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Twitter Cuts API Access For Media Sonar, Spy Tool Used To Target Black Lives Matter (dailydot.com)
Police have now one less tool to monitor users on Twitter. The Daily Dot is reporting that Twitter has cut ties with a third-party social network surveillance firm, citing company policies intended to safeguard users against the surreptitious collection of data by law enforcement agencies. From the report: The severed contract follows Twitter nullifying the commercial data agreements of two other leading social-network-surveillance firms, Geofeedia and Snaptrends. Previously unreported, Twitter severed the access of Media Sonar, an Ontario-based company founded in 2012, which has sold surveillance software to police departments across the United States. Nineteen local government services are known to have each spent at least $10,000 on the software between 2014 and 2016, according to documents acquired under state open-records laws. Twitter informed the Daily Dot this week that it had terminated Media Sonar's access to its public API in October. If the company attempts to create other API keys, Twitter said, "we will terminate those as well and take further action as appropriate."
Couldn't be because Jack is personal friends with BLM activists, could it?
Its called Police work to monitor people that look to do harm or break the law.
The problem is, those aren't the only people they're monitoring. You and I are being monitored, too. I don't know about you, but I'm not looking to do any harm or break the law.
I don't have any sympathy for secret spy schemes or the mass warrantless interception of private data or communications. The people behind those belong in jail.
But Twitter isn't a private communication. It's public. When you stand up on a soapbox on the street corner and start shouting, yes, that's your free speech right. But a cop can stand there and listen to what you say, even record it if they want. It's a public place.
If you want to communicate privately, use a private medium. The police should certainly be disallowed from monitoring that without probable cause and a proper warrant. But you can't on one hand put something out there to the general public, and on the other expect it to stay private. People need to stop having the illusion that what they post publicly on the Internet has any reasonable expectation of privacy.
The actual problem is this:
No, no, and no. If you want to use evidence in court, you must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, including the specifics of how you gathered it. All of that should be available for the opposing party to challenge; that's part of their due process rights. If you don't want to reveal the method of gathering it, you don't get to use the evidence. If you want to defend it as legitimate when challenged, you must reveal the details to show that it in fact is. You don't just get to say "No, it's fine, we promise."
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
'Police Work' used to be defined as getting involved with your community and understanding your population.
What you are describing is is not Police Work, it's something else entirely.
I don't have any sympathy for secret spy schemes or the mass warrantless interception of private data or communications. The people behind those belong in jail.
But Twitter isn't a private communication. It's public. When you stand up on a soapbox on the street corner and start shouting, yes, that's your free speech right. But a cop can stand there and listen to what you say, even record it if they want. It's a public place.
This is where I think we missed the boat on free speech.
In the free speech debate, everyone points out that no one is required to give you a public forum for your speech. But all these forums actually *are* public, and yet we think it's OK if the companies suppress speech in various ways because it's not the government that's doing it. This fails rational logic in two ways.
Firstly, there was a time when companies would hand over user details on request of law enforcement without a warrant. The government thought this was OK because the companies were free to deny the request, and they also thought it wasn't a violation of the user's rights (4th amendment) because it wasn't the government doing it.
The companies were sued, and the government passed "telecom immunity" laws which effectively shut those lawsuits down.
Allowing companies to censor speech will follow that same arc - eventually the government will be able to "request" that a site suppress some news article or opinion or whatever, with a wink and a nudge, and it'll be the companies doing it and not the government.
Secondly, we don't allow a company to only hire whites (14th amendment) or only men (19th amendment), because that would be a violation of their rights. We don't allow a company to deny services to gays (such as wedding cakes) either.
Why do we allow companies to deny 1st amendment rights?
I think the distinction has to be made between public and private forums. Breitbart can post right-leaning articles, and the NYT can post left-leaning ones, because those are private to the company. Not everyone can get an article published on the NYT website, it's the company product built by employees.
But the article comments sections are public - anyone can log in and post a reply, an opinion, or even a rant. To have those sections monitored and curated is a violation of free speech by the public. Companies shouldn't be in the business of curating free speech, and their response to illegal speech should be to alert the police.
We're rapidly approaching the point where *no* opposing speech or controversial ideas will be available, simply because the big players will go in and remove the ones they don't like. Look at the election coverage for proof of this - constantly insulting Donald Trump in the media wasn't enough to get Hillary elected, because the opposing views were available. There's a move on to remove those opposing views from the public eye.
I think we're losing freedoms here. Free speech means literally *all* speech, including speech you disagree with, or that disagree with you.
We shouldn't let companies run public forums without enforcing free speech.
It could be the downfall of our republic.
The same way it's stalking if you follow someone walking around town, even though they have no reasonable expectation of privacy as they walk down public sidewalks. Intent matters.