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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

#71

Post by 2xlbuds »

chimeracoder wrote: post #68
2xlbuds wrote: post #67

I'm curious as to what would actually happen if Twitter just decided to release the exact numbers. Would they be slapped with a fine? What if they didn't pay the fine? Would they be forced to be shut down? People would not tolerate that one bit.

Almost certainly criminal charges, and possibly (probably?) ones that "pierce the veil" (ie, go after the executives/employees personally, not [just] the corporation). Not exactly something anybody would really want to risk. (I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice).

Would any jury convict those people? I'd like to hope the answer is no. Again these are just rhetorical questions, I don't work for twitter.

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

#72

Post by mikestew »

rhino369 wrote: post #56
mike_hearn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as a good software-engineer-and-qualified-lawyer friend of mine has said, "the power of the law is in its capacity for vagueness". I often wish law was written more like a computer program, with lots of unit tests up front. But I have no idea how to actually achieve that. Real life is so much more complex than input to any computer program that an attempt to formalise law even more than it already is formalised…

The real issue is that in programming, you get to define stuff unambiguously and quantitatively. Take a law like: No driving a motor vehicle in the park. Obviously that means no cars, but does a wheelchair count? How about a power assisted bike?

And those signs aren't even what was intended. "Motor vehicle"? Oh, okay, then my Nissan Leaf is not allowed because it has an electric motor, but my motorcycle is okay because it uses an gasoline engine, not a motor.

But I know what they meant, and keep my motorcycle off the bicycle trail. However, the pedant and software developer in me is bothered just a little when I read those signs.

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

#73

Post by dghubble »

2xlbuds wrote: post #67

I'm curious as to what would actually happen if Twitter just decided to release the exact numbers. Would they be slapped with a fine? What if they didn't pay the fine? Would they be forced to be shut down? People would not tolerate that one bit.

See the exponential fees Yahoo was threatened with (7.9 sextillion after a year) https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2gjvrf/governme...

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

#74

Post by deciplex »

jarradhope wrote: post #62
rrggrr wrote: post #60

Twitter is a medium at the forefront of democracy movements worldwide. If there were any site worth standing down surveillance in pursuit of a larger foreign policy goal then I would have thought Twitter would be that site. Instead, I'm now imagining young staffers at various US agencies squirming with dumb chills as senior policy makers articulate Twitter's threat to US national security or law enforcement objective…

Well the problem is that policy making is completely institutionalized and only serves the 1%, which is why software like Ethereum is going to be so important in the future. It will democratize policy making and put it in the hands of everyone. As well as means to articulate any other form of meetings of the minds.

s/1%/ruling class/

Don't make them seem like a bigger deal than they really are. Most of the 1% has barely any more say in the direction of the US government than anyone else. The gaggle of assholes responsible for the plight of America couldn't fill up a small town.

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

#75

Post by deciplex »

click170 wrote: post #26
uncoder0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally, when I first started learning and caring more about the law I came up with all these clever hacks around various legal agreements and laws... Luckily for me I had friends who went to Law School to explain to me that the law is primarily about intent and most of my hacks weren't loopholes but instead plainly in the wrong and would be dealt with in court if they hadn't already through case law. I think its pre…

Law works the way we want computer programming to work. That is to say, "Do what I meant, not what I coded". I think we get the impression that it's not that way based on our perception of corporations driving money-filled trucks through legal loopholes, but it's just not the same thing to a judge. Regardless of whether it is to you and I.

>I think we get the impression that it's not that way based on our perception of corporations driving money-filled trucks through legal loopholes

I get the impression that not everyone is playing by the same set of rules, not that they have particularly clever lawyers (although, most of them probably have that as well).

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

#76

Post by grecy »

2xlbuds wrote: post #71
chimeracoder wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly criminal charges, and possibly (probably?) ones that "pierce the veil" (ie, go after the executives/employees personally, not [just] the corporation). Not exactly something anybody would really want to risk. (I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice).

Would any jury convict those people? I'd like to hope the answer is no. Again these are just rhetorical questions, I don't work for twitter.

Who says they'd be tried in a courtroom that even has a jury. Remember, we now know there are courtrooms with no juries.

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

#77

Post by Crito »

arebop wrote: post #41
pluma wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ].

Correct. However: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6680780 or: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337001

Another law of successful (or at least apparently effective) "law hacking": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_in...

Common law systems really aren't as simple as "only intent matters, absolutely nothing clever is tolerated", as many suggest. The problem is mostly that, whenever computers are involved, people involved in the justice system seem to have their sensibilities bizarrely warped. Removing the technological element is likely the best way to get people to think about things sensibly. It is not so much "legal trickery" as it is "framing the matter in terms that the court already understands".

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

#78

Post by themartorana »

grecy wrote: post #76
2xlbuds wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would any jury convict those people? I'd like to hope the answer is no. Again these are just rhetorical questions, I don't work for twitter.

Who says they'd be tried in a courtroom that even has a jury. Remember, we now know there are courtrooms with no juries.

They're the rooms no banker who helped cause a global economic crisis will ever see the inside of, but if you reveal that you have been required to turn over information to a secret government with a secret court against every principal of the Constitution, well... I imagine you'd know the color of the wallpaper pretty well.

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

#80

Post by rayiner »

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...

"Censorship" isn't unconstitutional (e.g. obscenities laws). Certain kinds of censorship may be, and they have specific names.
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