Twitter Subpoena Reveals Law Enforcement Monitoring OWS Via Social Media

The user, who calls himself Guido Fawkes, is a popular conspiracy blogger whose Twitter handle is @P0isAn0N. He promptly posted the subpoena on Scribd, and it has since gone viral, casting a spotlight on the explosive issue.

Goldberger's move is just one more step in the lengthy tarring and feathering of the Occupy Wall Street movement's supporters sure to come now that winter has arrived and the media are focused on other matters.

Follow us

Hundreds of protesters face bogus charges for assembling peacefully on the Brooklyn Bridge; Twitter has shut down at least two accounts associated with the Occupy movement, only one of which has since been restored; and now the authorities are asking Twitter to fork over within 14 days privileged information regarding Twitter users' accounts and identification, according to the striking subpoena letter.

The letter states that the request is being made "pursuant to an official criminal investigation being conducted by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office and the Boston Police Department," and it seeks "all available subscriber information, for the account or accounts associated with the following information, including IP address logs for account creation and for the period December 8, 2011 and December 13, 2011."

Dec. 8 through Dec. 13 is the period during which the Boston police evicted the Occupy Boston encampment in Dewey Square.

The letter then goes on to list "Guido Fawkes, @P0isAn0N, @OccupyBoston, #BostonPD and #d0xcak3" as the aforementioned "accounts or accounts associated." The inclusion of @OccupyBoston was likely a mistake, as the account has only Tweeted four times, has been inactive since 2010, and has fewer than 1,300 followers. The @Occupy_Boston account is a much more active stream of the movement's activity, with more than 24,000 followers and 7,000 Tweets and counting.

Guido Fawkes is the username associated with the Twitter handle @P0isAn0N, and #d0xcak3 is a hashtag that was used when the @P0isA0N account Tweeted a link to a Pastebin.com post that lists "home phone numbers, names, & addresses from 40 various ranking police officers from the Boston Police Department. Also their payroll amount from late 2008."

One of the most critical aspects of the brief subpoena is the fact that the #BostonPD hashtag was listed. If the D.A.'s office actually wants the subscription information, IP address and more of every single person who tweeted that hashtag out during the Dewey Square raid, it is asking for information on a vast number of users, thereby infringing on the rights to privacy of at least hundreds of people who were simply exercising their free speech rights. Either that, or the authorities simply don't understand how hashtags work.

Later in the day that Guido Fawkes posted a link to the subpoena letter, he Tweeted at the Boston Police Department to question why he was being targeted.

"@Boston_Police why are you trying to subpoena my account? For free speech? #Umad?" he Tweeted.

The information posted on Pastebin allegedly was culled from servers used by the Boston Police Patrolmens' Association after they were allegedly hacked into by Anonymous members, according to the Boston Herald.