The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are appealing the U.S. government ruling that three supporters of Wikileaks’ Twitter account information will be turned over to the authorities. (See iMediaEthics’ story on that order here.) Rachel Myers of the ACLU responded to iMediaEthics’ e-mail inquiry letting us know their appeal “is due by Friday.”
In a statement on the ACLU’s website that Myers directed us to, ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine commented that “This ruling gives the government the ability to secretly amass private information related to individuals’ Internet communications. Except in extraordinary circumstances, the government should not be able to obtain this information in secret. That’s not how our system works.
“If this ruling stands, our client may be prevented from challenging the government’s requests to other companies because she might never know if and how many other companies have been ordered to turn over information about her.”
Rebecca Jeschke, EFF’s media relations director, responded to iMediaEthics’ e-mail inquiry passing on the EFF’s March 11 press release about the ruling (See here). In the press release, the EFF stated it intended to appeal.