Twitter Inc., headed by Jack Dorsey, has been denied the ability to reveal surveillance requests issued to them by the US government after courts determined that it would likely harm national security, according to Reuters. The decision came after nearly six years of legal battles.
The social media giant had sued the US Department of Justice back in 2014 for the right to reveal, as part of its “Draft Transparency Report,” the surveillance requests it had received. Twitter argued that being barred from releasing the requests was in clear violation of their free speech rights.
US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted the government’s request to dismiss Twitter’s lawsuit in an eleven-page order filed in the US District Court for Northern California.
“The Government’s motion for summary judgment is granted and Twitter’s motion for summary judgment is denied,” the judge said in her final order.
Twitter’s decision to take on the federal government was a fulfillment of their self-described title as the internet industry’s bastion of free speech. The details outlining how much power the government has in forcing itself on the private sector is not known, which has raised questions about how much authority social media outlets have over their own platforms.
The effort of tech companies to get answers about the nature of its relationship with US law enforcement and spying agencies in a post-Snowden era has been all but futile.
Twitter’s legal battle outlasted four US attorneys general: Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Jeff Sessions, and William Barr.
Through the deployment of confidential declarations, the Justice Department was able to demonstrate that by revealing the number of national security letters from 2014, as was requested by Twitter, national security would be put in jeopardy.
Despite Twitter expressing its disappointment on the court’s decision, it added that it “will continue to fight for transparency.”
No further details have been released.
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