Court Battle over Twitter Subpoena

First they came for the email account content, then the Facebook content, and now lawyers are after Twitter content. The question becomes "Who owns the Tweets?" Although this case doesn't involve family law issues, the prospect remains that the decision could impact family law cases.

Twitter says that its users own their tweets, and all that personal information. The court says Twitter does, and should hand them over when subpoenaed. This week Twitter has filed an appeal to New York Supreme Court, the second time it's filed a motion in this case.

Bottom line: Twitter says that it makes it clear in its terms of services that users own their content and they have "a right to fight invalid government requests," i.e. subpoenas.

Twitter's appeal argues that users have a property right to the content they post and have a Fourth Amendment privacy right to their accounts. The company says that deleted Tweets are not public, and that Twitter accounts should have the same protection as personal email accounts. Click here to read Twitter's appeal. Download Brief-harris-appellateterm

According to CNBC: "The Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr. wrote in an April decision, 'By design, Twitter has an open method of communication,' noting that in its Privacy Policy Twitter informs users that what 'you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly.' "

Judge Matthew A. Sciarrino also stated that "the user is granting a license for Twitter to distribute that information to anyone, anyway, and for any reason it chooses."

According to Judge Sciarrino, social media accounts have no legal protection, although he doesn't specify how much information social media companies must share. The April decision may be read here. Download Brief-harris-appellateterm

Source: Julia Boorstin at CNBC