Court Unseals ACLU and EFF's Motions on Behalf of Twitter User Birgitta Jonsdottir

By Suzanne Ito
ACLU National Office

Today, a court unsealed three motions filed by the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last month on behalf of Birgitta Jonsdottir, the Icelandic parliamentarian whose Twitter account records were targeted by the government in connection with its investigation related to WikiLeaks.

A public hearing on the motions is set for February 15 in Alexandria, Virginia. One of the motions seeks to overturn a federal court order requiring Twitter to turn over the private records of some of its users. The second filing seeks to unseal court records concerning the government's attempts to collect these kinds of private records from Twitter and other companies. The third motion was to unseal the original two motions and the hearing, which were initially sealed by the court.

In early January, the public learned that the Department of Justice had obtained a court order in December requiring Twitter to turn over the account records of five Twitter users: Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir. The federal district court unsealed that order after Twitter took steps to unseal it and to be allowed to inform its users that their information was sought by the government.

We'll have more tomorrow!