Well, That Was Quick: Twitter Dismisses Lawsuit After Feds Drop Attempt To Unmask Rogue Tweeter

from the quick-flip dept

Yesterday we wrote about Twitter suing the US government after officials at the Department of Homeland Security sought to use a law designed to gather information for figuring out import duties, to unmask the operator of @ALT_uscis, alleging to comment on immigration issues from within the US Citizenship and Immigration Service. Twitter broke out the big guns for that case, as the lead attorney representing it was Seth Waxman, a former Solicitor General in the Clinton administration.

Apparently, the US government realized that it was going to be fairly difficult to make much of a case here and agreed to drop the summons it had issued to Twitter, leading Twitter to dismiss the case:

On April 6, 2017, Twitter filed a Complaint in the above-captioned matter. On April 7, 2017, counsel for Defendants from the Department of Justice contacted counsel for Twitter, to advise that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has withdrawn the summons and that the summons no longer has any force or effect. Because the summons has now been withdrawn, Twitter voluntary dismisses without prejudice all claims against Defendants in the above captioned matter.

There have been some folks who have questioned Twitter's motives in filing this lawsuit, but that seems misguided. Twitter has a long history of going above and beyond most everyone else in the tech industry in fighting back in court attempts by government officials to get info on its users without proper due process.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: customs, doj, free speech, homeland security, immigration service, rogue accounts
Companies: twitter


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2017 @ 11:41am

    Thats good, however

    Its too bad that if the rogue tweeter were a conservative, Twitter would have given the name to a mainstream media outlet to broadcast, instead of valuing their user's privacy....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Winston, 7 Apr 2017 @ 12:25pm

      Re: Thats good, however

      >Twitter would have given the name to a mainstream media outlet to broadcast

      Can you cite a specific instance where Twitter has done this in the past?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2017 @ 12:54pm

        Re: Re: Thats good, however

        No, because it's only happened in his head.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      PaulT (profile), 8 Apr 2017 @ 2:04am

      Re: Thats good, however

      ...
      ...

      Hmmm, this is where you usually need to cite instances where this has happened instead of speculating on what you wish the real world looks like in order to justify actions by people you support. Are you unable to do that, you poor persecuted fool?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Wendy Cockcroft, 11 Apr 2017 @ 2:30am

        Re: Re: Thats good, however

        This is because alt-right loons have appropriated the word "conservative" for themselves. Actual conservatives haven't got time for BS because we tend to be cautious and pragmatic.

        Get the facts: has Twitter historically demonstrated a partisan bias? If not, stop making wild accusations.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Apr 2017 @ 11:57am

    Going dark... and hidden

    If there is a lesson to be learned here it's that if you going to say something that annoys the govt you must do so in an untraceable way.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Apr 2017 @ 5:25am

    So how many requests went to companies that were more patriotic than twitter and complied silently?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 8 Apr 2017 @ 2:11pm

      Re:

      Impossible to say, after all 'A Good, Patriotic Company Is A Compliant And Silent Company'.

      /poe

      (Though to be fair Twitter is a large company and can afford to fight back, whereas smaller companies might not have the luxury and would be faced with the options of caving in or going under trying to fight.)

      link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.