WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alan Dershowitz has joined an effort to keep U.S. authorities from reviewing Twitter accounts related to the WikiLeaks case.
The U.S. Justice Department in December subpoenaed the social network site to obtain communications between the documents leaks site and its followers.
WikiLeaks, which solicits inside information from governments and corporations, last year obtained a massive cache of internal U.S. State Department exchanges. A number of the exchanges have led to strained diplomatic relations.
Dershowitz, one of the premier U.S. constitutional lawyers and a passionate defender of Israel, said his role would be restricted to the Twitter matter.
"I’m currently in this case because I believe that to protect the First Amendment,we need to protect new electronic media vigorously," he told Politico this week after a news release from WikiLeaks announced his hiring.
Dershowitz told CNN that he was acting as an adviser to the team of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but not as his lawyer.
Hearings on the matter began this week in a court in Alexandria, Va.
