High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! On 14 December 2010, the United States Department of Justice issued a subpoena accompanied by a national security letter to Twitter in relation to ongoing investigations of WikiLeaks. While only five people were individually named, according to lawyer Mark Stephens the order effectively entailed the collection in relation to criminal prosecution of the personal identifying information of over six hundred thousand Twitter users, namely those who were "followers" of WikiLeaks. Twitter appealed against the accompanying gag order in order to be able to disclose its existence to its users, and was ultimately successful in its appeal. Subsequent reactions included the discussion of secret subpoenas in the U.S., criticism of the particular subpoena issued, an immediate, temporary 0.5 percent reduction in the number of Twitter followers of WikiLeaks, and calls for the recognition and emulation of Twitter`s stance.