A.G. Corbett Defends Twitter Subpeona

PHILADELPHIA - "Twitter-gate" entered another round Friday as Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett defended his demand to find out the names of two of his critics who bashed him on Twitter.

Corbett has really drawn a lot of criticism, and his rivals say he is on the wrong side of freedom of speech.

The American Civil Liberties Union had threatened to sue to protect the identities of those bloggers.

It all started when Corbett tried to get Twitter to give up the names of two "Tweeps" openly critical of him.

Corbett now says he did so to convince the judge to give a heavy sentence to corruption defendant Brett Cott. He believed Cott was using anonymously using Twitter to bash him and intimidate witnesses and was not remorseful at all.

The subpoena request sparked Corbett's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, Allegheny Executive Dan Onorato, to accuse the state's attorney general of using his power for personal problems.

In the end, Twitter never gave up the names, and the judge without that information threw the book at Cott, giving him up to five years.

Former federal prosecutor Fred Tecce said Corbett is in a tricky spot, both running for office and trying to effectively do his job at the same time.

"He has to walk a fine line," Tecce said. "You know, if he had stepped over the line, he would have really stepped on the rake here and could really get himself in trouble. But the other side of the coin is he is an elected official, he has a job to do, he swore to uphold the Constitution of the state of Pennsylvania, and he swore to do his job. And I would be more worried about a guy who was more worried about getting elected to another job than focusing in and doing his job that he was appointed to do in the first place."

Author Buzz Bissinger reacted to the case Friday on the Fox 29 News at 5 and said he thinks the attorney general wishes he had never tried to get information out of Twitter.

"I think it's outrageous. I think it's ridiculous. I think it is an abuse of power. Yes, it is about the Constitution – it's about the First Amendment, free speech. You know, I'm on Twitter. People say terrible things about me. You know what? You fight back on Twitter. You issue a Tweet back in response. I think what Corbett did was pathetic. People are allowed to do Twitter anonymously. That's the way it works. It made no difference in the sentencing, and I think everyone who Twitters should just condemn Corbett for what he did."

Bussinger called it "one of the most outrageous abuses of power that I've seen," adding that the punishment should be dealing with millions of Tweets.

"Twitter was right not to give up the names," Bussinger said. I don't know what Corbett was doing except it was pretty stupid."