Watching protesters in Tehran use Twitter and other social networking services to tap out messages and share photos of impromptu demonstrations has put that myth to bed, hopefully forever.

No less an auspicious news consumer than the American government is reading those micro-blogged messages as one way to stay informed on what’s happening on the ground in Iran following the country’s ostensibly marred presidential election.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve seen dramatic photos of protests featuring thousands of demonstrators swarming city squares and read dramatic messages from protesters, such as this one, written supposedly by a student chafing at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s description of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets as dust.

“Ahmadinejad called us dust, we showed him a sandstorm.”

What this episode in Twitter’s evolution shows us again is that the social-networking sites like Twitter are revolutionary in nature. In the case of Iran, protesters have bypassed government controls, and the media, to tell their own stories, much the way savvy Twitter users have done in the aftermath of bombings and politcal arrests over the past two years.

For someone like me, a reporter at newspapers for nearly 19 years and an online journalist for the past 14 months, it is a development that induces both fascination and fear.

It’s fantastic that citizens can get their stories out, and that we may be looking at some intermittent phase that leads toward a more involved citizenry, not only in Iran, but here in U.S. At the same time, who verifies the truthfulness of these messages we’re reading from Tehran?

Also Twitter and their ilk hold out the possibility of sparking a potential army of government watchdogs. But couldn’t it just as easily lead to people reporting their latest sighting of Oprah or Kobe Bryant?

I was reminded of the subversive power of Twitter recently while reporting on a legislative hearing in Santa Fe.

I was the only reporter in the room when Stephen Flance, the chairman of the New Mexico Finance Authority, told state lawmakers that it was his understanding that the FBI phase of the federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations in the Richardson administration was over and now in the hands of officials in Washington, D.C.

It was the first time a government official had said something along those lines publicly, even though the rumors had been rampant for weeks.

I looked around at the room. Seeing no other reporters in the room I realized I had stumbled upon an “exclusive,” or a scoop.

I figured I had a couple of hours to write the story, and I felt pretty good sitting there typing on my laptop.

Ten minutes later, a colleague instant messaged me that state Rep. Brian Egolf, who was among the lawmakers listening to Flance’s presentation, had tweeted Flance’s comments.

Fewer than 100 people follow Egolf, but several are news reporters. About five minutes after I got the message about Egolf’s tweet, one of those reporters — Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican — walked into the room.

He had read Egolf’s tweet.

The story was no longer just mine. I rushed to write the story and get it out. Two hours became 30 minutes.

After the meeting, I joked with Rep. Egolf about him beating me to the story. He apologized. I basically told him no harm, no foul.

But my experience taught me a lesson: It’s a brand new world, not only for governments such as Iran, but for reporters like me who now must compete with a new brand of citizen  journalist.

It’s a new world.

Lawmakers heard this week from the agency’s board chairman Stephen Flance why the agency has taken that position.

“When the Justice Department sends you a letter saying you are requested to not disclose the existence of the subpoena. I am going to pay attention to that,” Flance told lawmakers Wednesday during a meeting of the  legislative New Mexico Finance Authority Oversight Committee. “They also said premature disclosure could affect the outcome of the investigation.”

It appears that NMFA, like other state agencies, is siding with the feds in the balancing act that pits the prosecutors’ request — note: it’s a request — against the state’s inspection of public records act.

While the NMFA — and other New Mexico state agencies — have sided with the feds against the release of public records, state agencies in other states have not always chosen that path during a federal investigation. In Connecticut, the governor’s office in 2004 made subpoenas available to the press despite a request from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that the subpoenas not be made public. I know because I was one of the reporters covering that story.

Ultimately the governor of that state, John Rowland, pleaded guilty to corruption and spent roughly 10 months in federal prison.

Subpoenas often can offer a glimpse into what prosecutors are looking for by the records they request. Those records can be anything from financial records to e-mails from and to specific individuals.

NMFA of course isn’t the only New Mexico agency to not turn over subpoenas from federal prosecutors. The New Mexico State Investment Council and the Educational Retirement Board have refused requests to make subpoenas public. The Independent has asked the ERB to reconsider its denial of the two subpoenas it has received based on a letter the agency’s chairman sent asking that the subpoenas be released.

At the same time the office of Gov. Bill Richardson made public a subpoena it had received earlier this year.

Flance told state lawmakers that the FBI had completed its investigation and that the findings were with the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in Washington. Flance later said Wednesday afternoon that the agency’s general counsel, Rey Romero, had informed him of the news.

Romero, standing next to Flance in a Roundhouse hallway, wouldn’t say who he had talked to or how he had gotten the information. But when asked if he trusted the source and the information that person was telling him, Romero said, “Yes.”

Federal prosecutors have been looking into a lucrative contract that the New Mexico Finance Authority awarded to the California company — CDR Financial Inc. — that made big contributions to political action committees formed by Gov. Bill Richardson.

Flance told lawmakers Wednesday that FBI agents had interviewed several staff and board members affiliated with NMFA. He said later that no one currently associated with NMFA had been asked to testify before the grand jury.

During the course of the federal investigation the state finance authority has turned over reams and reams of information to the grand jury, Flance said.

During his testimony before lawmakers, Flance said “With some level of confidence, I can say no one who is currently with the authority is under any suspicion … of being involved in wrongdoing.”

The names of Dave Contarino, Gov. Bill Richardson’s former chief of staff, and David Harris have come up in media reports about the investigation.

Harris worked at NMFA until 2004.

In January, the investigation into CDR’s contract forced Richardson to withdraw as President Obama’s nominee for U.S. commerce secretary.