Perhaps @Jack should consider a new promotional tag for his company — “Twitter: Not Just For Verifying White Supremacists Anymore.” The microblogging social media platform has let its users double the lengths of their screeds and still gives us a healthy dose of Alex Jones and his gang of morons who can’t figure out what publicly traded companies are, so it’s about time we got something useful out of the product. You can use Twitter to serve subpoenas.
The DNC, still suing Russia and Donald Trump and the rest of the collusion cadre, has had a hard time getting WikiLeaks to hand over discovery material since Julian Assange is holed up in an embassy overseas. With Assange not answering his emails, Cohen Milstein, representing the DNC, sought and received permission to serve a subpoena over Twitter.
The only way this could be improved is if the message read “Do @ me.”
Service via Twitter isn’t necessarily new. For example, in 2016, a federal court approved the use of Twitter to serve a Kuwaiti man for allegedly financing terrorist attacks. And Facebook’s been used for service as well. Still, Twitter service is unusual and its use here is a testament to the international law quandary Assange finds himself in.
As someone who finds himself followed by law firm Twitter accounts on a daily basis, I’m going to have to be a little more concerned about that follow back.
The DNC’s legal team just subpoenaed WikiLeaks on Twitter [Fast Company]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
