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

#91

Post by cercatrova » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

searchableguy wrote: post #51

cercatrova wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bu…

The only difference is that someone proposed an ideal when talking about government, but not for companies. Why not use the ideal free market here as well?

Free markets are sustained by governments free of bribery and corruption. Otherwise you get monopolies and oligopolies as in the Gilded Age and arguably now.

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

#92

Post by JoeSmithson » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

_gccu wrote: post #90

sneak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot envision any terrorist attack that poses an existential threat to the United States. Fighting terrorism is not a national security matter. Even the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world (not counting the atomic bombings of Japan, which were terroristic by definition but generally excluded from that classification as being carried out during a declared war by a with-a-return-address nation) was…

[flagged]

If I'm following their logic correctly, you cannot justify looking at someone's Twitter DMs to stop a nuclear attack on a city

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

#93

Post by tehwebguy » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

_gccu wrote: post #90

sneak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot envision any terrorist attack that poses an existential threat to the United States. Fighting terrorism is not a national security matter. Even the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world (not counting the atomic bombings of Japan, which were terroristic by definition but generally excluded from that classification as being carried out during a declared war by a with-a-return-address nation) was…

[flagged]

No, not anymore.

9/11 was a self-correcting bug, it became completely irrelevant to security starting on 9/12

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

#94

Post by rapind » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #59

sneak wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot envision any terrorist attack that poses an existential threat to the United States. Fighting terrorism is not a national security matter. Even the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world (not counting the atomic bombings of Japan, which were terroristic by definition but generally excluded from that classification as being carried out during a declared war by a with-a-return-address nation) was…

National security threats don’t have to be existential to be legitimate threats. Threats to American lives can be national security threats, even if they don’t threaten to kill 300 million people. ISIS could never threaten the existence of the USA, but they have killed several innocent people, and it should be the government’s responsibility to prevent attacks. The government should practice restraint with how they d…

We need to be way clearer about what qualifies as national security. Because "Threatens American Lives" could include a million things like McDonald's, Cigarettes, Booze, Driving, etc.

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

#95

Post by goatinaboat » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:30 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…

we are being asked to believe that anything Twitter does or does not do could pose an existential threat to the United States?

Well, they can’t have it both ways. Twitter takes credit for the Arab Spring which was indeed an existential threat to several countries, at least their regimes, but still millions of ordinary citizens were impacted.

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

#96

Post by judge2020 » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:31 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #38

parsimo2010 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, a terrorist group could use private DMs on Twitter to coordinate an attack. If the US captured a low-level terrorist that didn’t know all the details of a plan but knew that the remaining details had been sent to other Twitter users, it would be a legitimate national security request if the government asked Twitter for copies of a user’s private DMs. The hypothetical situation above would be an invasi…

I cannot envision any terrorist attack that poses an existential threat to the United States. Fighting terrorism is not a national security matter. Even the largest terrorist attack in the history of the world (not counting the atomic bombings of Japan, which were terroristic by definition but generally excluded from that classification as being carried out during a declared war by a with-a-return-address nation) was…

"national security" could be at risk if, say, a terrorist intended to attack the Pentagon or the White House or any number of other federal buildings. But yes, I doubt anything that high-profile would be in twitter DMs (unless they did e2ee and only used twitter as transit) and I completely agree with your comment otherwise.

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

#97

Post by microcolonel » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

Seems like they definitely have every right to reveal these; I don't see how there is a constitutional basis for this unless they can demonstrate that Twitter would be enabling some imminent vital threat.

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

#98

Post by kerkeslager » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #35

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…

Hypothetically, a terrorist group could use private DMs on Twitter to coordinate an attack. If the US captured a low-level terrorist that didn’t know all the details of a plan but knew that the remaining details had been sent to other Twitter users, it would be a legitimate national security request if the government asked Twitter for copies of a user’s private DMs. The hypothetical situation above would be an invasi…

> If the US government made one request to stop a terrorist plot that they had some specific knowledge of, that would be okay in my eyes.

How can we tell that they just didn't straight up lie about whether the one request was to stop a terrorist plot, and not to gather intel on political foes or ex girlfriends? With no oversight and no one allowed to advocate for the rights of the individuals under surveillance, I am still not okay with one request to which they claim is stop a terrorist plot that they claim to have specific knowledge of, because there's no checks and balances to prevent them from simply lying.

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

#99

Post by jsjddbbwj » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #18

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.

No wonder they wanted to replace Dorsey

Dorsey is a terrible, part time CEO.

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

#100

Post by peter_d_sherman » Sat, Apr 18, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

A few thoughts:

1) There is no such thing as privacy anymore, at least with respect to anything electronic. I know this because I wanted to be the head of a large online community (I worked on a program which I hoped would become the next Facebook), and I studied everything I could about security/privacy that I could for many years.

2) It would be better, far better, if, when users signed up on Twitter (or any other online service for that matter) if there was a big screen which comes up, with big letters, and says "Everything you say could potentially be taken out of context, could potentially be used against you in Court, and/or could potentially be spun on the News Media or by other people in such a way so as to destroy your reputation, livelihood, and potentially your life." This would be honest, ethical, up-front. "Forewarned is forearmed", as they say...

3) When Jack Dorsey filed his articles of incorporation, for his company (which Venture Capitalists require, and for good reason, if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to sue if/when the founder skips town on them!), but when he did this, he made a legally binding CONTRACT with the Government. Oh sure, it may have been a State government, but let's remember the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution (the Constitution is also a CONTRACT, incidentally...). But once you do this, even though you might not be liable financially on a personal level for your company, you have basically set yourself up to be REGULATED, REGULATED, REGULATED, by the Government and its in-no-shortage-of-supply Lawyers... (Regulated is another fun word for "they're going to tell you what to do" ).

(Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing... historically that regulation created some major wins for society, case in point, the meat packing industry, many many years ago, when proper sanitary conditions were not followed, and there are many other examples of this).

But the thing is, this Judge is making his decision based on that CONTRACT (the contract is the tip of the iceberg, by the way, it basically makes the company accept ALL of the thousands of miles of statutory U.S. code, it's sort a lead-in to that).

So, based on what I know about U.S. Law -- the Judge is probably, probably not wrong, but remember, he's making his decision based on

a) The CONTRACT, aka "Articles Of Incorporation".

b) The miles and miles of State, Federal, Statutory Code and Agency Code (since federal agencies are quasi-law creating entities) that the said CONTRACT (a), forces the company to accept...

In other words:

c) Lawyers, not technologists, are running the show...

And you wondered how "The Swamp" works...

Hey, I think I remember some song lyrics (Depeche Mode, actually!):

"The handshake seals the contract

from the contract

There's no turning back

[...]

The holiday was fun packed

The contract still intact..."

-Depeche Mode, Grabbing Hands