Senator Feinstein Demands Twitter Hand Over Wikileaks DMs

Shortly after representatives from Twitter, Google and Facebook agreed to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday – and just days before the chief counsel from each firm is set to testify before a joint meeting of the House and Senate Intelligence committees – Wikileaks tweeted that a formal request had been sent from Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary committee, for DMs from several Twitter accounts associated with Wikileaks, along with other sensitive account information about advertisements paid for by Russia Today and accounts suspected of being bots programmed by Russian agents.

While the request isn’t a subpoena – and thus Twitter isn’t legally compelled to comply – we imagine Jack Dorsey wouldn’t hesitate to accommodate Congressional Democrats who are insistently trying to prove that Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated a destabilizing propaganda campaign that somehow swayed the election in Trump’s favor, while Republicans are pivoting to an investigation into the Clinton’s ties with Russian businessmen and a possible quid-pro-quo involving the Obama-era Uranium One deal.

US Senator Feinstein asks Twitter to hand over @WikiLeaks DMs. Feinstein has called to prosecute Assange for 7 years https://t.co/lYpxHvfIoj pic.twitter.com/TYDeuRc4wV

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 27, 2017

The ranking member of the US Senate Judiciary Committee is seeking information “not routinely shared with Congress,” the letter read. It also asks Twitter to reveal how it identified the Russian-linked accounts for which it had previously produced ads or posts.

Dianne Feinstein

The letter calls for the release of all content from direct messages and data showing the sender, receiver, date and time of each message, for the following accounts: @wikileaks, @WLTaskForce, @GUCCIFER_2, @JulianAssange_, @JulianAssange, and @granmarga.

As Wikileaks points out, one of those accounts, @granmarga, is the account of the wife of Wikileak’s late chief counsel.

Feinstein is also asking for the DMs of one of our staff lawyers @granmarga [who is also ex-wife of our late chief counsel @justleft]

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 27, 2017

As the Duran concludes, Twitter is learning the hard way that when you give the US Congress an inch, they will take a yard. Soon, the US Deep State will be able to request DM’s from any individual or organization at any time. This is just the beginning of America’s descent into surveillance hell…and the end of Twitter as a reliable and trusted communication platform. Why in God’s name would anyone invest their time and money into building a twitter presence, only to have it handed to Congress or the Deep State at anytime?

Whether Feinstein makes similar requests from Facebook and Google remains to be seen, though time to receive the documents before the hearings is quickly running out.

Now it’s up to Jack Dorsey: Will he continue to acquiesce to lawmakers’ demands? Or will he be forced to draw the line here?

Read the whole document below:

2017.10.27feinsteinne by Anonymous pk7NsM on Scribd