The Manhattan District Attorney subpoenaed the Twitter account of Malcolm Harris, who’d been arrested on a disorderly conduct charge in an Occupy event on 1 October (crossing the bridge with 700 others). They were seeking “any and all user information including e-mail address, as well as any and all tweets for the period 9/15/11-12/31/11” for his account, which has almost no bearing on the offense:
Why the prosecutor would bother to conduct an investigation into the most minor of offenses, one that even upon conviction does not result in a criminal record is unclear. But whatever it is that is under investigation—perhaps the entire Occupy movement—it is not Harris’s alleged disorderly conduct. New York criminal defense attorney, Earl Ward, who is familiar with the case, but not involved in it, calls it a “fishing expedition meant to have a chilling effect on protest” and says it is “prosecutorial abuse, an effort by the DA’s office to get into personal communications of these protesters, for the purpose of chilling their First Amendment rights.”
via Manhattan District Attorney Subpoenas Occupy Protester’s Twitter Account | The Nation.
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