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E-Commerce Times:

A brewing battle between Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Twitter is apparently over. Following Twitter's refusal to comply with a subpoena demanding identifying information on two of its account holders, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania rolled up its sleeves to prepare a defense. However, Corbett, who recently won the Republican nomination for governor, has decided not to pursue the matter.

The AG said the reason for the subpoena was to obtain information that would establish a defendant's lack of remorse in a sentencing hearing that took place Friday.

"We needed that information for today and we didn't get it," Kevin Harley, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office, told the E-Commerce Times. "So it is a moot point."

The subpoena was at the center of what was shaping up to be a First Amendment argument over an individual's right to speak anonymously on the Internet.

Abuse of Power?
The attorney general reportedly wanted to use comments on two Twitter feeds during the sentencing of Brett Cott, a former political aid convicted in a scandal known as "Bonusgate," to show that Cott was unrepentant about his crimes.

Technology Attorney Peter Vogel in E-Commerce Times article:

.....

High Bar
In many respects, the legal tussle played out along typical lines, said Peter Vogel of Gardere Wynne Sewell.

Service providers have the right to go to their customers before handing over identifying information to give them a chance to respond, Vogel told the E-Commerce Times.

Sometimes targeted individuals can get such subpoenas quashed, and sometimes they can't -- it depends on the legal issues, he said.

If this had been a straightforward case of a politician seeking the identity of anonymous commenters who were criticizing him, then the subpoena most likely would have been quashed, as the bar for proving libel against a public figure is very high, he said.

Basically, a comment would have to be an untruth, and the politician would have to prove that the poster knew it to be false.  

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Twitter-Subpoena-Stand-Off-Ends-With-a-Twimper-70055.html

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