WikiLeaks chief faults US for asking Twitter, Google to divulge information

U.S. administration is trying to pressurize social networking sites to reveal information about WikiLeaks. Under their investigation, the US officials have asked court to order Twitter for disclosing details about WikiLeaks chief –Julian Assange–as he has illegally disclosed government’s secret documents.

The US administration is trying to constitute a criminal case against Assange. Assange stated that the government might also force other social networks and websites as Facebook and Google to divulge information about him. All these sites are owned by American companies.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has issued an order to Twitter Inc. to disclose all information about accounts related to Assange and his friends and colleagues exchanging messages on the website.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst is also under suspicion of providing important information to Twitter. The list of suspects includes parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, from Iceland and Rop Gonggrijp, WikiLeaks ex-collaborator; and Dutch hacker and Jacob Appelbaum, a U.S. programmer. The court has asked Twitter to give all information about these suspects.

The order was issued on Dec. 14 by Virginia District Court.

Assange severely criticized court’s order and stated that this was aimed to harass him. He has pledged to fight against violation of his right to privacy. He added that had it been Iranian government asking for somebody’s private information from social networks and websites, human right activists would have raised their voices against it, but everybody was silent over actions of the US administration to suppress him.