Judge says Twitter can proceed with lawsuit to increase transparency about government surveillance

Transparency reports about government data requests have become very common from tech companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. But while these firms publish reports, their hands are tied when it comes to what they can reveal. Twitter wants to change that.

A federal judge in California ruled in Twitter's favour, dismissing the US government's claim that revealing precise numbers of data requests represented a "clear and present danger." The ruling against the government doesn't change anything in the short term, but it is still an important victory for freedom of speech.

Twitter can now move forward with a lawsuit that aims to give companies more freedom to talk about government data requests and surveillance. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said: "The government's restrictions on Twitter's speech are content-based prior restraints subject to the highest level of scrutiny under the First Amendment."

In a tweet about the case, Twitter linked to the judge's ruling:

Twitter is continuing its fight for more transparency under the First Amendment https://t.co/TG6wPSoMnP

— Twitter Policy (@Policy) July 6, 2017

The ruling explains that:

The Government has not sufficiently explained how a restriction on reporting, beyond the bands in section 1874, could be characterized as narrowly tailored to prevent a national security risk of sufficient gravity to justify the restraint, either in general or with respect to Twitter specifically.

Twitter's lawsuit has been running since 2014, and the next hearing has been scheduled for August 14.

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