BEEP, BEEP

Twitter Sues the Government

Over gag order on disclosing surveillance.

It seems to be a one-way street for the U.S. government when it comes to privacy, and Twitter’s not cool with it. The company filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Tuesday stating that the company’s First Amendment rights were violated by the Justice Department’s restrictions on what they could publicly reveal about the government’s request for user data. They want more transparency than is currently permitted in their biannual reports. “It’s our belief that we are entitled under the First Amendment to respond to our users’ concerns… by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance,” said Ben Lee, a Twitter vice president. “We should be free to do this in a meaningful way, rather than in broad, inexact ranges.” As it stands, tech firms can only report a broad number of requests, instead of an exact number.