Attorney General Tom Corbett Subpoenaes Twitter To Identify Anonymous Critics | Hacker News Reader

Attorney General Tom Corbett Subpoenaes Twitter To Identify Anonymous Critics

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35 pointsssclafani28 comments

I think we will all be safer when the pre-internet generation passes from power. I hope so, anyway.

As an analogy (USA-centric), look at people who were born and raised after the so-called Summer of Love and have grown up to take office or run for sheriff or become judges.

While there have been improvements in laws and attitudes regarding drugs and sexuality, we've a long way to go.

True, except I think there was much more of a divide there. Roughly half were hippies, the other half were ...well whatever the opposite is.

Whereas with the Internet, entire generations are involved. There's no ~50/50 divide b/t web-surfing hippies and non-internet-using reactionaries. Everyone is online.

The main problem is getting the majority of people in the net generations to understand their rights, how certain things affect them, and to care enough to log of Facebook for a few minutes to do something about it when they're threatened.

"...Twitter to appear as a Grand Jury witness to “testify and give evidence regarding alleged violations of the laws of Pennsylvania”."

Is there someone here that knows what the PA law is that enables a subpoena for uncovering identity in this case? If the long standing interpretation of the U.S. Constitution protects liability from criticizing a public figure anonymous or not (does it?) then how can a PA law, require uncovering identity if there can be no basis for liability once the identity is known?

I've tried to read the embedded subpoena but scribd just shows a spinner telling me its saving trees.

Corbett is best known in PA for prosecuting a number of high-profile cases where legislators used taxpayer-funded state resources for campaign purposes -- i.e., using government-employed staffers to knock on doors, send out campaign mailings, etc.

It's possible that there's a similar thing going on here, and he's trying to prove that the accounts are being used from state resources or something.

I suppose I have a hard time believing that it was just coincidence that the two accounts were criticizing Corbett before he went after them. He really just has the public's interest at heart here, and it has nothing to do with going after his enemies?

There are presumably hundreds of Twitter accounts criticizing Corbett, and these two hardly have gigantic followings. I'm assuming he's trying to prove something besides "these twitterers don't like me."

I doubt he has the public's best interest at heart, except insofar as doing things the public would like will make him more likely to be elected governor. So just randomly subpoenaing two Twitter accounts doesn't seem an effective way of going about that.

Go go gadget Streisand Effect!

Attorney General of the state that brought you the Lower Merion School District (laptop webcam spying case). I wonder what is Cobett's legal opinion of that case. I'd like to know if this subpoena is part of his general view of internet privacy.

Please don't pretend that some backwater nutjobs represent the whole of the state of Pennsylvania.

Eugene Volokh's take (on it being a criminal investigation instead of a civil investigation):

http://volokh.com/2010/05/19/pennsylvania-attorney-general-t...

The idea that Corbett, as AG, would subpoena to investigate the criminal charges against...Corbett doesn't make sense though.

Oddly enough, I'm initially leaning towards siding with Corbett, although like everything else internet, we only have a very small piece of the story. (disclaimer: I know nothing of PA politics, which party this guy is, what his views are, etc. This is just a thought experiment)

The question: are the tweeters using Twitter as a tool for political speech? If so, they rock. More power to them. Get out of their way.

Or are they using Twitter as a political hack-job tool, spewing out purposeful disinformation just to muddy the waters? More to the point, are they being paid by some political entity to do this? Is there damage to Corbett's life being caused by these purposeful lies?

You have maximum freedom of speech for political purposes. But if you have malice towards a person for political reasons, and are saying things you know to be inaccurate in order to hurt them, and you have hurt them in some way (perhaps instigating an investigation you know to be spurious) you've crossed the line and should be subject to civil action from the person you are purposely harming. That's not a criminal thing, but a civil thing.

EDIT: So yes, as a matter of free speech I have the right to make a bunch of things up and call you a pedophile and convicted felon on Twitter the day you apply for the job as CPA at a daycare, but if you lose the job because of it you have the right to make me pay for that damage that I purposely caused. This is no different than the freedom to have a gun doesn't give you the freedom to go around shooting people. (key concept: real measurable harm is done in a purposeful manner)

> if ... you've crossed the line and should be subject to civil action from the person you are purposely harming. That's not a criminal thing, but a civil thing.

That doesn't seem to be what's going on here, though. I agree Corbett has the right to sue for libel or defamation. But the linked article is talking about a grand jury, which is only involved when criminal cases are brought by the state, i.e. brought by Corbett in his official capacity as Attorney General.

I see you've edited your initial comment to read differently. Ah, the joys of HN :)

Like most things internet, "need more data" seems like a reasonable position to take. Is there a legit criminal case? If the purpose was to impede his job as AG then probably yes.

The wider point was that this article was propping up good guys and bad guys and expecting us to come along and respond in a knee-jerk fashion. There are cases where the AG may be acting entirely correctly. Perhaps this is not one of them. Don't know.

Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I had initially phrased it as suspecting it was a criminal prosecution but being unsure from the article, but then realized that it must be a criminal case, given the grand jury PDF, since grand juries don't happen in civil cases. You must've gotten to my original post within the 3 or 4 minutes before I edited it. ;-)

When a guy running for one office uses the power of his current office to smack down critics, then it gives off a bad smell.

Think about this: if the AG was somebody other than Candidate Corbett, would he have started this inquisition? Highly unlikely, imho.

I'm happy not knowing. Perhaps you have already passed judgment.

Let's assume that the guy responsible for enforcing laws at the state level is doing a good job. Should he refuse to prosecute people that have committed a crime against him simply because it might look bad on the internet? If so, he's not doing his job and should be fired.

I think people are responding to this based on a preconceived pattern in their heads -- big guy with lots of power tries to use his power to silence critics. If that's what happened, then lets all call him out for it. He might even be breaking the law himself and deserve to go to jail. Do you have proof that this is the case? Or is this just a witch hunt? Because I haven't seen proof yet, and the default position when not seeing proof is agnosticism -- I don't know. Something wrong with not knowing? Or is this the internet, where any kind of story must be commented on by people taking on an air of expertise, no matter how flimsy the data or preliminary the information?

I'm not taking you to task personally. Hell, I offered an opinion myself. But my opinion ends in "Beats me", as it should at this point in the game. My opinion was also offered in hopes of persuading people that there are usually two sides to every story. Or put another way -- I am naturally drawn to condemn this man and be outraged. Because I am naturally drawn to this response, I make very, very sure that I make a devil's advocate case and see how it sounds. Once I did this, I'm thinking there is much to be learned, and in those cases I try to default to giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Isn't this just common sense?

(There is another question about ethics -- if it looks bad it is bad. I'm considering that out-of-scope. My intent was to think about this in terms of legality. This was a thought experiment, after all)

"You have maximum freedom of speech for political purposes. But if you have malice towards a person for political reasons, and are saying things you know to be inaccurate in order to hurt them, and you have hurt them in some way (perhaps instigating an investigation you know to be spurious) you've crossed the line and should be subject to civil action from the person you are purposely harming. That's not a criminal thing, but a civil thing."

I agree, but the US doesn't hold political figures to this standard. Two wrongs don't make a right, but the principle you outline isn't universally applied in the US.

What happened to freedom of speech? Does it really matter whether you know if I said it, or Joe Blow? We have the right to say it.

Yes freedom is good. Slander, libel, and shouting "Fire!" (falsely) in a crowded theater are bad.

A delicate dance indeed.

I can't believe how much crappy JS is on that page. Viewing the source is astounding.

And here I thought in this country free speech was protected by the first amendment. But I guess this guy knows better, seeing as how he is the chief legal adviser for an entire state.

Why am I not surprised that this guy is a republican?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Corbett

Don't get me wrong I'm sure there are plenty of cases of democrats trying to silence the opposition, but it sure seems like this happens much more often with republicans.

I think both parties have a shaky record on free speech. For example, the McCain-Feingold Act regulates campaign speech. Senator McCain is a Republican. Senator Feingold is a Democrat. President Bush, a Republican, signed the law. The chief opponent of the law was Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, who challenged the law in court all the way to the Supreme Court. More recently, Democratic President Obama criticized the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United which rebuffed the government's attempt to ban political speech.

This is an aside, but I object to the notion that money equals speech.

In fact, allowing corporations to donate willy-nilly to political candidates could quite possibly curtail the political speech of their employees: imagine working for a company, and finding out that by working for them you have inadvertently funded a political ideal that you are in direct opposition to.

Would you quit your job over it? In this market? Maybe a lot of folks on here would, as our skillsets are in demand.

What about a factory worker?

How is that any different from a union taking stands that you don't agree with?

If I have a right of free speech and you have a right of free speech, how is it that together we don't have a right of free speech?

In other words, I'm not referring to the "corporation as person" doctrine but the "corporation as voluntary association of people" reality.

i wasn't talking about speech in general, I was talking more about the "they said something critical about me...subpoena them" sort of actions.

but yes both parties are shitty when it comes to free speech....ex: both support free speech zones etc.

Might I remind you of the Communications Decency Act? It was sponsored by Senators James Exon (D-NE) and Slade Gordon (R-WA) and defended by the Clinton Justice Department all the way to the Supreme Court, where all nine justices overturned it. That court, by the way, was dominated by Republican appointees (Rehnquist, O'Connor, Stevens, Scalia, Thomas, Souter and Kennedy).

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