(Tribune News Service) — Twitter may not publicly quantify the number of times the FBI demands user information from it for national security investigations, a federal appellate court ruled Monday. The report was going to quantify "national security letters," through which the government can request subscriber information and billing records in national security cases. The FBI pushed back, ordering Twitter not to publish the report because it included classified information that would harm national security if released. Crocker said the 9th Circuit panel had strayed from the standards around prior restraint that have protected free speech for years and set a "very, very bad precedent for 1st Amendment in national security cases." In a 2022 report, Twitter said the U.S. accounted for 20% of all government information requests globally during the period under review, which was the most of any single country.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 07, 2023 18:25 UTC