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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

#31

Post by pluma »

golemotron wrote: post #18
erenemre wrote: post #17

If I understand correctly, companies cannot say "we have received X (let's say 9) requests". So, is it possible for them to say "We have NOT received 8 or 10 requests"? This clearly doesn't say how many they have received but gives a clue that they might have received 9. Please ignore me if this is silly.

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?

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

#32

Post by cryoshon »

Kalium wrote: post #23
uptown wrote: post #15

I've never really understood why companies aren't able to disclose these numbers. It tells the public nothing about specific investigations. To me - it seems like the government has chosen to draw the line in the sand so far beyond where it should be, to avoid having the actual debate over corporate disclosure of more-specific information.

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

It's the US government... They're always investigating, and always collecting all information they can coerce or steal in order to conduct future investigations or use as blackmail.

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

#33

Post by happyscrappy »

higherpurpose wrote: post #7
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.

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.

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

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

#34

Post by blackaspen »

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...

Supposing the word 'censorship' isn't censored...

Really happy to see more companies doing this though!

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

#35

Post by AnonNo15 »

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?

You can do it right now by embedding such message in Bitcoin blockchain. It will give you tamper-proof and timestamped message.

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

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

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...

The language they do use is familiar,I suspect from precedent that establishes a test for violation of the free speech clause. Which is probably why they use it, and not the fuzzier term censorship. A legal complaint has a different audience than a press release.

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

#38

Post by tobinfricke »

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.

Is this true only in common law jurisdictions (most of the USA and UK), rather than civil law jurisdictions (Louisiana, Europe)?

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

#39

Post by seanflyon »

Kalium wrote: post #23
uptown wrote: post #15

I've never really understood why companies aren't able to disclose these numbers. It tells the public nothing about specific investigations. To me - it seems like the government has chosen to draw the line in the sand so far beyond where it should be, to avoid having the actual debate over corporate disclosure of more-specific information.

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.

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

#40

Post by xnull »

happyscrappy wrote: post #33
higherpurpose wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 we pass meaningful enforceable legislation to curtail the use of selective privilege, story seeding and psychological operations to achieve policy goals.

Congress will only pass meaningful enforceable legislation if the voters demand it.

...

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