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

reuters.com

181–190 of 196 posts

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

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that relevant? Don't dead name people and in general don't be a dick.

The variable labeled 'Bradley' wasn't relabeled to 'Chelsea' until well after the leak. Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time. Although you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social convention you like. I assume it provides you a sense of belonging, moral righteousness, etc.. But, given the conformity you seem to demand, you might want to consider who here is most deserving of the "dic…

> Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time.

> you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social convention you like.

You don't see the irony here?

I'm not going to waste any time replying further but I'd simply point out that human empathy and care for others costs nothing here.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that relevant? Don't dead name people and in general don't be a dick.

The variable labeled 'Bradley' wasn't relabeled to 'Chelsea' until well after the leak. Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time. Although you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social convention you like. I assume it provides you a sense of belonging, moral righteousness, etc.. But, given the conformity you seem to demand, you might want to consider who here is most deserving of the "dic…

Please refer to the following article on how to respect transgender people and something fundamentally core to another person's existence:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/stuck-how-refer-tra...

Kind regards, member of the LGBTQ community and HN.

P.S. It's just about respect, nothing else.

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

#183
post #38

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…

But think of THE CHILDREN!

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

#184
post #82
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is national security other than the continued existence of a nation? Any other sub-existential attacks can accurately be classified as "crime", which is a police matter, for which we already have a legal framework. They have to inflate it into something big and scary otherwise people would say "hey, wait a minute, that's not constitutional..." Don't get it twisted: it's just a cover for domestic criminals inside…

For the past 7 years Ukraine has suffered from poor national security even though there has been very little risk of its ceasing to exist as an independent nation. Ditto Syria even though even if Assad's government had fallen, Syria would've almost certainly continued to exist as a nation.

You've failed to define national security, other than to describe the Ukraine as having a bad one.

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

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The variable labeled 'Bradley' wasn't relabeled to 'Chelsea' until well after the leak. Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time. Although you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social convention you like. I assume it provides you a sense of belonging, moral righteousness, etc.. But, given the conformity you seem to demand, you might want to consider who here is most deserving of the "dic…

> Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time. > you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social convention you like. You don't see the irony here? I'm not going to waste any time replying further but I'd simply point out that human empathy and care for others costs nothing here.

There is no irony. They are free to be as illogical as they like. I can't impose reason upon them as they clearly reject it.

Empathy is entirely extraneous to the discussion. If someone responds emotionally to an otherwise dispassionate discourse, that is their own concern.

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

#186
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally before the day was over, it was no longer possible to hijack a plane and fly it into a building. The brave people on United Airlines Flight 93 likely prevented a much worse tragedy, simply because they were aware of what could happen.

> before the day was over, it was no longer possible to hijack a plane and fly it into a building These aren't hijackings but your statement is factually dubious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Pirelli_Tower_airplane_cr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Tampa_Cessna_172_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_New_York_City_plane_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack https://en.wikipe…

> These aren't hijackings

Well, there you have what differentiates your examples from what I said.

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

#187
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.

Not true. Twitter declined to build tools, but didn't withold information more than others. And since Twitter has no internal security, NSA could simply help itself to Twitter data without consent, whereas they might need to compel a handover from other orgs.

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

#188
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can - with a targeted warrant. The part where it requires a sign-off from a judge is literally the moment where you justify looking at someone's Twitter DM. (In rare (non-existing?) cases when warrant-based workflow is too slow, when you need access right fucking now , I think it would make sense to have self-issued warrants available as an option to federal officers, on the provision that self-issuing a warrant…

It seems that a 24/7 set of federal judges with smartphones on them for quickly processing warrant applications is a better fix to “warrants are slow” than giving cops the power to simply skip them when they feel like it. As it stands now, the majority of federal search warrants contain easily falsified perjury, and yet they are still approved by judges almost without exception and the feds that wrote them suffer no…

The point of a warrant is the independent audit. As long as that's enforced, it being at least partially in retrospect shouldn't be a problem; the issue being how you would give that teeth in a way that's both not absurdly disproportionate yet still sufficiently discouraging. In any case, you'd at a bare minimum want a one sided notification a priori.

I'd be more worried about whether judges really are independent and trying to critically reject warrants, rather than exactly when they do so. And another weakness in our current system: warrants are a pretty voluntary form of oversight. There are no reliable checks against warrant-less actions that should have required a warrant. Unless it's really egregious, police will not be held liable, defense attorneys may not be informed, and they may even be able to use the ill-gotten information for personal/legal gain, because finding a parallel construction once you know what you're looking for is obviously much, much easier.

So I'd say that the problems are more one of a too-weak audit, and the moment at which that happens is not critical, even if it is relevant.

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

#189
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A NSL doesn’t allow the government to ask for the contents of a DM. They would need a warrant for that, providing some checks and balances.

These statements are both false.

You are wrong, go read the EFF FAQ:

https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters/

NSL are only for "metadata" not user content. Govt can get a list of the calls you made, but not what your said. They can get IP addresses, but not the email body.

I don't support NSLs (4th amendment + unconstitutional gag order), but a lot of the opposition is based in hysterical ignorance. If you are going to get worked up about it, do yourself a favor and at least understand what they are.

Can the FBI obtain content—like e-mails or the content of phone calls—with an NSL?

Not legally. While each type of NSL allows the FBI to obtain a different type of information, that information is limited to records—such as “subscriber information and toll billing records information” from telephone companies.

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

#190
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Terrorism is generally a criminal matter, not a military matter. It gets its power from the overreaction of the target. It is the violent equivalent of trolling, and your attitude is what feeds it. Weak points - like unreinforced flight deck doors - should and have been fixed. But you don't throw away a free and liberal society.

This statement is so ridiculous I don’t even know how to respond. Just thinking of the amount of my friends that died, apparently to a troll, so you can sit here and dispense ignorance.
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