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National security concerns just won out over Twitter's attempt to be transparent about surveillance:
Six years ago, Twitter sued the US government in an attempt to detail surveillance requests the company had received, but a federal judge on Friday ruled in favor of the government's case that detailing the requests would jeopardize the country's safety.
If Twitter revealed the number of surveillance requests it received each calendar quarter, it "would be likely to lead to grave or imminent harm to the national security," US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers concluded after reviewing classified information from the government. See below for the full ruling.
"While we are disappointed with the court's decision, we will continue to fight for transparency," Twitter said in a statement Saturday.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Kitsune008 on Monday April 20 2020, @05:12PM (9 children)
I must be overlooking the obvious here, but I truly do not understand how revealing the number of requests would do 'grave harm' to national security.
I would welcome any rational/reasonable explanation, but would settle for a truthful one. I suspect that truthful will not be rational, or reasonable. :-(
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2020, @05:20PM
there is no rational explanation. the judge is just another whore, plain and simple.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday April 20 2020, @05:27PM
It would reveal the sheer magnitude of the government's incompetence and waste. A jillion security requests to TWITTER of all fucking cesspools, just to find out what everyone had to eat for breakfast, the size of the dump everyone took, how their cats are doing, and which clips of Family Guy they watched. Even a single request to that drooling stupid web site is too many.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 20 2020, @05:40PM
By definition, the truthful explanation is classified and will not be told to the general public.
Rational? One might rationally argue to a judge that the release of any information about government information requests provides "the enemy" insight into the government's surveillance operations - then by wild extension - putting at risk the lives of our surveillance personnel around the world. Reasonable? No. A good government surveillance organization would "noise up" the data provided to the public such that any increase or decrease observed from the outside is more likely to be noise than signal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by slinches on Monday April 20 2020, @06:54PM
The only way I can think of that the count itself is a national security concern is if the numbers were so large that it means all available data on every twitter user is being polled daily. The public becoming aware that the government is watching everyone in that level of detail could certainly be the cause of a "national security" issue.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Monday April 20 2020, @08:29PM (3 children)
If the people knew the extent of it, they would demand that it stop and use more encryption, and that would make the DEA and FBI feel less secure.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 21 2020, @02:27AM (2 children)
If all the people knew the extent of it, a few more of the idiot criminals would start using encryption instead of mainstream chat apps.
It doesn't take much I.Q. to download and use Signal, QTox, or any one of a thousand other encrypted chat apps. People using Twitter for criminal activities are like mob thugs posing for photos by passing tourists after they beat up a shop keeper with a baseball bat.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 21 2020, @06:21PM (1 child)
Nobody said crooks were smart. But if our national security can actually be threatened by a few low IQ crooks, what does that say about our national security?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 21 2020, @06:38PM
Our national security only ever caught the low IQ crooks, the high IQ crooks are running the show.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2020, @06:35AM
The real issue is that it might cause the American people to object to the abuse of power. At some point, Americans need to stop being such cowards and actually vote the jackasses out of office that are doing things like this.