Twitter is challenging the federal government in court over federal efforts to curb their ability to release the details of requests for surveillance. The company has been trying to negotiate a more liberal policy on the issue but failing that is suing the government on First Amendment grounds. (Wired, October 7, 2014, by Kim Zetter)
The American Civil Liberties Union applauded Twitter’s action in contesting the secrecy provisions in federal laws. “The Constitution doesn’t permit the government to impose so broad a prohibition on the publication of truthful speech about government conduct. We hope that other technology companies will now follow Twitter’s lead,” wrote Jameel Jaffer. (ACLU, October 7, 2014, press release)
The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is hearing arguments on a case challenging the FBI’s demands that telecommunications firms turn over customer records without telling the customers. The FBI argued that the agency did not have the ability to examine thousands of national security letters to see if they could be declassified. The plaintiff in this gag order case is contending the the orders surrender too much authority to the government and violate the First Amendment. (Reuters, October 8, 2014, by Dan Levine)
Google CEO Eric Schdmidt warned that government surveillance through tech firms is endangering the Internet. With internet companies the tools of surveillance, foreign countries are insisting that tech firms operating in their territory create local data centers. These centers, says Schmidt could end up destroying U.S. tech firms. (CNET, October 8, 2014, by Seth Rosenblatt)
A Harvard lawyer has written an essay describing the changes in the battle for free speech with the social media giants, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter dominating communication and finding themselves in the front lines. AS many commentators have pointed out, the social media companies, private corporations are not bound by the First Amendment but are the guardians of the public’s free speech rights. (GigaOm, October 8, 20l4, by Mathew Ingram)