
The Government is Silencing Twitter and Yahoo, and It Won't Tell Us Why - e1ven
https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security-free-speech/government-silencing-twitter-and-yahoo-and
======
binarymax
Here is what I don't understand: actions like this takes more than one person.
It takes hundreds of people, complicit in actions that are the opposite of
what anyone would consider 'American'. It's plainly fucking unamerican. So who
the hell are these people? Why are they getting away with it? Sure covert
things have always been going on to protect the public...but this is so in-
your-face against what we should stand for that I cannot fathom how it is
allowed to continue. I am so very angry that things like this are happening.
The worst part? we can't seem to do anything about it so we just end up
whining on the internet.

~~~
jbooth
The hiring filters for most of the security services seem to select for people
who consider following orders to be the most American thing they could
possibly do.

~~~
binarymax
Ok sure, plenty of cogs in the wheel following orders. But what about the
judges? What about the leaders? The people we elect into office? Where is the
accountability?

~~~
maccard
> judges? What about the leaders? The people we elect into office?

Judges are appointed by the president, and confirmed by the senate[1] (I guess
that means voted on by the senate after a high ranking civil servant decides
they would make a good judge) so if this person disagrees with the policy of
the senators, there's a good chance he's not going to get into power. The
people who are in office are normally so caught up in this sort of thing that
they would end their own careers by speaking out about it, or worse, be called
traitors of their own country and hunted by the NSA/FBI (see Snowden). The
problem is once you know about it, you're already in deep, and your head will
roll if it rolls. For many people, that sacrifice is too much to make. If you
have a family, you ruin their lives too remember. All your friends, parents,
relatives lives will be turned upside down at the same time... Is that
something you would risk and give up if you were in this position?

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_judge)

------
sage_joch
If Twitter and Yahoo really wanted to disclose this information, there is
nothing the government could do to stop them. Civil disobedience is one of the
most important tools we have against Orwellian governments. And doing the
right thing is infinitely more important than following authoritarian orders.

~~~
insuffi
I'm sorry, but that's wishful thinking.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojS4zGDc4JI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojS4zGDc4JI)
\- QWest

[http://www.wired.com/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-
lifted/](http://www.wired.com/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/)

Does QWEST CEO going to jail for refusing to cooperate ring any bells?

~~~
cdr
It helped that Nacchio was actually blatantly guilty of insider trading and
all sorts of super shady behavior.

It's unlikely his prosecution even had anything to do with the NSA, as much as
he likes to tell that story.

[http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25488178/past-qwest-
go...](http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25488178/past-qwest-govt-chief-
disputes-nacchios-claim-nsa)

~~~
throwaway2048
Selective prosecution is a key tool of an oppressive government, reposting one
of my comments here, which was related to a politician seemingly getting a
similar treatment:

    
    
           The problem with your post is exactly why selective prosecution is the
         very embodiment of an oppressive regime. After all they DID break the
         law, and they SHOULD be punished right? Who could argue with that.
    
         Meanwhile half of Washington is doing the same thing, with the full
         knowledge of people like the NSA, and the facts are sure to come out if
         they take a meaningful stand against their agenda.
    
         The example of the soviet election is also an excellent one. They knew
         every bit of information about every candidate, and merely had to expose
         the ones that didn't toe the line properly as the criminals or terrible
         people they were.
    
         Just like every single other person ever, they did something illegal or
         unsavory at some point in their life.
    
         Make no aspersions, the kind of information the NSA holds is complete
         and total political power.
    

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068)

You an absolutely be sure that at the bare minimum a large minority of CEOs of
large company are in or have been in a similar situation. Laws on insider
trading are very all encompassing and are broken on a regular basis by
practices that are considered normal. It may have been fraud, and it may have
been illegal, but that dosen't make it any less of a leveraging tool for
people like the NSA.

------
higherpurpose
So, people still don't think they should prioritize getting their services
from outside of EU, rather than US? It seems to me that despite all the laws
and the Constitution, the government can still pretty much force any company
do whatever it wants, "legally" or extra-legally (hello
Amazon/Paypal/Visa/Mastercard!).

Post-Snowden, US companies don't deserve a second chance - at least not while
the US government doesn't seem to have any remorse about mass surveillance and
its abuse of power, and has no serious intention of reforming itself.

~~~
dctoedt
> _So, people still don 't think they should prioritize getting their services
> from outside of EU, rather than US? It seems to me that despite all the laws
> and the Constitution, the government can still pretty much force any company
> do whatever it wants ...._

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I imagine that
most other countries' governments would do _at least_ what the U.S. Government
does, if only they had the tools.

~~~
insuffi
I find it peculiar that you still _imply_ the US government's moral authority
by using the phrase _at least_. What gives? What makes you think the other
governments are intrinsically more evil?

Besides, your argument is rather off-topic. The other governments _probably_
don't have the tools, so they can't be _at least as_ evil, so the grass _is_
greener on the other side of the fence.

EDIT: I'd prefer somebody to tell me why other governments are intrinsically
more evil, instead of silently downvoting me.

~~~
dctoedt
> _I find it peculiar that you still imply the US government 's moral
> authority by using the phrase at least. What gives? What makes you think the
> other governments are intrinsically more evil?_

I didn't say anything about morality, nor about evil. As Rayiner has correctly
noted more than once, in international affairs the world is ultimately a
Hobbesian state of nature. Morality plays a definite but limited role ---
especially when different people adhere to drastically different views of
what's "moral" or "evil"(cf., e.g., Crimea), in which case the stronger side
will win.

The brute fact is that a government that daintily claims to be morally "above"
gathering intelligence about potential threats is one that likely won't be in
power for long. By and large, the people in charge of other governments tend
to know this. Apropos of that, note that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution prohibits only _unreasonable_ searches by the government.

\----------------

> _The other governments probably don 't have the tools, so they can't be at
> least as evil, so the grass_ is _greener on the other side of the fence._

Life isn't a snapshot, it's a movie. Other governments might not have
particular tools now. If history is any guide, they will, soon enough (cf.,
e.g., the nuclear-weapons programs of various countries).

EDIT: BTW, I'm not the one who down-voted you.

~~~
insuffi
Crimea is a terrible example to illustrate that.

1)You stated that other country's governments would do _at least_ as much
surveillance. While not technically illegal, it certainly doesn't play out
well for any system supposedly operating under the umbrella term "democracy".
That's why I call it evil. That's something KGB/Stasi would do, and people
don't exactly hold them to very high esteem?

2) I thought that everybody knows by now that the current surveillance
apparatus is not for "potential security threats". If anybody who refuses to
spy on their own people(e.g. telecoms) is considered a potential
threat(whether it actually threatens national security or not), then, voila!
We have arrived at a totalitarian government. The term threat has become very
loose in its definition lately.

3)Correct, life isn't a snapshot. However, for the time being, the grass _is_
greener on the other side of the fence. That's why companies need to be
flexible and agile, and mitigate future threats on their livelihood e.g.
switch to services in more friendly locales.

4) Still though. What makes you say that the governments of other countries
would do _at least_ what the US government is doing? That seems to imply some
moral superiority that goes something like this - "we have this technology and
we are spying on people, which is illegal, but other countries would do much
worse things, given the opportunity". So it's corrupt, but somehow still above
everyone else?

------
artellectual
America is slowly turning into its own worst enemy. Is this what war on terror
has lead to? "No one can terrorize our people, we terrorize our own people by
slowly taking away all their rights and liberties" good job America.

~~~
Ihmahr
> terrorize our own people

... and other people, but then it was okay-ish.

------
yoamro
"In a democracy, if your government is going to gag someone from speaking, it
should publicly explain why"

It seems like even the ACLU is saying "it's okay to censor people, just please
tell us why". Im not sure what to even think of this.

~~~
milesskorpen
There are legitimate reasons why the government needs to operate in secret for
a short while — a sting on a suspected criminal, where they have strong
evidence, but need to close the case without scaring the target into fleeing
the country, for example. This usage should be firmly rooted in law and
disclosed after a reasonable period of time, however.

~~~
Zigurd
Even those "needs" need to be balanced against having an open legal process.
We have _both_ NSLs _and_ a "no fly list." For the purpose of keeping some
very high-value suspect from fleeing, the no fly list should be sufficient.
This looks like an exercise of power just to maintain and expand secrecy and
the supremacy of "national security" over legal process.

~~~
milesskorpen
I'm not trying to argue secrecy is right in this case — I don't know enough.
I'm just saying that anyone (including the ACLU!) should recognize that
limited & temporary secrecy is really important in combating crime or fighting
wars. The question is just how we make sure it is limited, temporary, and
really only applied to the right things — and not used as a way to cover
up/hide information which should be public.

~~~
Zigurd
> * recognize that limited & temporary secrecy is really important in
> combating crime or fighting wars*

How important? Quantify that. Start at zero, and then justify all the really
vital things. You may find there are actually zero existential threats if some
super-Snowden revealed all secrets.

------
dm2
I don't know what information they are trying to suppress but in my opinion
gag orders are wrong and the US government should have to thoroughly justify
any action that goes directly against the US constitution.

Say the plans for the US Navy's railgun, or advanced nuclear specifics, or
advanced drone technology, or time-travel technology is leaked out, should the
US government be able to do everything in it's power to wipe that information
from the internet to ensure that it has the #1 military in the world?

I don't know the answer to that question. But I do know that if a terrorist
group got that information and used it to cause massive amounts of destruction
that people would have wished the US government did more to protect it's
military secrets.

The Patriot Act really messed things up.

Does anyone have a solution? Does it involve getting more ethical people into
congress?

I have a solution, and it's called Online Voting. We are probably one of the
few online communities that can actually make it happen, yet it's never even
mentioned. Start by testing it in select states, then if it's successful move
towards implementing it nation-wide. I have proposed it before but people just
tell me how it's impossible because of security. There HAS to be a valid
solution, being able to validate your votes, having numerous checks in place,
having open-source code, I don't know, but hopefully someday we can all work
together to make it a reality.

We could even work to eliminate Congress eventually, have every single thing
that normally goes before Congress voted by individuals. Yes, the president
could overrule votes (such as building a spaceship for trillions of dollars),
but near unlimited transparency just seems to be the obvious answer. There
will be a ton of resistance, because those in power don't want to give up
power. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think we should at least try it.

~~~
dmur
We don't know what happened, that's the problem.

FTA, "To make matters worse, the government won't disclose its reasoning for
requesting the gag, effectively shutting the public out of the courthouse
without any explanation."

It's idealistic to think that no information should be able to be quashed by
the government, but it's _not_ idealistic to think that their motives for
doing so should be made public.

~~~
dm2
I had the "motives made public" line in there but moved it to the top of my
comment.

Suppressing leaks of top-secret military technology is acceptable, suppressing
secrets that could harm the image of the US government or individuals because
they did something bad is something that shouldn't be allowed.

People must be accountable for their actions, otherwise they are cowards.

------
ChuckMcM
This looks like another attempt by the ACLU to get the national security
letter issue resolved (or undone). Its a worthwhile battle and I support them
in it, but I'm not sure what this article brings to the conversation. It is
yet another skirmish in the district courts.

~~~
jdp23
The article talks about "grand jury subpoenas" so this is different than NSLs.

------
mtimjones
The Obama administration is the most open and transparent administration in
history. Not.

~~~
venomsnake
I think it is pretty transparent right now that they don't think the american
public that they serve worthy of having a say in the way that they are being
served. Or knowing how.

Also voting them out is not an option right now because both parties are
pretty fine with extending the security apparatus rights and abilities. And
the system is made almost impossible for a non partisan candidates to enter
the government.

~~~
pdkl95
...and so we maintain the status quo.

Worse, we are conditioning people to believe they can get away with this kind
of blatant abuse. The longer this goes on without _somebody_ being forced to
answer for their role in it, we will see more and more people coming to the
conclusion that they ARE actually above the law. Nobody threw the people
involved in ${OLDER_PROJECT} in jail - despite being obviously
unconstitutional and/or illegal at a glance - so why would ${NEW_PROJECT} be
any different?

This feedback loop, I fear, is at the root of a lot of these issues. We've
seen a general emboldening in many areas. In some areas, nobody is even
bothering to to _pretend_ their abuses are legal and constitutional. Without
the _fear_ of getting "caught" in some way - which would break the
conditioning feedback-loop - I expect these kinds of abuses to simply get
bolder and more frequent.

There was a time thought things like the legal system could reintroduce that
fear. As I've learned about just how bad things have gotten, I now strongly
suspect it will take more. I never wish for violence. Unfortunately, I really
don't see attitudes changing until at least _some_ heads quite literally end
up on a pike. Anything less will be interpreted as still "getting away with
it".

Seriously, I don't _want_ a damn _civil war_. I just think it seems foolish to
expect things like "the law" to fix anything, when you see people publicly
announcing their intention to ignoring the law, and barely even makes the
news.

~~~
mtimjones
A civil war is likely the only thing that will turn the U.S. back towards the
great country that it once was.

------
Zigurd
It is very very hard to sympathize with the companies involved. If they wanted
to, they could implement secure communication where ephemeral keys or user-
controlled keys are used, and open source clients would guard against the
placement of "bugged" client software. Then they could hand over cyphertext on
demand, and not take on the job of supposedly protecting people who in their
estimation merit protection. Protect all the bits.

------
hadoukenio
Stupid but serious question...

If I get a National Security Letter am I allowed to show it to my lawyer? If
so, is there any limit to the number of people in my legal council? If NOT,
what's stopping having _everyone in the country_ as my legal council. Then, as
I can only show the National Security Letter to my lawyers, I can then host
the NSL on my website for everyone to see.

Crazy or illegal?

~~~
scintill76
Ladar Levison claimed, "There's information that I can't even share with my
lawyer, let alone with the American public."[0] I'm not familiar enough to say
whether this level of gag is legally documented, or has been upheld, etc.

[0] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/lavabit-
founder-u...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/lavabit-founder-
under-gag-order-speaks-out-about-shut-down-decision/)

------
anigbrowl
_(In one case, the government withdrew its gag order application after Judge
Facciola invited Twitter 's participation.)_

...and? How did this play out in the context of the original subpoena?

------
wavesounds
So the Government can't limit the amount of money corporations can spend on
influencing political campaigns but, when it feels like it, it can silence
them without even explaining why. Yeah that makes sense.

------
xname
Chinese government can silence Twitter and Yahoo? Weird.

------
omarhegazy
I'm reading through these comments and really laughing my ass off at the bold,
crazy rhetoric being used here.

Orwellian governments! Everyone is just a complacent cog! America is it's own
worst enemy! No more freedom!

I mean, I admit, this specific act seems pretty dumb on the government's part.
I have no idea why the government would silence Twitter or Yahoo. And given
that they didn't care enough to explain, seems like it was probably a legal
bug. Maybe some 60 year-old anti-Internet Congress member that thought SOPA
was genius got cranky one day and sent some phone calls. I don't know; doesn't
seem like anyone that truly has power in government cares, or else they'd
succeed in silencing. This doesn't seem like "an extraordinary effort by the
government"; this is the same government that dropped two nukes in order to
end a worldwide war, so if they _really_ cared about what your favorite anti-
government Reddit liberal had to say in in a 140-character long witticism,
they'd be able to _really_ shut it down.

But I have a feeling that these alarmist and dramatic comments regarding
_FASCIST AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENTS HOLDING THE TRUE ARTISTS DOWN!_ have much
more to do with the general reddit.com/r/technology culture of shitting on
everything the government has been doing since last June. And _that_ culture
is much more retarded and out-of-hand than anything PRISM could possibly be.

It seems like what the government is doing with user data since PRISM is very
similar to what advertisers have been doing with user data since Fucking
Forever, the government doing it for it's ideals regarding terrorism and
advertisers doing it for the moolah. But the point is the same -- massive data
collection and other forms statistical analysis that you dramatic fucks label
"spying" in order to seem passionate and cool has been going on for a _while_.
Just that the government is a much bigger and more complex system than your
average advertiser, so you seem like a hip and happening individual by
attacking it.

Most people really don't give a shit about massive data collection. I mean,
sure, everyone's a Reddit slacktivist nowadays, throwing around words like
"spying!" and "privacy!" but no one really cares, or else we'd all be using
rsync + ftp and BitMessage and all that idealistic free software stuff that
RMS peddles. People just want to seem special and cool and smart and advanced
when they post about how EVIL the government is for spying on all of us. But
no one honestly cares, or else no one would use Facebook and Google and Apple
products.

And should you care?

Is it really that significant, your tiny, indistinguishable contribution to
our advertising overlords that isn't even tied to your personal identity? Is
it really that creepy or a violation of privacy? It's not like the government
knows that specifically Omar Hegazy and E1ven, they don't care about
everyone's specific identities (but that would be truly creepy). I mean, even
if they have your specific data tied to your real name, it's not like the NSA
has people actually listening and looking at your conversation and spying on
who you are and what you do. That would be statistically impossible. There are
316 million American citizens, 204 million e-mails sent per minute, and 1.26
billion Facebook users, and only 75 thousand NSA employees.

Could they really be reading all your e-mails tied to you the person, are they
even capable of that? They wouldn't be able to spy on each and every one of
you even if they tried, and that wouldn't make sense, either. So I'm pretty
sure the only thing that knows about _you_ you is the program transferring
stuff from Google's servers to NSA servers, and you can trust that one to not
be sentient enough to care.

So. They're not spying on individual people, cause they physically can't - but
that would _really_ be creepy. They're checking on aggregate statistics. And
when you're just another brick in the wall of statistical analysis, is it
really all that creepy? Do they really know all that much specifically about
you?

But why are they looking at aggregate statistics, you ask?

Good question. Don't laugh -- I think it's terrorism ? I mean sure, that seems
like such a cop-out answer from our perspective. But how do we know that the
only reason that terrorism isn't a threat anymore isn't because of the
American government putting it's foot down? Couldn't it be that the
government's seemingly creepy obsession with fighting against terrorism is the
reason Al-Qaeda and such have failed so hard that we just laugh at the
possibility of them being a threat? If terrorism isn't a threat anymore,
couldn't it be that shows that the government's way is _working_? I mean, this
bin Laden guy. His family was filthy fucking rich, man. They were connected to
Saudi royalty. These Al-Qaeda guys had fucking planes, man. And they
_reaaaaalllllly_ didn't like us. So obviously, if we just did nothing about
it, they probably would've struck again ...

But I don't know. I haven't done enough research on this topic myself. Maybe
the government's obsession with terrorism _is_ a bit too much and while we
should be worrying about this issue in order to keep it from happening, maybe
20x the military budget of the next 10 countries on the list combined is a bit
too far. Or maybe it's just the right amount. I don't know, I read programming
books in my free time, not political discourse.

But it's just so obvious from their alarmist bullshit that these Reddit
libertarians haven't done their research either. They just want to seem like
they have.

------
ticktocktick
Think of the government as being a member of Hacker News with nearly infinite
downvote power. If it doesn't like what you've said it disappears what you've
said...often without even so much as an explanation.

------
ama729
I don't understand the outrage here, aren't gag orders pretty much standard
police tool? I mean, if you are taping the new Al Capone/Ben Laden/Ted Bundy,
then surely you don't want Twitter to reveal it no?

~~~
ds9
It would make no sense to let the provider say "we're monitoring Al Capone",
as this would alert Al Capone. But they're not even allowing the provider to
say "certain users are subject to wiretapping at government order". On a huge
service like Twitter this would not alert anyone in particular.

Even the above is not as much of a concern - but the same mechanism can
silence the providere about more drastic intrusions which compromise the whole
service - such as coercing private encryption keys. Lookup the whole Lavabit
thing.

~~~
DanBC
You should assume that all governments are hostile and trying to get your
data.

You then decide if you care. If you do care you instLl and carefully use
encryption software and keep your private keys under your control.

------
dfa0
Why does a dog lick his balls?

------
cordite
If he public knew the why, then they'd want to know more. So far the pattern
of information control is to seal it at the most root position as possible.

