BRIDGE TOO FAR: Police confront protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge last October, in an Occupy Wall Street action that led to 700 arrests. Twitter will now surrender data on tweets leading up to the event. (AP)
BRIDGE TOO FAR: Police confront protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge last October, in an Occupy Wall Street action that led to 700 arrests. Twitter will now surrender data on tweets leading up to the event. (AP)
They’re going to tweet like canaries.
Twitter will obey a judge’s ruling and turn over possibly incriminating messages in the criminal case against an Occupy Wall Street protester, The Post has learned.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Sciarrino Jr. gave the social-media giant until today to produce Malcolm Harris’ messages or be fined for contempt — and it will do so, barring any successful last-minute appeals, according to Harris’ lawyer, Martin Stolar.
“They don’t want to go in contempt,” Stolar said.
It has been more than 75 days since Sciarrino first ordered Twitter to turn over three months’ worth of Harris’ tweets to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Harris was charged with disorderly conduct, along with about 700 other protesters accused of blocking the Brooklyn Bridge last Oct. 1.
Prosecutors say the tweets, which are no longer available online, may demonstrate that Harris knew police had told protesters not to walk on the roadway.
OWS has claimed that police led its followers onto the bridge as a ruse to arrest them for blocking traffic and trespassing.
Many of the demonstrators who were busted took no-jail pleas — but Harris continued to fight, maintaining he had done nothing wrong.
Appeals judges have ruled that the defense cannot delay the criminal case while they review Sciarrino’s decision.
Earlier this week, Sciarrino told Twitter’s lawyers to have the tweets ready by today or risk fines, since he can’t put the “little blue bird in jail.”
Sciarrino also told Twitter it would have to disclose sensitive financial information for him to levy an appropriate fine, which is something Twitter is reluctant to do as a private company.
Sciarrino will review the messages and determine if they are relevant to the case, and then divulge any pertinent ones to the prosecutors and the defense.
It’s unclear whether Twitter will continue its appeals after the messages are turned over.
So far, courts have found that Twitter users who post messages publicly have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
In fact, Twitter has frequently worked with authorities by complying with orders for account information and messages sent via the service.
Investigators consider the process to be like asking a telecom company for phone records or banks for financial statements.
In Harris’ case, a source said, prosecutors got off on the wrong foot when first approaching Twitter in January, threatening criminal contempt charges if the company didn’t comply.
“It was a bit of a slap in the face,” according to the source.
Twitter notified Harris of the subpoena, and waited while he fought the prosecutors’ demands. However, it was ruled that only Twitter — not Harris — had the right to appeal the subpoenas.
That’s when Twitter stepped in with lawyers to fight on Harris’ behalf. The company is hoping for judicial rulings down the road that will allow users to fight requests for their records.