https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200205/01213343857/twitter-moves-to-quash-fishing-expedition-subpoena-info-devin-nunes-cow-devin-nunes-lawyer-unrelated-case.shtml

Last week, we wrote about the details of how it appeared that Devin Nunes' lawyer, Steven Biss, appeared to be using his subpoena power to try to unearth the identity of the parody account for "Devin Nunes Cow" in a totally unrelated case. I'm kind of amazed that no one else has really picked up on this story, because it's crazy. Biss has been representing Nunes in his various (highly questionable) defamation lawsuits, including the very first, which was focused on trying to expose a couple parody accounts that mocked Nunes, a Congressional Representative who really needs to grow some thicker skin. We've highlighted how much of Nunes' activity in that case in particular appears to be a fishing expedition to find out the identities of some of his critics.

What was so crazy about the story last week was that this new subpoena, sent to Twitter and seeking out information (including direct messages) from a variety of Twitter accounts, including @DevinCow, was in a totally unrelated case (the details of which are complex, and we tried to cover in that original post). As we highlighted, there were a bunch of questions raised by this -- first, sending a subpoena to Twitter to access someone's DMs is ridiculous. It would violated the Stored Communications Act. Twitter is barred from handing out such communications via civil subpoena. The correct process for Biss, if those communications are so vital to his case, would be to subpoena the users directly. But, of course, that would tip them off. The next big problem was that it appeared that at least two of the names on the list of Twitter accounts that were subpoenaed (and possibly more) had no connection whatsoever with the case at hand, involving a dispute between a well known lawyer and a well known PR executive. But they were relevant to the Devin Nunes suit.