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aGameOfThrones
08-09-2014, 06:26 PM
New York authorities have subpoenaed Twitter to unmask who's behind a parody account that tweeted responsibility for last month's Brooklyn Bridge caper.

The New York Police Department awoke July 22 with egg on its face when two giant American flags atop two locked 276-foot towers were stolen from one of the Big Apple's most heavily guarded landmarks and were replaced with bleached-out Old Glories.

Nobody claimed responsibility other than a Twitter account that was clearly marked "parody." The tweet from @BicycleLobby was picked up by several news agencies and treated as a confession before they backtracked.
"Earlier today we hoisted two white flags to signal our complete surrender of the Brooklyn Bridge bicycle path to pedestrians," the tweet read. (The Twitter handle jokes about the powerful bike lobby, which in reality doesn't exist.)

New York District Attorney's Office, meanwhile, hasn't made any arrests a month after the caper. And it's obviously not laughing about the @BicycleLobby tweet. Prosecutors subpoenaed Twitter to learn everything they could about who's behind the account, including the IP logs connected to the nefarious tweet in question.

The parody account tweeted a link to the subpoena Friday and also tweeted that @BicycleLobby "did not fake the Moon landing or go for a ride with Beyoncé."

Steve Vaccaro, the attorney for the account's author, said his anonymous client wasn't behind the Brooklyn Bridge debacle.

"He’s claimed credit for the moon landing, for the faking of President Obama’s birth certificate, for the crash of the New York Times website,” Vaccaro told the New York Times. "It should be transparently clear to anyone that this was a joke."


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/cops-eyeing-parody-twitter-account-in-brooklyn-bridge-caper/

Warrior_of_Freedom
08-10-2014, 09:09 PM
They know it's a joke they just don't find it funny and they should be going to court to answer for their abuse of power

KCIndy
08-10-2014, 09:37 PM
These days, having a sense of humor is considered Politically Incorrect by the Feds. Try it with them and you're likely to wind up incarcerated or worse.

pcosmar
08-10-2014, 09:45 PM
"We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor we're aware of"

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