Twitter sues US government for publishing secret data requests

Twitter has sued the U.S. government because the Department of Justice’s restrictions on the company’s disclosure of information about data requests violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution on freedom of expression.

Twitter and other US tech companies are severely limited in their ability to publish information about data requests in transparency reports. Among other things, they are not allowed to say anything specific about the receipt of NSLs and FISA summations from the FBI. Even if they haven’t had such queries at all, they are not allowed to release that, draw Twitter on. Only series from 0 to 999 may be published, without, for example, indicating which part comes from the NSA and which part comes from the FBI.

The microblogging service has sued the US government over free speech claims that the company is entitled to publish more details about the extent of state control. “We should have the freedom to do this in a meaningful way, other than just generic, inexact sequences,” said Ben Lee, vice president of Twitter.

Other tech companies such as Google have also invoked the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in a call for greater transparency. However, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and LinkedIn decided to waive lawsuits after a decision by the US government that the general series on NSL and FISA requests could be released. Twitter thinks that decision does not go far enough and wants to publish exact figures.