
Twitter Bars Intelligence Agencies from Using Analytics Service - bootload
http://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-bars-intelligence-agencies-from-using-analytics-service-1462751682?mod=e2tw
======
npx
I'm not convinced that the goal here is actually to obstruct intelligence
agencies, I think they'd just use a shell company or flatly demand access if
they wanted it. As far as I'm aware, the Library of Congress is archiving all
tweets.

It feels like a cheap way to generate press portraying Twitter as a staunch
defender of liberty. I'm not sold.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
Couldn't agree more. In addition to that, the NSA (among other government
organizations) sniffs and logs all internet (including Twitter) traffic. Given
the unlimited resources of the government to sift, sort, and mine this data
(thanks to our taxpayer dollars) it wouldn't be at all surprising if they
didn't already construct a superior, parallel analytic system unconstrained by
any of the regulations or financial restrictions faced by Twitter.

~~~
awinograd
This is a ridiculous claim. The government doesn't have the resources to
monitor the entirety of the Internet.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
Where have you been for the last few years? What resources exactly do you
think they lack? Why do you think the NSA just built a 1,000,000 square foot
data center in Utah?

[https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/](https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-
center/)

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/08/buildi...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2013/08/building-a-panopticon-the-evolution-of-the-nsas-xkeyscore/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_%282013%E2%80%93present%29)

~~~
winteriscoming
> [https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/](https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-
> center/)

FWIW - That's a parody site. However, that's not to disclaim that the Utah
data center isn't being built.

~~~
Forbo
It was completed in September of 2014.

------
ErikAugust
Full article was behind a paywall, but:

The subheadline here is actually: "Social media firm cuts access to Dataminr,
a service used to identify unfolding terror attacks, political unrest"

So, Dataminr is a startup that had the firehose to do that kind of analysis.

All this could be is them putting a company that is built on top of Twitter
out of business. They have done this plenty of times. Seems pretty heavily
spun to make it sound like they are taking some sort of moral high ground.

~~~
nemothekid
Very odd that this is branded as cutting off intelligence agencies then - this
seems more like they are cutting off another company from the firehose like
they did to DataSift when they acquired Ginp.

Dataminr didn't provide access to the firehose, iirc, but had a really good
event detection product. I had actually heard of them because I heard CNN was
a very happy user of the product.

EDIT: > _The move doesn’t affect Dataminr’s service to financial industry,
news media or other clients outside the intelligence community. The Wall
Street Journal is involved in a trial of Dataminr’s news product._

Read the article, and it seems media companies still have access. I guess
Twitter is telling another company who their customers can and can't be.

~~~
ErikAugust
Right - maybe just re-cut the government deals with itself down the line.

------
spenvo
> Twitter said it has a long-standing policy barring third parties, including
> Dataminr, from selling its data to a government agency for surveillance
> purposes. The company wouldn’t comment on how Dataminr—a close business
> partner—was able to provide its service to the government for two years, or
> why that arrangement came to an end.

So why was the exception made to this policy?

> In-Q-Tel, a venture-capital arm of the U.S. intelligence community, has been
> investing in data-mining companies to beef up the government’s ability to
> sort through massive amounts of information. In-Q-Tel, for example, has
> invested in data-mining firms Palantir Technologies Inc. and Recorded Future
> Inc.

> U.S. intelligence agencies gained access to Dataminr’s service after an In-
> Q-Tel investment in the firm, according to a person familiar with the
> matter.

> When a pilot program arranged by In-Q-Tel ended recently, Twitter told
> Dataminr it didn’t want to continue the relationship with intelligence
> agencies, this person said.

VC funds led by US agencies that operate on a quasi-legal and opaque basis is
the worst form of crony capitalism

Open version of the article [http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-
intelligence-a...](http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-intelligence-
agencies-from-using-analytics-service-1462751682-lMyQjAxMTE2MzAwODUwNzgzWj)

~~~
misiti3780
coming from someone who worked as a govt consultant, In-Q-tel is a scary
entity

~~~
chillacy
How so? I've pitched them in the past. They behaved like a VC firm with
government interests.

~~~
MacsHeadroom
>a VC firm with government interests

That right there. That's the scary part.

~~~
jonnybgood
And why is that scary?

~~~
ourcat
Maybe because their motives are purely financial, rather than what's good for
the rights of the people?

~~~
stevehawk
The only thing your comment right there proved is that you don't know what
you're talking about.

They don't operate on a financial motivation. They have literally no
requirement to do so. What they do is identify commercial products that
any/all of the federal government may be interested in using and fund it if
possible, or at least try to fund partial features.

For example, Google Earth was funded by In-Q-Tel long before Google bought the
product. In fact, many startups use In-Q-Tel funding as a badge of honor when
pitching to VCs later on, as it shows a potential revenue source given the
existing financial commitment.

~~~
ourcat
Have you ever taken institutional funds for any projects you founded? I did.
It's ugly. And driven by pure financial greed. Sucking the soul from the
original intent. The same financial greed currently eating the world and
ruining people's lives. Sorry. Am I not allowed an opinion?

The only thing your reply right there proved is that you don't know me at all.

I'm also aware of the government/defence dept. backing of the foundations of
the internet itself. Thanks.

------
aioprisan
Is this any more than a way for Twitter to claim the moral high ground while
having no actual impact on what these agencies do or if/how they use Twitter's
data?

At the very least they'll use a company like Palantir. Is a third party's use
similarly regulated, so that Palantir couldn't simply relay that data
themselves?

If not, then this was clearly not thought out (unlikely) or it's been thought
out but a choice was made to still allow for that use case (more likely).

~~~
jomamaxx
It is not 'taking the moral high ground' to stop intelligent agencies from
dutifully doing their jobs of protecting our safety and interests, so long as
this is actually the case.

I suggest were you to have the opportunity to sit in on Mr. Obama's daily
security briefings, you might have your eyes widened as to the scope of the
violence that threatens us.

In Canada, where I live, our young Prime Minister had a rather negative tone
about such things during the election, but the moment he was elected, and had
visibility into the actual goings on, he changed his tune pretty quickly and
the bills he was supposed to quash will remain intact.

Of course, lazy policemen wanting Twitter to do their work for them
notwithstanding.

------
Aelinsaar
Will this in any way actually impede intelligence agencies from getting that
information if they want it?

~~~
samstave
This is a great question!

Facebook on the other hand built a Washington DC office and hires ex-secret
service people as a matter of course.

This should be the number one reason people should drop using FB.... But
everyone is already fucked. You have no privacy, again, ever.

~~~
flyt
I downvoted your comment but please keep in mind that Facebook is a large
company that needs to lobby the federal government on a variety of issues,
which necessitates a presence in DC.

Also, the Secret Service employs some of the smartest and most capable people
in the federal government. Any company is lucky to hire ex-USSS agents.

Using these two points as evidence that humanity collectively has "no privacy"
is not only false on the surface but dishonest when closely examined. There
are valid critiques of both the US Government's use of the Internet and,
separately, Facebook, but these two are not intellectually honest.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
"Also, the Secret Service employs some of the smartest and most capable people
in the federal government"-the plethora of stories in the past several years
about the SS fucking up on many, many levels would indicate that they probably
hire mediocre, middle of the road candidates (at most). They aren't
superhuman, or caricatures from a Tom Clancy novel.

------
awalton
So Palantir's business gets better?

What about any of a thousand front companies these Intelligence Agencies run
for plausible deniability purposes?

This move does pretty much nothing.

------
chrissnell
Weren't Twitter's employees being threatened by ISIS? If my employees were
being threatened by a transnational terrorist group, I wouldn't hesitate at
providing firehose-style data to a gov't agency, especially considering these
are public tweets that we're talking about here.

------
ikeboy
[https://archive.is/Tr7Xg](https://archive.is/Tr7Xg)

------
throwaway99998
This accomplishes nothing. Palantir provides this same service on top of GNIP
data. Here's a live demo from one of Palantir's own conferences:
[https://youtu.be/h2NA48iypME?t=559](https://youtu.be/h2NA48iypME?t=559)

~~~
nl
You need to supply your own Gnip subscription to use this though.

------
kabdib
Twitter must be such a popular target for the Intelligence crowd that I wonder
how the heck they coordinate all those NSLs and whatnot. Is there a clearing
house in the USG that handles that?

"Look, that's like the fifteenth request for the 'Whole Banana' this week.
We're gonna have to --"

(telephone murmurs)

" _Fine_ , so you have a nosebleed level pay grade. _Sir_. But there's more
Twitter bandwidth going to you folks in DC than there is to all of the /real/
users of Twitter. It's embarrassing. Why can't you just go down the street and
ask the CIA?"

(angry murmurs)

"Or the FBI. I hear they have a special on faking evidence with parallel
reconstruction this week. Want the promo code?"

------
beshrkayali
What is this, a joke? As if any intelligence agency would request access to
Twitter analytics service under official intelligence agency business name...

------
crusso
Shouldn't HN have a policy against posting articles that are behind a paywall?
Yes, I know that you can jump to google and search for the article to try to
avoid the paywall - but shouldn't a news aggregator make a statement about
letting paywalled news sources be on their own?

~~~
ikeboy
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
hawleyal
Mirror

[http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-
intelligence-a...](http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-intelligence-
agencies-from-using-analytics-service-1462751682-lMyQjAxMTE2MzAwODUwNzgzWj)

------
known
Not plausible due to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter)

------
neurobuddha
Twitter is infamous for censorship and shadowbanning non-politically correct
views. Lately they have been suppressing Bernie Sanders supporters[1] and
anti-Hillary activists[2].

Twitter is a truly two-faced Orwellian enterprise that is completely in the
back pocket of Big Brother.

[1] [https://www.change.org/p/petition-request-twitter-not-to-
sup...](https://www.change.org/p/petition-request-twitter-not-to-suppress-
bernie-sanders-activists-on-its-social-media-platform)

[2] [http://www.vocativ.com/290811/twitter-accused-of-
censoring-a...](http://www.vocativ.com/290811/twitter-accused-of-censoring-
anti-hillary-hashtag/)

------
gamebak
Why do you people upvote articles where we have to pay to read them ?

~~~
vog
It's okay if there are workarounds for the paywall. From the HN FAQ:

 _> Are paywalls ok?_

 _> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds._

 _> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users
do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic._

~~~
kuschku
But there is no workaround for the paywall that works outside the US.

~~~
vog
I live in Germany and the web search workaround (click on "web" link below
title) worked perfectly for me.

~~~
kuschku
I live in Germany and the web search workaround only gives me the paywalled
article again.

~~~
vog
Do you have a privacy browser extension which suppresses the Referer header?
(which is really all this workaround is about)

------
ManlyBread
This is a PR move, they won't be able to stop them completely.

------
deadtofu
Anyone have a non-paywalled link?

~~~
marksomnian
Try [http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-
intelligence-a...](http://www.wsj.com/article_email/twitter-bars-intelligence-
agencies-from-using-analytics-service-1462751682-lMyQjAxMTE2MzAwODUwNzgzWj)

------
gesman
...ok ... How much?

