Can Your Tweets Be Used as Evidence?

As anyone who's ever used Twitter can tell you, it's a fast-moving medium, and users are prone to typos, mistakes in direct vs. broadcast messages, and, if you occasionally reply via your IM client, you may send an IM out to Twitter instead.

In general, these mistakes are a mere blip in the overall scheme of Twitter; even if people notice at the time, the messages are flying at such a fast pace that it vanishes quickly, and you never think of it again. And Twitter is used not only for microblogging, but also meet-ups and party planning at conferences, and apparently, major life events.

With its short form, it's perfect for mobile organization, and its most recent use has been organizing public groups, from flash mobs to anti-war protestors. Even more efficient than text messaging, Twitter has allowed organizers to broadcast locations for protestors to move to create critical mass while keeping locations secret until the last possible minute to retain the element of surprise.

However, if what's happening in New York City is any indication, Twitter users may not be the only ones keeping up with the messages. In the wake of several lawsuits that followed arrests made during the protests at the Republican National Convention in 2004, the New York City Law Department has subpoenaed Tad Hirsch, the creator of TXTMob, which protest organizers were using in 2004. The subpoena demands not only the content of messages sent during the protests, but also the identities of users who sent and received messages.

TXTMob has a less public face than Twitter, where most people have their Tweets visible on the public timeline, and allow others to read without any privacy guards put in place. TXTMob utilizes a group set-up, where messages are sent only to members of a group, but it is believed that NYPD officers were most likely also subscribed to organizing groups during the protests and monitored the conversations. If law enforcement would monitor TXTMob, you can only assume they are also monitoring Twitter, especially in relation to activities like organizing protests. Search applications like Tweetscan make it easy to look for look-ups over the entire Twitter userbase.

The applications for law enforcement monitoring of Twitter and similar services would be endless, however, What about setting up road blocks for DUI checks after parties organized on Twitter? Is what is said on Twitter admissible in court if you reference any potentially illegal activity? You may want to take a few seconds before posting. You never know who's reading it.