Fitzgibbon v. Radack

A political consultant sued a lawyer over her online criticisms and included a claim that she “conspired” to defame him. The consultant then had a subpoena issued to Twitter for information identifying the owners of twenty-two separate Twitter accounts, saying that he needed to probe their knowledge of the claimed conspiracy. Twitter filed a motion to quash the subpoena. Public Citizen filed an amicus brief arguing that, because the subpoena threatens the right to speak anonymously of the Twitter account holders, the plaintiff has to show that the subpoena is in good faith and that he has a genuine need for the evidence of each of the account holders to prevail in his core claims.