U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#21

Post by jjoonathan » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

choward wrote: post #10

cryptica wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government. I don't trust US corporations at all and I thought that there was some kind of corporate conspiracy to discredit the US government to allow corporations to gain more power... Now I'm thinking that the situation in the US is even worse than that; not only are corporat…

> What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government. Government and corporations are merging to become the same thing. I just assume any data I give to a corporation or government is public since they share your data anyway.

Which is prudent, but let's be clear: it doesn't make it right for them to do so.

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#22

Post by lawlessquestion » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

hf8665 wrote: post #11

Does anyone know why judges are so deferential to the US security apparatus? It seems in general like they have a clear bias toward "taking the security system at its word", even when common sense would dictate otherwise in any particular case. It's sincerely puzzling to me why national security entities seem to get treated so differently and I wonder if there's some legal precedent or consideration I'm not aware of.…

Judges are nominated by the president, and approved by the senate. If the people that nominate the judges are controlled hook line and sinker by the security apparatus, there's no reason to believe judges would operate any differently. They know where there bread is buttered

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#23

Post by 1f60c » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

choward wrote: post #14

Could Twitter set up a warrant canary for every user? Append "/canary" to URLs and make it 404 if the data has been compromised.

But couldn't they force Twitter to keep updating the canary as part of the gag order?

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#24

Post by egberts » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

What happened to their canary file?

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#25

Post by cercatrova » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

Mary-Jane wrote: post #17

pluc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because normally a government does smart thing for its people. It hasn't done that in some time in the US.

Since when? Governments have a history of greed, corruption, and trampling on the rights of it's people for it's own gain. Ref: any history book on any country, ever

The problem is all large organizations strive for power. One can be more easily changed than the other, at least in democratic republics. Corporations are more like autocracies, their leadership can't be changed. One can say that corporations derive power from customers, but this is not necessarily so. As they grow larger, they can necessarily control user habits through psychological means. The government can too but it has a lesser incentive, as power is more distributed, again in a democratic republic. Money however is a much better fitness function than power, as it can be quantified, so it is unsurprising that corporations gain power.

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#26

Post by pinkfoot » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

hf8665 wrote: post #11

Does anyone know why judges are so deferential to the US security apparatus? It seems in general like they have a clear bias toward "taking the security system at its word", even when common sense would dictate otherwise in any particular case. It's sincerely puzzling to me why national security entities seem to get treated so differently and I wonder if there's some legal precedent or consideration I'm not aware of.…

> Does anyone know why judges are so deferential to the US security apparatus?

Kompromat?

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#27

Post by nabla9 » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #4

Can we just ponder for a moment that we are being asked to believe that anything Twitter does or does not do could pose an existential threat to the United States? “National security” is a sham now and has been a sham every other time it has ever been used as a blanket override for human rights. Human rights to free expression are more important than any nation. This is just government spies trying to cover their ass…

Let's clarify Twitter request first: Twitter requested permission to reveal exact number of requests.

Companies are allowed to reveal gagged legal process in ranges of 1000, starting at 0, for six-month periods. Combined FISC and NSL requests can be revealed in ranges of 250.

This just shows that Twitter is fighting all the way, as I mentioned in my other comment.

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#28

Post by ceejayoz » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:56 PM UTC

Mary-Jane wrote: post #17

pluc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because normally a government does smart thing for its people. It hasn't done that in some time in the US.

Since when? Governments have a history of greed, corruption, and trampling on the rights of it's people for it's own gain. Ref: any history book on any country, ever

The same is true for unregulated business.

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#29

Post by gonzo41 » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #8

We learn from Snowden leaks that Twitter was the only major platform that refused to participate voluntarily with PRISM surveillance. Twitter only complied with legitimate FISA requests they were not able to refuse. Microsoft,Yahoo, Google, AOL, Skype and Apple all did more than legally required.

Everyone else you mentioned runs a non trivial business that interacts with the government significantly. I know trump get's a lot of action on twitter but the next guy won't be using it for the main means of comms.

It's great that twitter took a stand, but if that company failed everyone would easily replace it. Twitter is toy.

Re: U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests

#30

Post by lokar » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

hf8665 wrote: post #11

Does anyone know why judges are so deferential to the US security apparatus? It seems in general like they have a clear bias toward "taking the security system at its word", even when common sense would dictate otherwise in any particular case. It's sincerely puzzling to me why national security entities seem to get treated so differently and I wonder if there's some legal precedent or consideration I'm not aware of.…

If what you mean is why do most of the judges tend to rule the same way in this area, it's due to precedent, they don't really have a choice. The balance (or lack of one) you note was mostly established by higher courts years ago.