Twitter's Dangerous Stand on Surveillance

[Purveyor]

By
Editorial Board

The tension between Silicon Valley and the federal government over digital privacy has taken a bizarre twist: Twitter has reportedly barred the analytics firm Dataminr, which scans the Twitterverse for breaking news and trends, from selling its services to U.S. intelligence agencies. Twitter seems to have no good reason for standing in the way of national security -- beyond advancing its own public relations strategy.

While the details remain hazy, U.S. intelligence agencies and Dataminr are said to have been working together for several years in an unpaid pilot program. Twitter, which claims it's just learning about the arrangement, won't allow it to be extended, because it has a policy against selling its content for purposes of government surveillance.

Twitter's resistance is remarkably arbitrary, considering that any private company can pay Dataminr for the service. The Department of Homeland Security has a $255,000 contract to receive breaking news, although it's unclear whether that allows surveillance use. (Disclosure: Many media competitors of Bloomberg News are Dataminr clients.) Ironically, the C.I.A.'s venture-capital arm, In-Q-Tel, is a Dataminr investor. So is Twitter, with a 5 percent stake.

Twitter says this is not a big deal, and that intelligence agencies could develop their own methods for tracking public accounts on the social-media site. This is true -- Twitter's interface is public -- but beside the point: It makes little sense for the C.I.A. to re-create a program that Dataminr has already made, hemmed in as it would be by intellectual property concerns. What's more, Dataminr's product has already proved applicable to national security: It reportedly sent an alert to clients about the Brussels terror attacks 10 minutes before any news organization reported them.

Of course, this brouhaha has implications beyond Twitter. Ever since Edward Snowden began leaking documents revealing telecommunications companies' complicity in government spying on U.S. citizens, tech firms have become standard-bearers for privacy rights and unbreakable encryption. In defending its unwillingness to unlock the iPhone belonging to a shooter in the San Bernardino massacre, Apple argued that it was standing at the edge of a slippery slope; if it cooperated, the government would assume the power to force private-sector cooperation. Twitter has been suing the Justice Department to be allowed to give users more information on government surveillance.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-12/twitter-s-dangerous-stand-on-surveillance

[villager]

1. So now it's "dangerous" to resist pervasive spying?

Senator McCarthy applauds from his grave.

[20score]

2. Sounds like the author of this article is an

Last edited Thu May 12, 2016, 12:52 PM - Edit history (2)

outright fascist and authoritarian. Makes me ashamed how far the main stream Democrats have moved to the right, and now hold morally reprehensible positions on many issues. There was much better resistance to these programs when they were weaker and under Bush and Cheney.