Jan 8, 2011 11:53 GMT  ·  By

Twitter has been ordered to reveal all of the data from several accounts associated with WikiLeaks, but the company has managed to send out notifications to those targeted to give them a chance to fight the subpoena. Twitter was initially served a sealed order in December, asking for data on those users, which prevented the company from talking to anyone about it or notifying those involved.

However, Twitter fought the order and asked for it to be unsealed so that it could send out notifications. The federal judge that signed the initial order agreed to Twitter's request and the document has been made public.

Twitter notified some of the people involved, all of which had connections to WikiLeaks. The order asked for information about Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament and former WikiLeaks associate, Jacob Appelbaum, a developer for TOR and well-known hacker, and Rop Gonggrijp, a Duth hacker and founder of the XS4ALL ISP, both formerly or currently linked to WikiLeaks

The Twitter accounts of those three were provided in the order, but the paper also provided only the names of Bradley Manning, the US soldier who is believed to be the one behind all of WikiLeaks material regarding the US military and government revealed last year, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Since the order did not provide account details for these two, it is unclear whether Twitter will be able or willing to disclose any information, since it has no real way to know which accounts are actually theirs.

Because Twitter was able to notify those involved of the subpoena, they can fight it within 10 days.

Twitter didn't comment on the WikiLeaks situation in particular, but did say that, whenever possible, it notifies the owners of accounts it has been asked for information on, despite no legal obligation to do so.

"We’re not going to comment on specific requests, but, to help users protect their rights, it’s our policy to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so. We outline this policy in our law enforcement guidelines," Twitter said in a statement.

Twitter is making a stance, standing up for the rights of its users even if they are linked to the controversial WikiLeaks. There haven't been a lot of companies to do that, even in the land of freedom, in fact, many have been quick to throw WikiLeaks under the bus without a second thought.

There's been increasing pressure on WikiLeaks especially after it started publishing some of the 250,000 US embassy cables in its possession. While the US government hasn't been able, or willing, to attack the site directly, many US companies caved to the, direct or indirect, pressure and severed ties with the whistleblowing site.

Twitter did as much as it could to help those involved and did not provide the information quietly as it was first ordered. But the question some have been asking is, what other sites and companies were asked for similar information and simply handed over the data?

It is very likely that other companies were targeted, in which case, it would seem that Twitter is the only one that took actions to ensure that the rights of its users were protected, to the degree that the company could do so while also complying with US law.

While it is encouraging to see Twitter do this, it should be concerning that no one else has revealed similar moves by the courts, despite a great likelihood that Twitter was not the only website targeted.