Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the US government in which it asks to be allowed to publish information about government surveillance of users, the company announced today.
In the suit, filed in the US district court of Northern California, Twitter requests “relief from prohibitions on its speech in violation of the first amendment”.
In a blogpost, Ben Lee, Twitter’s vice-president, legal, said: “Our ability to speak has been restricted by laws that prohibit and even criminalise a service provider like us.”
Currently, he said, Twitter is restricted by law from disclosing the number of requests it receives for user data through either National Security Letters (NSLs) or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court orders – “even if that number is zero”.
“It’s our belief that we are entitled under the first amendment to respond to our users’ concerns,” Lee continued, “and to the statements of US government officials by providing information about the scope of US government surveillance – including what types of legal process have not been received. We should be free to do this in a meaningful way, rather than in broad, inexact ranges.
Lee said that Twitter had “tried to achieve the level of transparency our users deserve without litigation, but to no avail”.
The suit calls for Twitter to be allowed to publish a transparency report which it submitted to the Department of Justice in April, the contents of which the company has not been allowed to publish even in redacted form.
“The US government engages in extensive but incomplete speech about the scope of its national security surveillance activities as they pertain to US communications providers,” the lawsuit states, “while at the same time prohibiting service providers such as Twitter from providing their own informed perspective.”
Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director, said in a statement that Twitter was “doing the right thing”.
“If these laws prohibit Twitter from disclosing basic information about government surveillance,” Jaffer said, “then these laws violate the first amendment.”
