On May 6th, the grand jury subpoenaed the identities of two users from Twitter, Inc. Over the past several years, Corbett's office has been using the grand jury process to look into allegations of the illegal use of government resources to run political campaigns. The subpoena was prompted over criticism made of the Pennsylvania attorney general on Twitter. The subpoena seeks the subscriber information for two Twitter accounts, bfbarbie and CasablancaPA.
Twitter user CasablancaPA links to an anonymous blog, "CasablancaPA: Exposing the hypocrisy of Tom Corbett," which also has criticized Corbett and how his office has handled the investigation of the legislature known as Bonusgate. Signor Ferrari, an alias used by one of three people who post to the CasablancaPA blog, said the group received notice of the subpoena from Twitter on Tuesday night.
ACLU lawyer Vic Walczak is helping the two anonymous Twitter users fight an effort by prosecutors to unmask their identities. Walczak said the subpoena by a statewide investigative grand jury is an unconstitutional retaliation that violates First Amendment free-speech protections. Walczak will ask a judge to throw out a subpoena seeking the identities of the two Twitter users. This situation is quickly evolving into Twittergate.
No comments:
Post a Comment