The US Can Stop Twitter From Releasing Details In Spy Report (bloomberg.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The US can stop Twitter from releasing details about the government's demands for user information in national security investigations, a court ruled (PDF), in the same week House Republicans are to grill national security officials over surveillance. Twitter had protested the government's redactions to a 2014 "transparency report" that featured a numerical breakdown of national security-related data requests from the previous year. The US appeals court in San Francisco on Monday agreed with a lower-court judge that the Justice Department had shown a "compelling" interest in keeping that information secret. Based on classified and unclassified declarations provided by government officials, the court was "able to appreciate why Twitter's proposed disclosure would risk making our foreign adversaries aware of what is being surveilled and what is not being surveilled -- if anything at all," US Circuit Judge Daniel Bress wrote for the three-judge panel.
Although the case is almost a decade old, the ruling comes just as lawmakers and US national security agencies gear up for a bruising fight over making changes to a key surveillance program. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, described by intelligence officials as a key authority, expires on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to renew it. US agencies use the authority to compel internet and technology companies to turn over information about suspected foreign terrorists and spies. Changes to Section 702 could include altering what companies like Twitter are required to do in response to government demands. "The case at issue in Monday's decision involved efforts by Twitter to share information about two types of federal law enforcement demands on the social media company: 'national security letters' for subscriber information, which would cover metadata but not the substance of any electronic communications, and orders under FISA, which could include content," adds Bloomberg.
Judge Daniel Bress wrote: "The government may not fend off every First Amendment challenge by invoking national security. But we must apply the First Amendment with due regard for the government's compelling interest in securing the safety of our country and its people."
Although the case is almost a decade old, the ruling comes just as lawmakers and US national security agencies gear up for a bruising fight over making changes to a key surveillance program. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, described by intelligence officials as a key authority, expires on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to renew it. US agencies use the authority to compel internet and technology companies to turn over information about suspected foreign terrorists and spies. Changes to Section 702 could include altering what companies like Twitter are required to do in response to government demands. "The case at issue in Monday's decision involved efforts by Twitter to share information about two types of federal law enforcement demands on the social media company: 'national security letters' for subscriber information, which would cover metadata but not the substance of any electronic communications, and orders under FISA, which could include content," adds Bloomberg.
Judge Daniel Bress wrote: "The government may not fend off every First Amendment challenge by invoking national security. But we must apply the First Amendment with due regard for the government's compelling interest in securing the safety of our country and its people."
Fine-grained warrant canary (Score:1)
Just leave it on Amazon storage (Score:1)
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Re: Just leave it on Amazon storage (Score:2)
The right to exercise constitutional rights (Score:5, Insightful)
ends at the country's national security interest.
Dear citizen, you must understand that it is for your own good and the good of the country that you don't say that.
Dear citizen, you certainly must understand that those people will hurt us if you exercise your constitutional rights. Don't worry about what we're looking at - trust us, we have your best interests at heart. After all, if you have nothing to hide, why worry?
Oh dear, you poor thing. Of course we can't eplain why - it's a matter of national security. You wouldn't want those people to win, now would you?
I really can't believe I have to explain it to you! Any objection to our narrative, to what we say is the truth - and I really hope you're not questioning that - must surely come from sympathies for the enemy. And I'm confident that you, or at least the judge, should it ever - Heaven forbid - come to that, will see it exactly the same way.
Now sleep, dear citizen, while we conduct the affairs of state, and when you wake, concern yourselves only with your personal comfort, the teams competing in the big game, the price of gasoline, the coming epidemic...
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This post is confusing, it applies both to the government, and any special group that thinks they're more special than others / other special interest groups. (I know they try to stay away from each other to avoid The Special Wars saga)
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The sad part is that you're right - that there are special interest groups that, while not possessing governmental authority, are able to achieve much the same effect through willingness to slander their enemies.
Re: The right to exercise constitutional rights (Score:2)
This is art. I encourage you to post it somewhere more prestigious
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This is why they have it in for TikTok (Score:5, Insightful)
Send these sort of user information requests to Twitter and they have to comply. Imagine if the government decided to make things difficult for Musk in a similar manner to what DeSantis did with Disney. "That's a nice BEV subsidy arrangement you have there. It'd be a real shame if we decided your vehicles no longer meet the standards to qualify for it."
Meanwhile, TikTok could just respond to user information requests with "We're in China. Bite me."
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Tiktok has US servers and can be banned from doing business in the US. I honestly don't see them pulling a Google and leave the market.
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The problem with tick tock is there a Chinese owned company and we're trying to start up a cold war with China because we need an enemy of large enough to justify a 1 trillion dollar a year military budget. And heaven forfend we asked a 1% to pay for all that
Just leak it (Score:3, Insightful)
Many details from the highest levels of government have been leaked in recent years, like tax returns and Supreme Court write-ups before they are sent out to the public...
So don't release the report on Twitter, instead have some friendly journalist be sent it by an "inside source" it and publish it. Twitter can vow to find the insider and nothing will happen. It's been proven it's totally OK to release Top Secret information in this way.
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instead have some friendly journalist be sent it by an "inside source"
Like Julian Assange?
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Have some decency.
Musk spread nonsense about the danger of Corona and about the life-saving Corona restrictions.
Won't Have to Worry About Surveillanve (Score:2)
3 felonies a day (Score:1)
We got to keep the prison industrial complex going no matter what.
Does it make us safer? Absolutely not, but there is money for a small group of people to be had.
Like the government (Score:2)
What good are theoretical limits? (Score:2)
"The government may not fend off every First Amendment challenge by invoking national security. But we must apply the First Amendment with due regard for the government's compelling interest in securing the safety of our country and its people."
If you rule in favor of the government in every single case, just fucking admit they may indeed fend off every 1A challenge by invoking national security, don't pretend you have any actual respect for the constitution where there are limits, you just magically find they're a little further than any actual case in front of you. Dishonest hack.
Judges have got it wrong? (Score:2)
They choose to comply with the secrecy. (Score:3)
So, while I don't trust a corporation as far as I could fuck it, I do trust that an aggregate of individuals has enough sentient people among them to blow the whistle (regardless of legal consequences) if the need is morally unambiguous. This means that in principle, their abiding by secrecy orders is a modest reassurance that there are no morally unambiguous reasons to release these details, and abiding by court decisions is adequate in this instance.
That said, the tangential issue of invoking "national security" to shut down judicial oversight is thoroughly lawless and cannot be tolerated. Fortunately, this doesn't appear to be an instance of that.
Secrets only last so long (Score:2)
A day will come that people that don't like these types of secrets will leak the info one way or the other. I can see in 20-30 years a lot of this coming out like how the FBI abused its powers in nearly every way under Hoover or how the CIA drugged and poisoned random citizens just to see what happens and how they respond.
So, yeah its bad that the government likes to do bad things and keep it secret. But the more than happens, the more people know about the secret and the greater likelihood that someone som
So Much For Checks and Balances (Score:2)