(Newswire.net — October 8, 2014) — The US government is restricting the Internet giant Twitter a freedom of speech by forbidding the release of a more detailed transparency report, according to Twitter’s attorneys,.
Last month, Twitter received a letter from the Justice informing the company that their transparency reports goes beyond what the government wants Twitter to reveal, the court document says.
“We have carefully reviewed Twitter’s proposed transparency report and have concluded that information contained in the report is classified and cannot be publicly released,” the Department of justice wrote Twitter on Sept. 9.
“Twitter’s proposed transparency report seeks to publish data, in ways that would reveal classified details about [government surveillance] that go beyond what the government has permitted other companies to report,” Twitter’s attorneys quote from the letter in this week’s filing.
The government’s insistence that the company should stay silent about certain surveillance practices is counter to the US Constitution, according to Twitter.
“These restrictions constitute an unconstitutional prior restraint and content-based restriction on, and government viewpoint discrimination against, Twitter’s right to speak about information of national and global public concern,” Twitter’s attorneys write in the complaint.
“Twitter is entitled under the First Amendment to respond to its users’ concerns,” the complaint continues.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the suit might spark a chain reaction of other companies to act especially when Twitter received significantly fewer government requests than rival technology firms, such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Dropbox.
According to Twitter’s attorneys, restriction imposed by the US government has prevented the company from being as forthcoming as it would like.