On Friday, a federal appeals court in Virginia ruled (PDF) that three activists involved in a WikiLeaks investigation have no right to find out what companies the government sought information from other than Twitter.

In November 2011, a district court judge found that prosecutors could compel Twitter to give up specific information on the three accounts, including IP addresses, direct messages, and other data.

The three activists—Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror), a Dutch hacker named Rop Gonggrijp (@rop_g), and member of the Icelandic parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir (@birgittaj)—are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). All three have known ties to WikiLeaks and are under investigation.

The ACLU and EFF had challenged the government’s right to keep secret additional, related orders—specifically known as “2703(d) orders” and pen registers. Such orders are issued at a much lower legal standard than a probable cause-driven warrant.

“This is certainly a sad day,” Appelbaum wrote on Twitter. “It is personally soul crushing to continue to lose the fight for government transparency.”

Specifically the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument that the public had a right to access such records under the First Amendment, as well as the fact that the case was in the public interest. The court ruled that such orders were part of the investigation and needed to stay sealed.

“The § 2703(d) process is investigative, and openness of the orders does not play a significant role in the functioning of investigations,” the Court found.

“Section 2703(d) proceedings can be likened to grand jury proceedings. In fact, they are a step removed from grand jury proceedings, and are perhaps even more sacrosanct. Proceedings for the issuance of § 2703(d) orders are also like proceedings for the issuance of search warrants, which we have noted are not open,” the court wrote in its decision.