Brigitta Jonsdittir: Twitter Info Sought by US Dept of Justice

by Jordan Yerman | January 7, 2011 at 04:31 pm

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DOJ Subpoenas Iceland MP Birgitta Jonsdottir's Twitter Info

The US Department of Justice is taking a swing at Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic Member of Parliament and former WikiLeaks volunteer. Birgitta Jonsdottir stepped down after asking Julian Assange to step down as WikiLeaks' spokesman.

Birgitta Jonsdottir told her Twitter followers that the DOJ request was not just about her tweets, but about sending a message to WikiLeaks supporters.

Jonsdottir wondered aloud if the DOJ should consider choosing its battles a bit more carefully:

usa government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. do they realize i am a member of parliament in iceland?

Jonsdottir has been a strong supporter of WikiLeaks and became a volunteer with the organization last March to help edit and publish a classified U.S. Army video that the site published last April. The video showed a U.S. gunship in Iraq shooting and killing civilians.

She later parted with the group after Assange became the subject of a sex-crime investigation in Sweden. She argued that Assange should take a less public role until the case was resolved — a view Assange did not share.

The DOJ request has nothing to do with Birgitta Jonsdottir personally: the department would contact Twitter directly, and the microblog company would have no obligation to involve Jonsdottir in their decision.

Judging by how quickly web companies and financial institutions have done as they were told in regards to WikiLeaks, the prediction with Twitter is not "if" but "when".