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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

#41

Post by arebop »

pluma wrote: post #31
golemotron wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not silly but it won't work. People in the tech community typically don't see that you can't "hack the law" like it's machine or program. Judges just don't put up with it. They're adept at augmenting the law with case law that covers the loopholes.

Canaries still work, though, don't they? I.e. put up a cryptographically signed and timestamped statement that you haven't received a request, then don't update it (or simply take it down) once you receive a request. Don't some open source projects do this?

Canaries are not well-settled in law [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/warrant-canary-faq].

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

#42

Post by kelukelugames »

tetrep wrote: post #6
stringray wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like Twitter and I think it's interesting whenever a big company sues the US government. I wanted to see everyone else's reactions.

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

#43

Post by huhtenberg »

nullrouted wrote: post #21
huhtenberg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. It's the reputation damage control, largely superficial.

Geez, Why do people here have to be so cynical? Twitter is doing a good thing here arguing that the government saying they can't release NSL number they are restricting free speech, which is completely true. Releasing these numbers pose no threat to national security and just shows the DOJs scorched earth policy when it comes to defending their perceived powers. This is a great thing for Twitter to do and it should b…

"Geez" ?

Twitter is a business. Whatever they do is preceded by the expenses vs benefits analysis. In this case the only benefit is an improvement of their public reputation. They want to disassociate themselves with the state surveillance machine.

However this lawsuit means an absolute zilch in terms of an actual surveillance issue. Nor does it move a needle on the very fact that there NSLs exist to begin with. It serves no public interest, it doesn't change things and it's asking not just for peanuts, it's asking for the dust off the peanuts shells. It's a farce. Just as you said - releasing these numbers is a non-issue, so the government will resist for a while and then it will yield. Everyone will cheer for Twitter and the victory, but things will remain exactly where they are now.

The only reason why this lawsuit exists is to improve public's perception of Twitter. It's a PR stunt. I don't see what they should be commended for.

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

#44

Post by happyscrappy »

xnull wrote: post #40
happyscrappy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress will only stop renewing it if the voters demand it.

Voters will only demand it if they are informed. Voters will only be informed if both social and traditional media are able to provide actionable, verifiable and non-biased reports. Media will only be able to provide quality information when political, intelligence and profit interests have less leverage than an educated purchasing public majority. Political/intelligence interests will only have have less leverage if…

>Voters will only demand it if they are informed.

By and large the public know about the Patriot act and support it, you may disagree but don't pretend they don't know about it.

>Voters will only be informed if both social and traditional media are able to provide actionable, verifiable and non-biased reports.

The reports are there yet the public has yet to be swayed.

>Media will only be able to provide quality information when political, intelligence and profit interests have less leverage than an educated purchasing public majority.

Media can and do provide quality information.

>Political/intelligence interests will only have have less leverage if we pass meaningful enforceable legislation to curtail the use of selective privilege, story seeding and psychological operations to achieve policy goals.

Rolling back freedom of speech is a non-starter.

We need to convince voters that the Patriot Act is bad not pretend they have been victims of mind control.

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

#45

Post by Natsu »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #9
suprgeek wrote: 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"

You can leak information with just one range: "We received between 332 and 334 NSLs." If they require larger ranges, it's not so different going from there to, "We received between 133 and 533 NSLs."

Whether a judge will agree that you've complied with the requirements after that sort of trickery is something else entirely. I can't imagine them not complaining about that sort of tactic and whether you get away with it might depend on the judges and lawyers involved.

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

#46

Post by jfoster »

seanflyon wrote: post #39
Kalium wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it in crypto terms. If you can know when an investigation is ongoing, you can learn something useful as an adversary.

That is some amount of information, so there is some value in concealing it. It has the downside of removing accountability which I think is more valuable than a trivial amount of information.

One way to achieve some degree of both might be a time limited embargo on disclosure of particular cases.

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

#47

Post by biot »

jobu wrote: post #29

The government’s position, the complaint said, “forces Twitter either to engage in speech that has been preapproved by government officials or else to refrain from speaking altogether.” Isn't that the definition of censorship? I'm surprised they don't actually use that word in the lawsuit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/201...

If you present a conclusion, your opponent can claim it's an invalid conclusion based on faulty premises. However, if you only present evidence-backed facts, your opponent can't argue against the evidence and you force your opponent to reveal their hand earlier. In this case, the hand being revealed is ultimately one of national security... but by structuring the argument in this way, they are likely to avoid a prolonged argument with the government over the conclusion's validity.

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

#48

Post by Kalium »

jfoster wrote: post #46
seanflyon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is some amount of information, so there is some value in concealing it. It has the downside of removing accountability which I think is more valuable than a trivial amount of information.

One way to achieve some degree of both might be a time limited embargo on disclosure of particular cases.

That's the equivalent of adding jitter to try to foul up a timing attack. It doesn't really work.

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

#49

Post by Kalium »

uptown wrote: post #28
Kalium wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it in crypto terms. If you can know when an investigation is ongoing, you can learn something useful as an adversary.

But "bad guys" have no way of knowing that an increment of a digit is in any way related to their actions. Also, disclosures tend to be time-delayed, further obsfucating what was actually being investigated.

They don't have to know for certain. They just need enough data from multiple sources to get nervous and suddenly the whole investigation is shot.

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

#50

Post by nullrouted »

huhtenberg wrote: post #43
nullrouted wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geez, Why do people here have to be so cynical? Twitter is doing a good thing here arguing that the government saying they can't release NSL number they are restricting free speech, which is completely true. Releasing these numbers pose no threat to national security and just shows the DOJs scorched earth policy when it comes to defending their perceived powers. This is a great thing for Twitter to do and it should b…

"Geez" ? Twitter is a business. Whatever they do is preceded by the expenses vs benefits analysis. In this case the only benefit is an improvement of their public reputation. They want to disassociate themselves with the state surveillance machine. However this lawsuit means an absolute zilch in terms of an actual surveillance issue. Nor does it move a needle on the very fact that there NSLs exist to begin with. It s…

Yes "Geez"

Look I get it, you don't think what Twitter is doing adds any value and thats great but in reality you are just being smug and not really adding any value to the conversation. You are just trying to spread your smug dim view of the world and you aren't really helping anything by doing so.

Instead of always looking for the negative or the cynical view in things like this like "Well they are just doing this for the PR", why not look at it and say "This is awesome that a company is fighting in court to release this type of information to the public." It really will change your view of the world if you start looking at positive and will improve your life dramatically.

Twitter is doing something here that they don't really have to do because they could just go along with the other big companies, follow the guidelines the government laid out and no one would say anything. They have gone further to demand to release exact numbers and more importantly are fighting to stop the government's practice of being able to gag companies in these situations. It may be a small step but it is a first step and they should be commended for it no matter the motive. Good for them and I thank them for picking this fight for all of us.

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