Judge Orders Twitter To Hand Over Occupy Protestor's Tweets

Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris suffered another legal setback today as a New York judge ruled that Twitter would be forced to release three months of Harris’ tweets that prosecutors say relate to Harris’s arrest at the occupation of the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1st, 2011. Over 700 protestors were arrested that day, including Harris and his friend Natasha Lennard, then a reporter for the New York Times.  According to NBC New York:

Twitter has been ordered to give a New York City judge almost three months’ worth of anOccupy Wall Street protester’s tweets despite the social networking company’s efforts to fight prosecutors’ demand for the messages.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr.  also ruled Monday that prosecutors would need a search warrant — not just a subpoena — to get the final day’s worth of tweets they seek from Malcolm Harris. That’s because of a timeframe set by federal law.

Prosecutors say the messages could show whether Harris was aware of police orders he’s charged with disregarding.

Harris, a self described ‘commie’ and a senior editor at The New Inquiry, has been one of Occupy Wall Street’s more flamboyant advocates.  Some of Harris’s antics are revealed in Steve Bannon’s film Occupy Unmasked, including an episode where Harris started a false rumor that Radiohead would appear at Occupy Wall Street in order to increase attendance at the protests. Harris has also said that Glenn Beck was correct to say that the endgame of the Occupy movement was violent revolution.

Reached via Twitter for a statement, a defiant Harris said “I ain’t done nuffin and the DA is a punk.“