Judge allows access to Twitter records.

• Position: SOCIAL MEDIA - Brief article

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. government can obtain records from the online social networking site Twitter to aid its criminal investigation of WikiLeaks.

Three Twitter users had argued that giving up their Twitter account information violated their constitutional rights, according to The Washington Post.

In a 20-page written opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan ruled that the information is not protected by the First Amendment because the Twitter clients have "already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available." She also said they have "no Fourth Amendment privacy interest" in the release of their Internet protocol addresses because the government isn't seeking the content of their communication, The Post reported.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The ruling was a clear win for the Justice Department, which is investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and others suspected of posting...