American Civil Liberties Union

Today we're filing an appeal in the legal battle over the records of several Twitter users being sought by the government in connection with its WikiLeaks investigation. In this latest round, we’re again fighting to make public the government’s efforts to obtain Internet users’ private information without a warrant.

The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation represent Icelandic parliament member Birgitta Jonsdottir. In a November ruling, U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady refused to unseal or publicly list any court orders or legal motions concerning our clients in the case, including any government orders issued to companies other than Twitter. These secret orders and these secret court dockets prevent our clients from having the chance to protect their constitutional rights by challenging the orders, as we did in the Twitter case.

As alleged ‘Wikileak-er’ Pfc. Bradley Manning faces his highly anticipated hearing this week, the government will face its own hearing today in a suit brought by the ACLU’s Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology and the ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf of a co-founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, David House. 

Last month, the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the State Department’s failure to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the declassification of 23 leaked State Department cables. These cables have already been fully disclosed online by WikiLeaks and distributed by major national and international newspapers. The U.S. government has maintained that the cables are secret. As we’ve said before, the government’s struggle to ignore WikiLeaks has reached the point of absurdity.