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发帖数: 5309 | 1 Twitter公司的起诉书说，国土安全部强迫twitter交出一个叫@ALT-uscis的账号的真实
身份。这个账号是疮破上台后开始发帖批评疮破的反移民政策。 国土安全部相信这个
账户的背后是移民局内部对疮破反移民政策不满的雇员。
疮破上台后出现了诸多的批评疮破的账号，大多为政府工作人员所为。
Twitter认为政府的要求侵犯言论自由。 | s******r
发帖数: 5309 | 2 Twitter filed a lawsuit Thursday to block an order from the Department of
Homeland Security that seeks to reveal the user of an account who has been
critical of the Trump administration's immigration policies.
Tweets from the account -- @ALT_uscis -- indicate that it is run by someone
who is an employee of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services division
of Homeland Security.
Free speech advocates said the DHS order appeared to be the first time the
government has attempted to use its powers to expose an anonymous critic --
a development that, if successful, would have a "grave chilling effect on
the speech of that account" as well as other accounts critical of the U.S.
government, Twitter said.
[One thing Trump has stopped doing on Twitter since inauguration]
DHS is "unlawfully abusing a limited-purpose investigatory tool" to find out
who is behind the @ALT_uscis account, according to Twitter's court filings.
DHS spokeswoman Jenny Burke declined to comment, citing the pending
litigation.
The case sets up a potential showdown over free speech between Silicon
Valley and Washington, which has tussled over whether tech firms can resist
government orders seeking the identity or personal information from
criminals and suspected terrorists.
Apple, for instance, declined in early 2016 to unlock the phone of the
shooter in San Bernardino, Calif., and has refused to build "back doors"
that would enable law enforcement to break into smartphones. The move
sparked a pitched battle between the company and the FBI, which eventually
paid a private expert to unlock the device.
But the Homeland Security case struck free speech advocates as more
remarkable because the information request was about the identity of a
government critic, rather than public safety.
"Twitter has a pretty strong argument," said Andrew Crocker, a staff
attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It does look and smell
like the government is going after a critic. There's nothing in the summons
that CBP [Customs and Border Protection] sent to Twitter that authorizes
this request under the power that they have."
The @ALT_uscis account, which was created in January, has not held back in
firing attacks against the Trump administration.
In a Jan. 26 tweet, the @ALT_uscis account tweeted: "Fact: More than 40% of
illegal aliens in the US are Visa overstays from other developed countries
not sounding like MEXICO #TheResistance."
The account has also called attention to mismanagement in agency operations.
In a March 12 tweet, it said that "USCIS turns down regularly private
companies who propose collaboration to streamline the intake process,
reducing costs and processing time."
The account's description stresses that its views are "Not the views of DHS
or USCIS." As of the time of the court filing, the account had been active
for two months and amassed more than 32,000 followers. By 8:15 p.m., that
figure had grown to more than 86,000.
In its court filing with the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of
California, Twitter said that DHS officials delivered an administrative
summons to the social-networking site on March 14, via a CBP agent,
demanding that the company provide records that would "unmask or likely lead
to the unmasking" of the person or people behind the account.
Twitter maintains that CBP does not have jurisdiction to demand such
information, which includes "names, account login, phone numbers, mailing
addresses, and I.P. addresses," associated with the account.
But its primary objection, the company said, is that allowing the government
to unmask Twitter critics violates the Constitution's First Amendment right
to free speech. Twitter has defended its users' rights to free expression -
- a position it has held for years, notably during the widespread Arab
Spring protests in 2011. That right, the company said, is particularly
important when discussing political speech.
"First Amendment interests are at their zenith when, as here, the speech at
issue touches on matters of public political life," the filing said.
Twitter added that it feared the government wants to punish the person or
people responsible for the account. The summons, Twitter said, "may reflect
the very sort of official retaliation that can result from speech that
criticizes government officials and agencies."
The company also has a lot at stake for its business, which could see a huge
hit if anonymous users could suddenly be unmasked by the government. Unlike
other social networks, Twitter allows its users to create accounts without
publicly revealing their true identity.
This isn't the first time Twitter has tangled with officials over its users'
personal information.
The company in 2012 appealed an order from the state of New York to reveal
the identity of Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris. It lost that
appeal. Twitter sued the Justice Department in 2014 for the right to make
federal information requests for user data public. And it has lent its
support to other companies' fights against the government, including Apple's
opposition to the FBI order.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the user in the
DHS case, expressed concern that the order is an attempt to curb free speech
. "To unmask an anonymous speaker online, the government must have a strong
justification," ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler said in a statement. "But
in this case the government has given no reason at all, leading to concerns
that it is simply trying to stifle dissent."
ACLU said it plans to make its own filing in the court on behalf of the user
in the next few days. |
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