US wants Twitter details of Wikileaks activists
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is currently fighting extradition from the UK to SwedenThe US government has subpoenaed the social networking site Twitter for personal details of people connected to Wikileaks, court documents show.
The US District Court in Virginia said it wanted information including user names, addresses, connection records, telephone numbers and payment details.
Those named include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, US Army Pfc Bradley Manning and an Icelandic MP.
Pfc Manning is suspected of leaking classified US documents to Wikileaks.
He is facing a court martial and up to 52 years in prison for allegedly sending Wikileaks 250,000 diplomatic cables, as well military logs about incidents in Afghanistan and Iraq and a classified military video.
'Given a message'
According to the court order by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, US prosecutors have provided evidence showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe the information held by Twitter is "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation".
The San Francisco-based website was also told not to disclose that it had been served the subpoena, or the existence of the investigation.
On Friday, the Icelandic MP named in the court order told reporters that her personal details had been subpoenaed by US officials.
Birgitta Jonsdottir, who once worked with Wikileaks, said the US Department of Justice had also asked Twitter for all of her tweets since November 2009.
She said she had 10 days to appeal against the subpoena.
Ms Jonsdottir wrote on her Twitter feed: "USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since 1 November 2009. Do they realise I am a member of parliament in Iceland?"
She said that she would call Iceland's justice minister to discuss the request.
"I think I am being given a message, almost like someone breathing in a phone," she said.
Ms Jonsdottir has said she helped to produce a video for Wikileaks showing a US Apache helicopter shooting civilians in Iraq in 2007.
The classified video, released by Wikileaks last April, brought the whistle-blowing website to the world's attention.
The website's founder, Julian Assange, is currently fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning as part of an inquiry into alleged sex offences.
Ms Jonsdottir reportedly left Wikileaks late last year after she argued unsuccessfully that Mr Assange should take a low-profile role until his legal troubles were resolved.
Credit: BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)
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