
U.S. judge blocks Twitter's bid to reveal government surveillance requests - antpls
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-twitter-lawsuit/u-s-judge-blocks-twitters-bid-to-reveal-government-surveillance-requests-idUSKBN2200CS
======
sneak
Can we just ponder for a moment that we are being asked to believe that
anything Twitter does or does not do could pose an existential threat to the
United States?

“National security” is a sham now and has been a sham every other time it has
ever been used as a blanket override for human rights. Human rights to free
expression are more important than any nation.

This is just government spies trying to cover their ass whilst they continue
breaking the law. They've conveniently mixed it in with "but terrorism!" to
ensure that they get to continue breaking the law.

~~~
cryptica
What's more disturbing and I simply can't get my head around is that Americans
feel that they can trust big corporations more than their own government.

I don't trust US corporations at all and I thought that there was some kind of
corporate conspiracy to discredit the US government to allow corporations to
gain more power...

Now I'm thinking that the situation in the US is even worse than that; not
only are corporations trying to discredit the government, but the government
is working hard to discredit itself as well.

~~~
sneak
There aren't many/any instances of single corporations causing >10M deaths, or
oppressing millions of people.

There are lots of recorded occasions of single governments doing this.

Governments are seen as having authorities that corporations do not, and thus
are to be viewed much more skeptically as a general policy. Companies can't
raid your house with machine guns, or toss you in jail for publishing an
integer on your website.

It's not that corporations are trusted more; it's that the maximum possible
damage by corporate evil is much, much, much, much less than the maximum
possible damage by government evil. IBM participated in the holocaust, but
they didn't directly _cause_ it. That needed governmental authority. It's
prudent to maintain several orders of magnitude higher suspicion and/or
skepticism of government activities; corporations are basically sandboxed
(e.g. no armies, for the most part) in this model.

~~~
rendall
"There aren't many/any instances of single corporations causing >10M deaths,
or oppressing millions of people."

If we look at historical instances of single entities causing 10M+ deaths and
oppressing millions of people, _since corporations were invented_ , I think we
will find that a corporation is driving the death and oppression more often
than you might think. Jardine Matheson, Dole Pineapple, Dutch East India
Trading, myriad tobacco corporations, British Petroleum, Shell Oil, for just a
few famous examples are each definitely responsible for oppressing millions of
people at least, and some of them are responsible for 10M+ deaths. Sure,
governments generally claim a monopoly on violence, and in these cases it was
a government that actually did the wet work, but they were doing the bidding
of specific corporations.

~~~
roenxi
> Sure, governments generally claim a monopoly on violence, and in these cases
> it was a government that actually did the wet work, but they were doing the
> bidding of specific corporations.

What about this inspires any form of faith towards governments? You've got an
entity that controls/is the army and it is weak-willed enough that some
company with money and a good story persuaded it to 'do the wet work' and kill
or suppress millions of people.

What in this story makes you think that _only_ corporations will direct that
sort of power in a way you don't like? Are people with bad intentions only
found on the boards of large corporations such as Dole Pineapple?

And even if they were why are you then defending the idea that the entity
holding the knife, as it were, is the more credible and trustworthy of the
two? Surely the government has some accountability for its actions?

~~~
rendall
"What in this story makes you think that only corporations will direct that
sort of power in a way you don't like?"

I'm not sure how that comes from what I wrote? I was responding to the claim
that corporations aren't responsible for deaths or oppression.

No, it's not "corporation" vs "government". I don't have easy answers to how
to prevent this kind of behavior, and I don't trust easy answers, like
"minimal government" or "strong government". Global trade and capitalism seems
to be working for the most part, with some unsettling caveats.

------
nabla9
We learn from Snowden leaks that Twitter was the only major platform that
refused to participate voluntarily with PRISM surveillance. Twitter only
complied with legitimate FISA requests they were not able to refuse.

Microsoft,Yahoo, Google, AOL, Skype and Apple all did more than legally
required.

~~~
gonzo41
Everyone else you mentioned runs a non trivial business that interacts with
the government significantly. I know trump get's a lot of action on twitter
but the next guy won't be using it for the main means of comms.

It's great that twitter took a stand, but if that company failed everyone
would easily replace it. Twitter is toy.

~~~
notmarkus
What does that have to do with anything?

~~~
gonzo41
It's understandable because of Corporate law in the US that a public business
wouldn't stand too firm against government overreach because it may impact
future business, apple can do it because apple isn't a desktop provider to the
government and doesn't have a market in danger in that space.

~~~
nabla9
Apple was/is commercial partner in PRISM.

------
hf8665
Does anyone know why judges are so deferential to the US security apparatus?
It seems in general like they have a clear bias toward "taking the security
system at its word", even when common sense would dictate otherwise in any
particular case. It's sincerely puzzling to me why national security entities
seem to get treated so differently and I wonder if there's some legal
precedent or consideration I'm not aware of.

Like in this case, I fail to understand how releasing the _number_ of requests
would have any security bearing.

~~~
bladegash
No judge wants to be responsible for a future terrorist attack or degrading
intelligence capabilities against other foreign adversaries, regardless of
whether the threats are real, perceived, and/or imagined. In this case,
releasing the numbers might shine light into their capacity for
investigations. In other words, sometimes security/capability gains more from
perception than reality.

~~~
hf8665
That was my explanation for awhile, but at some point the logic of the
security arguments started to seem patently flawed. Also, judges seem to be ok
with all sorts of judgments against domestic (state and federal) entities.
It's almost as if when national security is mentioned, everything is thrown
out the window. It's like a magic codeword or something and I don't understand
the legal basis for it.

You make a good point re: investigatory capacity, but it seems even that is
fuzzy and could maybe be handled through other means (aggregating time periods
or using some kind of required delay).

~~~
bladegash
I think the issue is we’re trying to explain something irrational (a fear that
something might happen) with logic. Judges make similar judgements in
protective/restraining order cases. They would rather err on the side of
caution, because as someone else mentioned, the downside to allowing the
invocation of national security has a perceived minimal downside (minor
inconvenience), vs. the downside of a terrorist attack taking place is much
more catastrophic. Anyways, don’t think anyone is wrong here, just some
theories.

------
Zenst
I can accept many reasons for not revealing at the time, jeopardising a
criminal investigation and that could cover national security investigations.
So I can see how the judge has angled this.

What I can not understand or appreciate is that such requests can not be made
public after said investigations are closed. Alas that approach is now also
curtailed and would have to be raised as a separate avenue now. Which with
this judgement, will now make that a little more harder to pursue. Been nice
if the Judge had allowed that avenue of release, but that was not catered for
in the scope of how this case was put forward.

Maybe if Twitter had approached with - what is a fair and reasonable amount of
time until we can make such requests public? Or along those lines, then that
avenue of release would of been within the judgment remit. Though I'm no
lawyer, and may well that this approach they have taken is the best as it
allows two bites of the cherry and an angle to appeal.

One just hopes the matter is not as clear cut and settled as it stands.

~~~
nabla9
Twitter requested permission to reveal exact number of requests.

Companies are allowed to reveal gagged legal process in ranges of 1000,
starting at 0, for six-month periods. Combined FISC and NSL requests can be
revealed in ranges of 250.

------
bradleyjg
Six years for summary judgment?!? Even if Twitter had won, it and the American
public still would have lost through this endless delay. Something needs to be
done about the glacial pace of federal litigation. Justice delayed is justice
denied.

------
m_a_g
I wish there is a Twitter employee like Edward Snowden or Bradley Manning to
leak those surveillance requests. Leaking documents seems to be the only way
forward in the U.S.

~~~
adjkant
Chelsea Manning, not Bradley

~~~
analbumcover
Wasn't it Bradley at the time of the leaks?

~~~
TheNorthman
How is that relevant? Don't dead name people and in general don't be a dick.

~~~
analbumcover
The variable labeled 'Bradley' wasn't relabeled to 'Chelsea' until well after
the leak. Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time.

Although you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social
convention you like. I assume it provides you a sense of belonging, moral
righteousness, etc.. But, given the conformity you seem to demand, you might
want to consider who here is most deserving of the "dick" moniker.

~~~
adjkant
> Changing a name doesn't propagate backwards in time.

> you're certainly free to conform to whatever meaningless social convention
> you like.

You don't see the irony here?

I'm not going to waste any time replying further but I'd simply point out that
human empathy and care for others costs nothing here.

~~~
analbumcover
There is no irony. They are free to be as illogical as they like. I can't
impose reason upon them as they clearly reject it.

Empathy is entirely extraneous to the discussion. If someone responds
emotionally to an otherwise dispassionate discourse, that is their own
concern.

------
rsync
It's April now so that means this:

[https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt](https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt)

... is now 14 years old. This was the first warrant canary[1] and, I am sad to
say, one of the few remaining ones.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary#Usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary#Usage)

------
choward
Could Twitter set up a warrant canary for every user? Append "/canary" to URLs
and make it 404 if the data has been compromised.

~~~
1f60c
But couldn't they force Twitter to keep updating the canary as part of the gag
order?

~~~
pinkfoot
Yes, you are not allowed to take any action to circumvent the gag order.
Changing the status of the canary included.

[From memory from some ancient HN thread]

~~~
dodobirdlord
The workaround is to make the canary automatically lapse frequently unless
renewed. Precedent in the past regarding library books provides that you can't
be compelled to _do_ something by a gag order that qualifies as speech, and
updating a canary daily with a statement like "As of {current_date} we know of
no warrants that have been issued for {private_content}" probably qualifies.
Have a static page, update the date value daily so long as it's true, stop
updating it when it becomes false. Based on the library book precedent I think
this would hold up.

------
gorgoiler
I’m not clear on whether the judge ruled in the abstract, or if they know the
details of who was being surveilled and why. I just about trust a judge to act
as a third party check on power but only if they get total transparency in
lieu of the public being able to see.

------
microcolonel
Seems like they definitely have every right to reveal these; I don't see how
there is a constitutional basis for this unless they can demonstrate that
Twitter would be enabling some imminent vital threat.

------
acruns
Judge blocks Apple's bid to reveal government surveillance using Covid-19
tracing program

------
rkagerer
I hope they appeal.

------
aagha
Didn't Reddit have some sort of a "red herring" that was raised if they had to
comply with some FISA request?

------
known
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it"
\--Einstein

------
tehwebguy
Just do it anyway, pull the curtain back Jack!

------
ck2
Isn't everything on twitter public in the first place? It's the least of any
worries.

Just a reminder all kinds of "government" for any reason is reading all of
your email any time they want without a warrant and it's perfectly legal. Just
has to be 180 days old but I suspect that doesn't make a difference.

The law allowing it is 30 years old and why the Clintons had their own private
email server in their basement in the first place. Congress was going to close
the loophole but Jeff Sessions and Trump stopped it.

~~~
Keverw
Yeah, I heard that to about emails, after so many days they consider it
abandoned property. But seems some different courts debate over that...

Written back in the old days when everyone used POP for mail... Emails would
download to your computer and be deleted from the server. Plus webmail back
then had limited storage anyways, like 20MB while now you can get at least a
gig or more depending on the provider. So the server was more just like a
temporary holding space for your email, before it got downloaded to your
computer where you'd store it longer term and be responsible to back it up,
etc yourself.

Now with webmail and IMAP (where your same email account can be on both your
phone and laptop). Super outdated now since we access email differently now
with multiple modern devices, I doubt many people use POP email now.

------
peter_d_sherman
A few thoughts:

1) There is no such thing as privacy anymore, at least with respect to
anything electronic. I know this because I wanted to be the head of a large
online community (I worked on a program which I hoped would become the next
Facebook), and I studied everything I could about security/privacy that I
could for many years.

2) It would be better, far better, if, when users signed up on Twitter (or any
other online service for that matter) if there was a big screen which comes
up, with big letters, and says "Everything you say could potentially be taken
out of context, could potentially be used against you in Court, and/or could
potentially be spun on the News Media or by other people in such a way so as
to destroy your reputation, livelihood, and potentially your life." This would
be honest, ethical, up-front. "Forewarned is forearmed", as they say...

3) When Jack Dorsey filed his articles of incorporation, for his company
(which Venture Capitalists require, and for good reason, if they didn't, they
wouldn't be able to sue if/when the founder skips town on them!), but when he
did this, he made a legally binding CONTRACT with the Government. Oh sure, it
may have been a State government, but let's remember the Supremacy Clause in
the Constitution (the Constitution is also a CONTRACT, incidentally...). But
once you do this, even though you might not be liable financially on a
personal level for your company, you have basically set yourself up to be
REGULATED, REGULATED, REGULATED, by the Government and its in-no-shortage-of-
supply Lawyers... (Regulated is another fun word for "they're going to tell
you what to do" <g>).

(Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing... historically that regulation
created some major wins for society, case in point, the meat packing industry,
many many years ago, when proper sanitary conditions were not followed, and
there are many other examples of this).

But the thing is, this Judge is making his decision based on that CONTRACT
(the contract is the tip of the iceberg, by the way, it basically makes the
company accept ALL of the thousands of miles of statutory U.S. code, it's sort
a lead-in to that).

So, based on what I know about U.S. Law -- the Judge is probably, probably not
wrong, but remember, he's making his decision based on

a) The CONTRACT, aka "Articles Of Incorporation".

b) The miles and miles of State, Federal, Statutory Code and Agency Code
(since federal agencies are quasi-law creating entities) that the said
CONTRACT (a), forces the company to accept...

In other words:

c) Lawyers, not technologists, are running the show... <g>

And you wondered how "The Swamp" works... <g>

Hey, I think I remember some song lyrics (Depeche Mode, actually!):

"The handshake seals the _contract_

from the _contract_

There's no turning back

[...]

The holiday was fun packed

The _contract_ still intact..."

-Depeche Mode, Grabbing Hands

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
> There is no such thing as privacy anymore, at least with respect to anything
> electronic.

There never was! I was there for Scott McNealy telling us, "You HAVE no
privacy. Get over it." As the CEO of Sun, he knew exactly what the federal
government was doing with all those computers they were buying: running
Larry's database, and archiving absolutely any-and-everything they could. All
Snowden did is show us how well the tools running on top of that
infrastructure work, 25 years on.

------
scarface74
Obligatory: And this is a branch of the same government that HN users want to
“regulate tech”. Why would anyone want to give government more power?

~~~
pluc
Because normally a government does smart thing for its people. It hasn't done
that in some time in the US.

~~~
Mary-Jane
Since when? Governments have a history of greed, corruption, and trampling on
the rights of it's people for it's own gain. Ref: any history book on any
country, ever

~~~
cercatrova
The problem is all large organizations strive for power. One can be more
easily changed than the other, at least in democratic republics. Corporations
are more like autocracies, their leadership can't be changed. One can say that
corporations derive power from customers, but this is not necessarily so. As
they grow larger, they can necessarily control user habits through
psychological means. The government can too but it has a lesser incentive, as
power is more distributed, again in a democratic republic. Money however is a
much better fitness function than power, as it can be quantified, so it is
unsurprising that corporations gain power.

~~~
searchableguy
The only difference is that someone proposed an ideal when talking about
government, but not for companies. Why not use the ideal free market here as
well?

~~~
cercatrova
Free markets are sustained by governments free of bribery and corruption.
Otherwise you get monopolies and oligopolies as in the Gilded Age and arguably
now.

~~~
scarface74
Where is the government that has a history free of bribery and corruption?

~~~
cercatrova
None, of course, that is true of any organization of incentive-driven
autonomous agents, such as humans. However, governments are not explicitly
designed to make money, whereas corporations are literally explicitly designed
to make as much money as possible. Money equals power to some extent, so
corporations cannot be as useful as governments if you're optimizing for the
wellbeing of citizenry.

~~~
scarface74
Governments are far from optimized for the well being of _all_ it’s citizens.
It’s optimized for the majority. Just like the “War on Drugs” turned into
“treating it like a disease” when drugs started hitting “rural” America.

France passed a law to make the Burkini illegal - targeting Muslims. This
isn’t just the US.

~~~
cercatrova
Of course, you can't please everyone. The distinction is, at least governments
try to. Corporations do not, by design, as they are only incentivized to
collect money and funnel it to the top X% of the company, not even the company
as a whole which includes workers.

~~~
notmarkus
Corporations work by providing a product or service that customers believe to
be worth more than the dollars and cents they're paying for it. It's
inherently consensual. The only way a corporation begins to generate revenue
is literally by attempting to please as many customers as possible.

~~~
cercatrova
Yes, but the problem is not when the corporation is small, but when it is
large. With increased power, it can reach the levels of a nation-state in
affecting people, and it is unchangeable as there is no mechanism, unlike
voting, to change its behavior. You may say that the customer is always right
and so will choose a different product, but this can only be done with a free
market, which does not exist currently, and can only exist with strong
governments free of monetary influence, as I said before. Sure, pockets of
free market, competitive behavior exist, but for large corporations, they are
near oligopolies, and people can't switch to another provider. See healthcare,
colleges, ISPs, and so on.

Either way, one should be wary of large organizations, regardless of their
type such as governmental or corporate.

------
backtoyoujim
Twitter requires phone numbers.

I wonder if the millions of US Americans whose stimulus checks got "lost" are
somehow correlated to people that have criticized Trump on twitter.

~~~
nichos
That's some next level paranoia.

------
ninetyfurr
>Twitter has argued it free speech rights are violated

That's rich coming from a company famous for censorship.

------
silverreads
Maybe if we stopped voting with single issues in mind we could see that we
have been funding terrorists with every new congressional budget bill for a
long ass time, and the real way to stop terrorism is to defund our government
sponsored terrorists who we know commit crimes every day, instead of worrying
about terrorists we don't know about yet but need to find because our local
terrorists tell us we need to. Just saying.

