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Twitter discloses national security letters

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Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#31

Post by phpnode »

teddyh wrote: post #27
vkou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same Scott Adams that claims to have been shadowbanned, without any proof? Might his lower Twitter engagement have something to do with people getting sick of hearing from him about Trump?

How would anyone actually prove something like this, short of getting Twitter to admit it? What he has seen is: > my tweets only go out to a subset of my followers. The rest don’t know I tweeted. My followers tell me this is the case. They have to visit my timeline to see my tweets. What other proof could anyone realistically provide?

That is how twitter works - it doesn't show every tweet from everyone you follow in your timeline, it shows a subset based on what it considers most relevant.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#32

Post by imglorp »

losteric wrote: post #23
dgrealy wrote: post #19

It's important to remember that these orders serve a real and necessary role in investigating serious criminals; these individuals are not named prior to trial or if the investigation does not lead to a trial. It should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation.

That's certainly the intent, but at this point NSL's are more of a drag-net approach. Rampant abuse is undermining it's legitimacy.

We should be totally okay with court ordered records requests against specific accounts. That's LEO doing his job. It doesn't look like these two letters were court ordered however. Even so, it was bounded time against two accounts and of course you don't want to tip them off.

It's the bulk tap rooms, such as the AT&T one, that ARE the dragnet and highly abusive of our rights. I feel like this whole NSL release program of late is a distraction tactic to take our attention away from the real abuse.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#33

Post by djsumdog »

phpnode wrote: post #31
teddyh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would anyone actually prove something like this, short of getting Twitter to admit it? What he has seen is: > my tweets only go out to a subset of my followers. The rest don’t know I tweeted. My followers tell me this is the case. They have to visit my timeline to see my tweets. What other proof could anyone realistically provide?

That is how twitter works - it doesn't show every tweet from everyone you follow in your timeline, it shows a subset based on what it considers most relevant.

It's a bigger problem in general with both Twitter/FB and how they filter the order content is displayed (sometimes called "the filter bubble") in order to drive up engagement and revenue.

The average person doesn't care about federated social networks and the average dev or admin doesn't have the time outside of work to setup and maintain one for his or herself.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#34

Post by Thlom »

phpnode wrote: post #31
teddyh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would anyone actually prove something like this, short of getting Twitter to admit it? What he has seen is: > my tweets only go out to a subset of my followers. The rest don’t know I tweeted. My followers tell me this is the case. They have to visit my timeline to see my tweets. What other proof could anyone realistically provide?

That is how twitter works - it doesn't show every tweet from everyone you follow in your timeline, it shows a subset based on what it considers most relevant.

That's why I almost never use the Twitter web site or their app. Too confusing. I stick with Tweetbot which still only shows the complete timeline in reversed chronological order.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#35

Post by matt4077 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #29
jpmattia wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these individuals are not named, but it should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation. If only there were some way of determining whether they were being unlawfully persecuted or validly investigated.

That's what trials are for. The trial system is deeply imperfect, but investigating someone with a view to putting them on trial is not inherently untoward. You seem to be arguing that a trial should precede an investigation.

They are arguing for the 200-year+ tradition of getting a judge to sign off on invasive investigations.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#36

Post by orbitingpluto »

thedevil wrote: post #30
vkou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same Scott Adams that claims to have been shadowbanned, without any proof? Might his lower Twitter engagement have something to do with people getting sick of hearing from him about Trump?

"Might his lower Twitter engagement have something to do with people getting sick of hearing from him about Trump?" Do you really think the attention he gets on Twitter DROPPED because of him talking about Trump?

I've stopped reading Dilbert let alone Twitter.

Seeing him post pictures of himself acting in the role of sugar daddy to a petulant child-woman is well beyond my initial scope of interest in him.

My interest was Dilbert. It was all about making fun of the disconnect between management and employees. Ironically, his public persona is now at odds with the general theme of his work.

I suspect his original material is just the byproduct of his initial position and people emailing anecdotes to him.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#37

Post by nerfhammer »

teddyh wrote: post #27
vkou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same Scott Adams that claims to have been shadowbanned, without any proof? Might his lower Twitter engagement have something to do with people getting sick of hearing from him about Trump?

How would anyone actually prove something like this, short of getting Twitter to admit it? What he has seen is: > my tweets only go out to a subset of my followers. The rest don’t know I tweeted. My followers tell me this is the case. They have to visit my timeline to see my tweets. What other proof could anyone realistically provide?

Considered whether it was algorithmic timeline?

I unfollowed him around this time as he was tweeting what felt like hundreds of times a day with tweets that felt very repetitive

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#38

Post by orbitingpluto »

exp1orer wrote: post #24
dmix wrote: post #5

This is great Twitter is being open about these. Do these releases get media coverage? Is anyone talking about the various lawsuits and blog posts about public releases of NSLs by tech companies? I wish the NYTimes and WaPo spent as much time caring about this stuff as they did about being the non-critical mouthpiece for various "anonymous intelligence officials". There is definitely a story that could be made out of…

If you read the actual letters, you'll see they ask for "the name, address, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records for all services, as well as all accounts, provided to the individual(s) or identifier(s) listed below." The letter explicitly says not to provide information "that would disclose the content of any electronic communication".

Sounds like the NSL is for an American citizen for whom they don't have sufficient evidence to obtain a warrant. Metadata.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#39

Post by anigbrowl »

matt4077 wrote: post #35
anigbrowl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what trials are for. The trial system is deeply imperfect, but investigating someone with a view to putting them on trial is not inherently untoward. You seem to be arguing that a trial should precede an investigation.

They are arguing for the 200-year+ tradition of getting a judge to sign off on invasive investigations.

And when they do so they complain about judges' willingness to do it. There is no procedural solution that will ever be satisfying to people who wish to return or a technologically simpler time.

Re: Twitter discloses national security letters

#40

Post by CaptSpify »

thinkloop wrote: post #25
CaptSpify wrote: post #2

Although they could have just sent it onto the intended target and gone quietly about their day, I'm really glad that Twitter made this an announcement. Do they have any kind of warrant canary system?

I was just thinking about this - what kind of system could work in these circumstances? Say someone had to press a button every hour otherwise an automatic public release gets sent - the government could simply imprison the person for not pressing it. Say no-one knew who is supposed to press it because of some system of randomness and crypto, then you just threaten the CEO with imprisonment for not dismantling the wh…

preface: I'm not the person you want for thoughts on this from, there are clearly smarter people to ask.

I guess it would have to work like a dead-man switch, in that not taking action triggered it. The way I understand the law is that they can force you to omit details about it i.e. "I refuse to comment", but they can't make you lie about it. I wonder if, believing that "omitting details" to be morally/religiously wrong, could you argue that it is preventing your freedom of religion?

Ultimately though, I agree that only a fully decentralized organization would work. I'd be open to other ideas, but I've never heard of one that avoids the issues that you mention above.

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