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Twitter sues U.S. government over ability to disclose surveillance orders

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Twitter sues U.S. government over ability to disclose surveillance orders

#3
This eminently reasonable - Basically all Twitter wants to say is we have received X requests of Y type. Right now they are restricted to broad categories 0-999, between 6 & 8 thousand etc.

I thought they were going farther - that they wanted a per account notification ability; not the case.

Re: Twitter sues U.S. government over ability to disclose surveillance orders

#6

Can someone help me understand if this is a big deal?

I think people wanting others to tell them what is and isn't a big deal seeds some of the biggest problems in the western world.

I think the implication here is that kelukelugames doesn't think it's a big deal, and is asking others for input without explicitly taking a side.

Re: Twitter sues U.S. government over ability to disclose surveillance orders

#7
post #3

This eminently reasonable - Basically all Twitter wants to say is we have received X requests of Y type. Right now they are restricted to broad categories 0-999, between 6 & 8 thousand etc. I thought they were going farther - that they wanted a per account notification ability; not the case.

Hopefully even small such victories against NSLs will encourage more companies to sue the government for using NSLs.

Or we can just push for Congress to stop renewing the Patriot Act next year.

Re: Twitter sues U.S. government over ability to disclose surveillance orders

#8

Can someone help me understand if this is a big deal?

Twitter wants to be able to say how many NSLs they've received with more preciseness. The government says they can only be vague, they want to be more precise.

I think it would be a 'big deal' if Twitter and other companies started reporting the exact amount of NSLs they receive when they receive them. That would be great. Whether this lawsuit will result in that, even if Twitter wins, is not clear.

Re: Twitter sues U.S. government over ability to disclose surveillance orders

#9
post #3

This eminently reasonable - Basically all Twitter wants to say is we have received X requests of Y type. Right now they are restricted to broad categories 0-999, between 6 & 8 thousand etc. I thought they were going farther - that they wanted a per account notification ability; not the case.

Can they get around this by citing 2 partially overlapping ranges in separate reports?

E.g. report 1: "We received 0-500 NSLs" report 2: "We received 450-950 NSLs"

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