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Twitter Releases National Security Letters (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the put-a-sock-in-it dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Today, Twitter joined the ranks of Yahoo, Cloudflare and Google by announcing it had received two national security letters, one in 2015 and one in 2016. The NSLs came with gag orders that prevented Twitter from telling the public or the targeted users about the government's demands. The FBI recently lifted these gag orders, allowing Twitter to acknowledge the NSLs for the first time. In the newly-published NSLs, the FBI asked Twitter to turn over "the name, address, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records" of two users. Twitter associate general counsel Elizabeth Banker said that the company provided a "very limited set of data" in response to the requests, but did not make clear exactly what kind of data Twitter provided. "Twitter remains unsatisfied with restrictions on our right to speak more freely about national security requests we may receive," Banker wrote in a blog post. "We would like a meaningful opportunity to challenge government restrictions when 'classification' prevents speech on issues of public importance."

16 comments

  1. Insignificant user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    As one of those users. I sure as heck want it turned over. It would be even better if we could find out who had their rights trampled. But we don't do that anymore in the good old U S of frikkin 'Merica eh?

    1. Re:Insignificant user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As one of those users. I sure as heck want it turned over. It would be even better if we could find out who had their rights trampled. But we don't do that anymore in the good old U S of frikkin 'Merica eh?

      Nope. Rights what rights? We gotta get them terrorists, err mexicans, err muslims, err takers, even if we gotta torture (trump), steal (trump on the wall), kill families(trump), steal (the oil, trump), grab em by the pussy(trump), insult prisoners of war (trump), call for his opponents to be imprisoned(trump), work directly with those who try to subvert our democracy(trump), etc, etc. Right now the current president isn't just sucking up to faux news, but he is actively doing his damnest to destroy truth itself and all legitimate press. Quite frankly, if there is a single history class in America that is not actively discussing this stuff then we are in deep trouble. The sad part is if a responsible history professor discussed it, they would try to fire him or her, so it would have to be someone with tenure.

      Not long ago someone asked him how we would know when we were great again. He responded that he would tell us. Somehow, I don't think making America great again should involve sacrificing every principle we stand far, but here we are.

    2. Re: Insignificant user by PoopJuggler · · Score: 1

      That's because his goal was never to make America great again. That was just his bait, and the rubes ate it up. He's a con man, flat out, and a detestable human to boot.

    3. Re:Insignificant user by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Twitter misunderstood "every" is not a proper name specifying an individual account, but a noun used to indicate all members of a set, indicating that the NSL was for all accounts.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    4. Re: Insignificant user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As is Obama.

    5. Re: Insignificant user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As is Obama.

      Obama inspired hope. Now it is true that he did it by oversimplifying things, occasionally to the point where meaning was lost, such as you can keep your plan. The words left off were you can keep your plan if it meets minimum requirements. Many did not. Part of the guilt here goes to the electorate, who don't seem to like to digest even mild complexity. Trump took advantage of that by giving no plans at all, other than greatness. Obama tried to work with republicans. Obamacare is fundamentally a republican plan. They refused. Trump's lies are breathtaking and endless. I won't go through the list here. You can find it yourself and compare it to the handful that the GOP beat him over the head with for his entire tenure. His current top lie is the fake 3 million voters that:

      1) apparently only voted in california and new york. I mean, come on, give liberals some credit. If we were going to steal an election, don't you think we would put the votes someplace they would actually help?

      2) From what I can tell Trump is basing not having perfect voting rolls to somehow people voting multiple times or something. It is confusing, because it is utter crap. At any rate, he also says that not one of those votes would have been for him. Really? Not one extreme right winger would risk a felony for Don the con, but 3 million illegals who are terrified of being deported are going to for Hillary? Yah, not buying it.

      The very fact that he tries to rewrite history to make lies the new truth means that he is either lacking sufficient morals for the position, or he is mentally ill. Either way he must be impeached and removed.

      Sure pence will be probably as bad, but at least his lies will be of the ordinary evil of an extreme right politician. Trump's are an order of magnitude more damaging for our democracy.

  2. Was this why they suspected Sargon of Akkad? by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    Maybe they got a letter asking them to. Mystery solved.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Was this why they suspected Sargon of Akkad? by elrous0 · · Score: 2

      "Suspended," dammit. must...lesarn....t1o....typpe

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  3. Mr Smith at 123 Main St. by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In the newly-published NSLs, the FBI asked Twitter to turn over "the name, address, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records" of two users.

    Yet another reason you should never give real personal info to social networking sites.

    1. Re:Mr Smith at 123 Main St. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They still get where you connected from but don't make it easy for em. I would suggest googling some random real person and using their info if doing anything nefarious.

    2. Re:Mr Smith at 123 Main St. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Or any corporation that has legal presence in the US.

  4. just TWO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    the only two they're allowed to speak of, that is... they're still gagged on all the rest.

  5. So, did they turn out to be terrorists? by Narcocide · · Score: 3

    Or was their privacy unlawfully violated for nothing? And, really, only two? I find that hard to believe, and, if true... frankly rather unimpressive. I bet the advertisers pedaling these malware ads on /. right now know more about terrorist activity than law enforcement does.

  6. Trump's letters have also been released by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...they were written in Crayon, and misspelled his own name.

  7. Only two people in two years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they only asked for the info of two people out of all the millions of accounts and now supposedly revoked the API keys the governments use to gather info, this was about a month or two ago I think, then Twitter is the safest and most freedom of speech platform on the planet. God only knows how big of a pineapple Zucker picks when it's time to bend over and Google is too large of an enterprise to have any clue, lawful or no warrant. Yeah, Trump said some bs and there are hate groups with profiles but in the larger scope of things, good for them not giving a shit. If I want to go on a rant, I should be able to look like n ass if I want. It's not like people are suaded so easily and if so, let them drink the cool aid. We need a little Darwinism.

  8. ban by backslashdot · · Score: 1

    Why don't they get more proactive about banning obnoxious people?