Gov/Econ

“Does the Fourth Amendment protect your Twitter account?”

 

IV Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

 

    The main idea of this article is the New York County v Twitter case which is to decide if something posted online but deleted, removed or marked private fall into the category of unreasonable search or seizure if the law enforcement wants to build a case against someone. Malcolm Harris, a member of the Occupy Wall Street movement was arrested on October 1, 2011 at a massive march on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, 700 others were also arrested. New York County contacted Twitter to hand over all information regarding Harris, including his tweets. Twitter contacted Harris and his lawyer about the request. Harris’ lawyer filed a suit to fight the subpoena. Judge Matthew Sciarrino stated that Harris did not have the right to fight the subpoena. Judge stated these exact words “While the Fourth Amendment provides protection to our physical homes, we do not have a physical ‘home’ on the Internet.” He also said that the tweets did not belong to Harris because Twitter is the owner of the information. After having made a decision Twitter filed a suit to get rid of the subpoena stating that they do not know how the service works. Under the company’s terms of service all tweets and photos posted by the account  holder belongs to them. Twitter also said that not only did they ask for tweets regarding Harris but they asked for private messages that he had received and that he had sent.

    This article related to the constitution because based on the article they are trying to decide whether Twitter is protected by the fourth amendment. The fourth amendment states that it protects people from unreasonable searches. Nowhere in the amendment does it say that it protects your social media. Social media is public and it is open to anyone. The government has the right to receive any information that they ask for. The government also asked for too much because they asked twitter to hand over private messages. That is in fact invading Harris’ personal space. The government is not invading Harris’ person space if everything he posts, everyone can view it so it shouldn’t be problem to ask for his tweets.