Today saw the release of a leaked administrative subpoena from Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley to Twitter, demanding that the company release to them any IP addresses and other information associated with several Twitter accounts held by Anonymous participants. Although the document also requests that Twitter refrain from informing those account holders of the move, the company nonetheless sent an e-mail to one of those involved noting that the subpoena had been issued and that they would decline to pursue the issue if they are informed of any motion to quash. Two of the individuals involved contacted me today and have now been referred to the Liederman Devine law firm in San Francisco, which is already representing another Anon operative who was heavily involved in the North African revolts and which has additionally assisted in arranging pro bono legal defense for Anon activists accused of DDOSing Paypal's website in retaliation for its move against Wikileaks last year.
Based on what I've heard thus far from one of the firm's partners as well as the two Anons concerned, Massachusetts has no case whatsoever. The subpoena appears to be pursuant to the recent doxing of Boston police officers in retaliation for their conduct vis a vis the Occupy Boston movement, which I had a chance to visit a few weeks ago during an investigation into possible wrongdoing by The New York Post. Doxing - a term that describes the dissemination of personal information on one or more individuals - is not illegal by any means (which is one reason that the various intelligence contractors and ex-military men who attempted to reveal my address at such time as the Zeta drug cartel was allegedly attempting to hunt me down have not been charged, the other reason being that crimes against online activists tend not to be prosecuted anyway). The information that was distributed in this incident was publicly available, and at any rate was retweeted by a large number of people including myself. The contents may be evaluated here, and is already being disseminated once again in retaliation against the Boston police and in accordance with the Streisand Effect, a well-known law of the internet. Additionally, along with the Twitter accounts named in the document, a couple of hashtags are also listed, which either means that Dan Conley doesn't know that a hashtag is not a person, or that he is actually intent on acquiring the IP addresses of every person who used it. If the latter is the case, the document fails to make that clear, which is not particularly surprising in light of the foolishness of the request and the fact that one of the hashtags is actually misspelled.
Further updates on this matter will likely appear in the press at large as the latest pushback by pro-government elements proceeds. In the meantime, discussions are now being held regarding further opportunities for retaliation against those elements.
The End (???)
