Judge dismisses Twitter’s lawsuit against government

A federal judge dismissed Twitter’s attempt to publish the exact number of secret orders it receives from the government to turn over its customers’ information. 

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in California ruled that the information Twitter wants to publish is classified. Because of that, the judge dismissed Twitter’s claim that the gag order violates the social media company’s First Amendment right, which does not apply to classified information.

{mosads}“Again, Twitter has conceded that the aggregate data is classified,” the judge wrote. “In the absence of a challenge to the decisions classifying that information, Twitter’s Constitutional challenges simply do not allege viable claims.”

The judge did give Twitter the option to amendment its lawsuit. If the company wants to, it can challenge the classification of the information it wants to make public. 

“We will continue to evaluate today’s order, but we welcome the decision not to transfer our transparency case to the FISA Court,” Twitter said in a statement. 

Twitter originally filed the lawsuit in 2014 because it wanted to publish specific statistics on the number of national security letters and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court orders it receives every year. 

Under the law, technology companies are only allowed to publish the statistics in wide bands. For example, Facebook’s latest transparency report noted that the company received between 0 and 499 national security letters. 

Twitter has resisted using those wide bands, instead publishing no statistics about the number of national security letters it receives. 

In its initial lawsuit, Twitter said it wanted the ability to publish the exact number, “even if that number is zero.”

Many took that statement as a hint to the number of secretive orders it receives. Due to the nature of Twitter and its open platform, many have speculated the number of those secretive court orders would be relatively low.