Twitter suit claims First Amendment right to disclose US data requests
Twitter claims in a lawsuit that the U.S. government violated its First Amendment rights by restricting release of information about federal surveillance.
Twitter says it sought to publish information about demands for user data in a transparency report covering the second half of 2013, but the government refused to allow it when Twitter forwarded an advance draft, report the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) and its Law Blog. Courthouse News Service and the New York Times Bits blog also have stories.
Twitter’s report would have indicated ranges for data requests that weren’t broad enough to satisfy the government. Twitter wanted to be able to measure in units of 100, so that they could say they’d received between 1 and 99 requests, or 100 to 199 requests. The government claims the information is classified, but suggests a compromise is possible. It points to a January settlement with several other tech companies that allows them to disclose government data requests in broader groups. So for example, those companies could group by units of 1000 and say they received “1 to 1000,” “1,000 to 2,000” or “2,000 to 3,000” requests.
Twitter says it wasn’t bound by that settlement, involving Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Google and Yahoo.
