Two civil liberties groups representing a former WikiLeaks associate have filed a motion challenging the government’s attempt to obtain her Twitter records, as well as the records of two others associated with the secret-spilling website. The groups also filed motions to unseal records in the case.

The case involves Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland’s parliament, as well as WikiLeaks’ U.S. representative Jacob Appelbaum, and Dutch businessman and activist Rop Gonggrijp. Jonsdottir and Gonggrijp helped WikiLeaks prepare a classified U.S. Army video that the site published last April.

Last month Jonsdottir received notice from Twitter that the U.S. Justice Department was seeking records from her Twitter account from Nov. 1, 2009 on. According to the court order, unsealed by the court at Twitter’s request, the government also wants the same information on accounts for Appelbaum and Gonggrijp. The order seeks full contact details for the accounts (phone numbers and addresses), IP addresses used to access the accounts, connection records (“records of session times and durations”) and data transfer information, such as the size of data file sent to someone else and the destination IP. The latter suggest the request is likely a boilerplate request, of a form that might be submitted to ISPs, e-mail providers and social networking sites like Facebook.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the motion to challenge on Jan. 26, as well as a motion to unseal the filing, which was granted Tuesday. The groups have also sought to unseal the Justice Department’s application for the order it served on Twitter, which provides the government’s justification for demanding the information. The demand for the records is part of a grand jury investigation that’s believed to be probing WikiLeaks for its high-profile leaks of classified U.S. material.

The government is seeking the records under 18 USC 2703(d), a provision of the 1994 Stored Communications Act that governs law enforcement access to non-content internet records, such as transaction information. More powerful than a subpoena, but less than a search warrant, a 2703(d) order is supposed to be issued when prosecutors provide a judge with “specific and articulable facts”  that show the information sought is relevant and material to a criminal investigation. But the people targeted in the records demand don’t have to be suspected of criminal wrongdoing themselves.

EFF says the government’s demand for the records violates First Amendment speech rights and Fourth Amendment privacy rights of the Twitter account holders, among other things.

A hearing is set for Feb. 15 in Alexandria, Virginia.

Photo: Friðrik Tryggvason/Wikimedia Commons

Motion to Vacate as Filed