A U.S. federal judge has cleared the way for the government to obtain records to the social networking site Twitter, as part of a criminal probe into WikiLeaks.
Judge Theresa Buchanan in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday rejected the argument by three Twitter users in contact with WikiLeaks that disclosing their records intrudes on their rights to privacy.
Judge Buchanan said they voluntarily made their user information public, once Twitter revealed their posts.
President Barack Obama's administration is requesting all Twitter account information from the trio, including mailing addresses and screen names.
The Justice Department has also asked for Twitter accounts of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of funneling classified documents to WikiLeaks.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
