U.S. judge blocks Twitter’s bid to reveal government surveillance requests

guest · Apr 18, 2020

U.S. judge blocks Twitter’s bid to reveal government surveillance requests
April 18, 2020
https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/18/...d-to-reveal-government-surveillance-requests/

Twitter will not be able to reveal surveillance requests it received from the U.S. government after a federal judge accepted government arguments that this was likely to harm national security after a near six-year long legal battle.

The social media company had sued the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 to be allowed to reveal, as part of its “Draft Transparency Report”, the surveillance requests it received. It argued its free-speech rights were being violated by not being allowed to reveal the details.
The judge ruled on Friday that granting Twitter’s request “would be likely to lead to grave or imminent harm to the national security.” “The Government’s motion for summary judgment is GRANTED and Twitter’s motion for summary judgment is DENIED”, the judge said in her order.
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The lawsuit had followed months of fruitless negotiations with the government and had marked an escalation in the internet industry’s battle over government gag orders on the nature and number of requests for private user information.
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mirimir · Apr 18, 2020

Someone should just leak all that stuff. I mean, why argue about it in court? Maybe just get a little lax about security. Click on some phishing email.

Palancar · Apr 19, 2020

Yep. In addition it should be abundantly obvious that ALL the social media giants are being "tasked" (for privacy invasions) for help by the 3 letter agencies. Anything to the contrary is simply unbelievable.

guest · Apr 25, 2020

Judge Dismisses Twitter’s Lawsuit Over Its Rights to Publish Information About Government Surveillance Orders
April 23, 2020
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/...uit-over-its-rights-publish-information-about

A federal judge dismissed Twitter’s long-pending lawsuit last week over its right to share information about secret government surveillance orders for its users’ information. We hope that Twitter will continue its fight for transparency by appealing this decision.
Background: The Government’s Limits on National Security Transparency
Using surveillance authorities such as national security letters (NSLs) and FISA court orders, the government can not only demand that companies turn over information about their customers’ accounts, but can also gag the company from disclosing any information about the demand— [...]
Twitter Sues for More Transparency
In mid-2014, Twitter submitted a draft transparency report to the FBI to review pursuant to the government’s settlement with other tech companies.
Though Twitter was not a party to the January 2014 agreement, the FBI nonetheless censored information in Twitter’s report that contained total numbers of secret surveillance orders Twitter had received. [...]
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In 2017, [...] The government subsequently submitted several classified declarations into evidence. But it claimed that the declarations contained state secrets so sensitive that even Twitter’s clearance-holding attorneys could not see them.

On Friday, however, the judge in this case ruled that it would allow the government’s state-secrets claim and would not require the government to turn over the classified declarations to Twitter’s counsel.
Disturbingly, the judge provided next-to-no justification for either of these decisions. In a footnote, the judge held that the government’s classified evidence could remain a secret even from Twitter’s attorneys who already had security clearances.

The brevity of the opinion is particularly extraordinary given that the parties have been litigating the case for almost six years.
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We hope that Twitter will appeal this decision and that the Ninth Circuit will make clear that companies have a right to speak out about government surveillance.
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guest · Oct 12, 2020

EFF and ACLU Ask Ninth Circuit to Overturn Government’s Censorship of Twitter’s Transparency Report
October 9, 2020
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/...cuit-overturn-governments-censorship-twitters

Citing national security concerns, the government is attempting to infringe on Twitter's First Amendment right to inform the public about secret government surveillance orders. For more than six years, Twitter has been fighting in court to share information about law enforcement orders it received in 2014.
Now, Twitter has brought that fight to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. EFF, along with the ACLU, filed an amicus brief last week to underscore the First Amendment rights at stake.

We hope that the hope that the Ninth Circuit will say the same.
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