Tag Archives: Twitter

Joining other social media companies that are watching as their users’ privacy rights are gradually whittled away, Google is standing up to the growing trend of government attempts to go through third-party social media companies to get to users’ information. Google is reportedly challenging the legality of a search warrant the FBI served on the company earlier this year in an effort to crack the Android phone of Dante Dears, a man who was running a prostitution business on his …

More than 70 percent of law enforcement agencies across the U.S. use social media as an investigative tool, and the trend is growing. In a recent survey, officers reported using Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and other social networks to identify suspects, find out who their friends are and monitor their activities. Plenty of criminals make the job even easier by broadcasting their misdeeds online. If you’ve broken the law and are tempted to brag about it online, make sure you know …

While record numbers of tweets were being sent during the Democratic National Convention in early September, several Twitter users were attracting the attention of the Secret Service. Donte Jamar Sims was arrested September 5 in Charlotte for tweeting death threats against President Barack Obama. Sims allegedly posted five messages on September 3 that caught the attention of the top echelons of the Twitter police, including: “Ima hit president Obama with that Lee Harvey Oswald swag,” and “Well IMA Assassinate president …

Scroll down to see our video with a warning for Twitter users. Facing large fines as well as a future full of similar headaches, today Twitter caved to prosecutors’ demands for user Malcolm Harris’s tweets in his criminal trial for trespassing during an Occupy Wall Street demonstration last October. Twitter turned over tweets Harris had posted during the demonstration under the account @destructuremal but then subsequently deleted. Prosecutors in the Manhattan DA’s office first tried to subpoena Harris for his …

NEWS UPDATE: See the story and video at Twitter Caves and Hands Over Protester’s Tweets to Avoid Fines. Twitter just handed over three months’ worth of an Occupy Wall Street protester’s tweets to a judge in a criminal trial. Twitter claimed it was defending its users’ right to privacy, but in the end it threw protestor Malcolm Harris under the bus. Harris is a Twitter user who is being prosecuted for trespassing during an Occupy Wall Street demonstration on the Brooklyn …