NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Prosecutors have
subpoenaed the Twitter records of an Occupy Wall Street
protester who was arrested in October during a mass protest on
the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Jan. 26 subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney's office seeks "user information, including email address," along
with three months' worth of tweets from @destructuremal, the
Twitter handle for Malcolm Harris.
Harris, 23, a freelance writer and editor who lives in
Brooklyn, said Tuesday that Twitter sent a copy of the subpoena
to him on Monday. He posted it -- where else? -- on Twitter.
"When you get an email from Twitter Legal, you assume it's a
phishing scam, trying to get your password," he said. "It turned
out that it is a phishing scam, but it's from the prosecutors."
It's not clear what specific evidence prosecutors are after.
But the subpoena is a reminder that even short posts on social
media sites can pose potential legal problems for their authors.
Harris said his lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National
Lawyers Guild, will be filing a motion to quash the subpoena.
Twitter has agreed not to comply with the subpoena while Stolar
prepares the motion, Harris said.
A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney's office
declined comment.
The subpoena seeks Harris' tweets from Sept. 15 -- two days
before the Occupy Wall Street movement began -- to Dec. 15.
Harris isn't sure what tweets could be fodder for prosecutors;
Twitter's interface does not allow him to review all of his old
tweets.
Stolar was not immediately available for comment Tuesday
evening.
A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the case but
confirmed that the San Francisco-based company's policy is "to
notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for
their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing
so," in order to protect users' rights.
Harris is one of hundreds of Occupy-related defendants whose
cases are still winding their way through the court system. A
special courtroom has been set up to handle more than 1,800
cases, the vast majority involving misdemeanor charges.
He was charged with disorderly conduct and is due back in
court on Feb. 29. Like a number of Occupy protesters, he has
vowed to take the case to trial rather than accept a deal from
prosecutors.
The National Lawyers Guild is representing many of the
arrested protesters.
The case is People of New York v. Malcolm Harris, Criminal
Court of New York City, No. 2011NY080152.
For the prosecution: Assistant District Attorney Lee
Langston
For Harris: Martin Stolar of the National Lawyers Guild
(Reporting by Joseph Ax)
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