provider, or officer, employee, or agent thereof, shall disclose to any person" etc. etc. The Wikipedia article identifies them as a type of subpoena.
• 2703(d) orders. So-called because they are authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d), also part of the Stored Communications Act, which clearly differentiates such orders from "an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena". It may be, as a matter of simple taxonomy, that they are a type of subpoena, but I don't see them referred to as such.
• 2705(b) gag orders. So-called because they are authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b), also part of the Stored Communications Act, which can also apply to subjects receiving a warrant or subpoena. The persons receiving the subpoena, warrant, or 2703(d) order "is directed, for such period as the court deems appropriate, not to notify any other person of the existence of the warrant, subpoena, or court order." Even here 2703(d) orders are differentiated from subpoenas.
• 3123(d)(2) gag orders. I don't know if that's what they're called, but they are authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 3123(d), part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 but not part of the Stored Communications Act. Recipients of pen register and trap and trace device orders (aka wiretaps) are required to be ordered by the court that they not disclose the existence of the devices or the investigations.
• 5318(g)(2) gag orders. Authorized by 31 U.S.C. § 5318(g)(2), as far as I can tell part of the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, itself part of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, which authorizes suspicious activity reports and that "neither ... may notify any person involved in the transaction that the transaction has been reported". (Not so relevant, but just to drive home how fragmented the exceptions to freedom of speech are.)

There is a weird commingling of relevant statutes, much of them, in true Orwellian fashion, contained within the so-called Electronic Communications Privacy Act, but suffice to say, up until a few years ago, this was not common knowledge. And suffice to say, it is hard to succinctly identify these orders while not loosing the reader in a web of laws. (Just be lucky this isn't the UK; and unlike the UK, that we have a single, easily referenced legal code, without copyright criminal penalties attached to its distribution!) As such, outside of the initial mention, I think we should think about just leaving the rest of the article to refer to them as subpoenas, as it may not be strictly correct, its likely to be referred to as such is most of the sources, and its easier for the reader to instantly know to which we are referring. Int21h (talk) 03:56, 22 May 2014 (UTC)