
Twitter drops lawsuit, saying summons has been withdrawn - anigbrowl
http://www.reuters.com/article/twitter-lawsuit-idUSL1N1HF13U
======
Svenskunganka
> The Justice Department, which defends federal agencies in court, declined to
> comment. The Homeland Security Department, which issued the summons, had no
> immediate comment.

I hate that these kind of cases almost always end up getting the silent
treatment. I'm not an American, but I think governmental institutions and
agencies should be bound by law to provide an answer to the public for some of
their actions, and I think this is such a case. It is important that people
get to know why the government wanted this information and who is responsible
for issuing the order in the first place, but I guess that's never gonna
happen when politicians and officials doesn't want to answer for their actions
like the rest of the people has to do.

~~~
paulddraper
I know we'd all prefer a heartfelt apology when the government beuracy
mistreats us, but dropping it isn't such a bad thing.

The worst thing that can happen is that they don't ever reconsider things,
never back down, and they dig in even harder every confrontation no matter the
circumstances.

All in all, I think the outcome is on the good side of the spectrum.

~~~
bmelton
Well, dropping it may or may not be a bad thing, but it's really the only
option that Twitter had anyway.

If the government withdrew the summons, and Twitter went ahead with their
suit, the case would have been mooted by the summons withdrawal anyway, and
would have been dismissed.

They could potentially amend the suit for damages to recoup the cost of
compliance with an erroneous and arbitrary action, but given qualified
immunity, it would be a _very_ high bar indeed, and would almost certainly set
the wrong kind of precedent (which is to say that it would reinforce existing
precedent.)

------
franciscop
Needless to say the Streisand effect[1] hit hard here. The account[2] had
apparently under 40K followers before all of this; now it clocks north of 160K
followers.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

[2] [https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis](https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis)

~~~
jacquesm
There is no way they didn't see that one coming and if there was they are even
more incompetent than they seem.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14058290)

If I could predict that so could just about everybody else.

So, obviously they won't be trying this particular avenue again, is there a
list of such accounts?

~~~
lkbm
Here's a list, though I don'tk now how maintained it is:
[http://www.core77.com/posts/60230/Heres-a-List-of-All-the-
US...](http://www.core77.com/posts/60230/Heres-a-List-of-All-the-US-Govts-
Rogue-Twitter-Accounts-Fighting-Trumps-Crackdown-on-Science)

~~~
jacquesm
Thank you.

I checked all of them quickly, there are a few duds in them but most seem
legit, but quite a few are not too active (last tweet a while ago). So likely
that list is not actively maintained but it's a good starting point.

------
anigbrowl
A bit of a non-story but I felt obliged to follow up after the initial
discussion attracted more interest than I expected yesterday.

~~~
jacquesm
This is actually an excellent service. Many times I see some news item come by
and then months later I find myself wondering whatever came of it. At least in
this case there is some follow-up, plenty of times there is no follow-up at
all. The people consuming the media have a short attention span, but the media
themselves also have a short attention span.

There ought to be a 'google news' like facility that you could go to in order
to see what came of something that was in the news. We could call it dejanews
;)

~~~
anigbrowl
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events)
sort-of manages that, but also highlights the limitations of the
linear/textual.

I have a vision of a better way to organize information for the 21st century
and beyond, but alas this comment box is too small to contain it.

~~~
jacquesm
> but alas this comment box is too small to contain it.

At the lower right there is a little triangle that you can use to drag it
larger ;)

~~~
dredmorbius
There actually _is_ a size limit to HN comments.

That said a link to elsewheere can work as well.

~~~
xoa
To both you and jacquesm, I may be reading too much into it but that sounded
like a riff on the famous last part of Fermat's Last Theorem.

 _" It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into
two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second, into two
like powers._

 _I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too
narrow to contain. "_

~~~
jacquesm
Of course it was a riff on that. No need to spoil the joke by explaining it
(twice, at that).

------
finid
This case reminds of what Turkey has become under Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Knowing how these things go, this guys never stop. They failed this time. Next
time, they'll try harder until insulting the president becomes a criminal
offence. It won't happens all at once, but we're heading in that direction.

By the way, The Turkish govt will come after you, no matter what country you
live in, if you dare insult their leader.

------
kennywinker
Reminds me of the FBI backing down in the San Bernardino iPhone case... like,
we tried a bully tactic, we got called on it, let's back down to avoid any
legal precedent being set.

Tho IANAL so, not sure if there is the same sort of legal precedent issues
involved here?

------
hrehhf
Why would Twitter need to file a lawsuit? Couldn't they simply not comply and
wait for the government to file a lawsuit? And isn't the latter what happened
with Apple and the encrypted iPhone?

~~~
twinkletwinkle
Maybe this solves the matter more quickly. Also gets it out to the public, who
they expect to be on their side.

------
glitcher
I'm still left wondering why they were so interested in this one particular
account. It seems like there has to be more to the story than they will ever
let be known.

Maybe they really did have the evil intent of attempting to chill all
criticism of the government, but there is so much of it everywhere, could that
have really been effective?

Or was it more to do with the appearance of this one twitter account being
from someone on the inside?

Guess we'll never really know.

~~~
acdha
> Or was it more to do with the appearance of this one twitter account being
> from someone on the inside?

That's the best theory I've come up with: given the general panic about leaks
and that agency's particular aura of entrenched us-vs-them thinking it seems
likely that there's a serious effort to find out whether an employee is behind
it.

------
matt_wulfeck
I envy these large companies. If they get an unfair, unconstitutional, or just
unlawful "request" from the government they can fight back with their legal
counsel.

The rest of us? Good luck staying out of jail.

------
leereeves
Posted a few hours ago here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14062305)

