How is it impolite? It's a legal request. Legal requests are always objective and to the point. You should argue objective facts and not whine because "its not polite enough"
>No one's making the argument that twitter is some bastion of free speech, but it seems reasonable to respect them for not complying to government strongarm tactics to criminalize their own users. The law is well on twitter's side on this one.
The government has not criminalizing anything. The account is deriving its authority from the fact that owner claims to be federal agent. The law is not on twitter's side. If the government suspects the impersonating of a federal agent they have the right to investigate.
If you say "Trust me I'm a federal agent." the government can ask for your identity. If someone says "trust me I'm a cop" you have the right to ask for their name and badge number.
The difference is that the account is claiming to be a federal agent. If the account were for example just an anonymous reporter who did not claim to be employed by the government, the government could not force twitter to reveal the identity.
>Comparing this to selectively banning trolls from their own business is just a false equivalence.
Twitter is explicitly citing "free speech" as their reason for denying a federal investigation.
It's not a request if you're threatening legal consequences, is it? I'm not "whining that it's not polite enough", it's clearly not a request at all but instead a strongarm tactic by an overreaching government agency.
> Twitter is explicitly citing "free speech" as their reason for denying a federal investigation.
Free speech != businesses can't censor whatever the hell they want from their own user created content. It's surprising to me how often people don't understand this. The comparison is absolutely a false equivalence in this case.
> If you stand up say "Trust me I'm a federal agent." the government can ask for your identity. If someone says "trust me I'm a cop" you have the right to ask for their name and badge number.
Yes, if you're doing something illegal - speaking out against government policy is not, hence Twitter's free speech argument.
Free speech isn't just a quirky law to restrain the government. It's a social virtue which should all try to uphold, everywhere, because it makes our society better.
Free speech is comparable to honesty in this way, as a generalized social virtue.
The law against government censorship is to the principle of free speech as the law against perjury is to the principle of honesty.
Honesty and free speech are universal principles; violating them is often legal but generally not ethical.
This becomes more and more important as our public squares are increasingly moved on to online private platforms. Soon enough almost all communication will be digital, and the corporations will have more censoring power than the government does. At that time, it'll be pretty regretful that all these people have been upholding businesses' "rights" to silence anyone they please for any reason.
That said, as someone who has ran online businesses, I still don't agree with you that it's some universal principal that businesses should be held to. I've dealt with trolls of the same ilk as Milo Yiannopoulos, and you know what? When I think about how things went, it would have sucked up a hell of a lot less resources and time of myself, the business, and my other customers if I had simply censored them immediately.
I'm saying that free speech is more than a law.
Perhaps you're referring to the first amendment, but I'm making the point that you can't limit this discussion to the first amendment.
And businesses should be held to universal principles, above and beyond the law. We should demand businesses' decisions be ethical, not simply legal.
The concept of freedom of speech is that pure speech is free from government-imposed consequences, but that private parties can and do choose what expressed ideas to support, oppose, reward, and punish. That's the fundamental concept of the marketplace of ideas.
The idea of freedom of speech is not that speech should be free of all consequences.
Now because businesses (especially those that are creations of government, like any that operate as juridical entities distinct from the constituent natural persons) are creatures of government and/or often depend on exercise of government powers, there is an argument for limiting the consequences that they can impose for speech in certain cases, especially when they are in monopolistic roles, and even more especially when that is in regard to key communications media, because those are in effect acts of government by other means.
Free speech requires more than merely the government allowing it; if the underlying society does not permit it to be exercised, it is effectively defeated.
"Free Speech" in the context of the first amendment deals specifically with the role of government.
Equally obviously, I am referring to the bigger picture. If the government is restrained, but society ostracizes, freedom of speech is effectively useless. The law is the minimum, not the optimum.
Could you cite the law you're thinking of? Simply claiming to be a federal agent to set the context for a discussion is very different from claiming to be one and then acting under the authority of that pretended identity.
> Any claimant or representative of a claimant who knowingly and willfully makes a false statement or representation for the purpose of obtaining a benefit or payment under this chapter shall be guilty of a felony...
or alternatively: http://www3.ce9.uscourts.gov/jury-instructions/node/508
The threshold of "obtaining a benefit" or "obtained thing of value" is pretty low. Is a massive Twitter following a benefit? Is positive press coverage or access a benefit or valuable?
Alternatively, this person is a federal employee and they've been actively working against their boss and employer (aka POTUS).
Either way, the outcome isn't good for them.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/912
> The threshold of "obtaining a benefit" or "obtained thing of value" is pretty low. Is a massive Twitter following a benefit? Is positive press coverage or access a benefit or valuable?
Absolutely ridiculous. If you want to play these sorts of word games, though, I might point out that this person is not pretending (or not) "to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof". They are not pretending (or not) to act under any authority. Anyone can post whatever they like on Twitter (at Twitter's discretion and according to their TOS).
In other words, it would be illegal to flash a fake badge at someone and then tell them you'll take them to jail if they don't follow you on Twitter, but that's not what this is.
> Alternatively, this person is a federal employee and they've been actively working against their boss and employer (aka POTUS).
On their own time and using their own device(s), presumably. Is this illegal?
> On their own time and using their own device(s), presumably. Is this illegal?
Since they're discussing official matters, it's probably illegal. Federal employees are always covered by rules concerning their engagement with the press and public communications.
Just like if you spoke on behalf of your company and/or leaked internal information, they could definitely sue you and potentially get you arrested (depending on the details). When your employer are the Feds, they can usually skip the "sue you" step.
> Not the views of DHS or USCIS
Whether or not that's always been there, I think it's probably always been true for this account. It's somebody saying "I work at <agency>, and here are some opinions and publicly available information". So really all they're guilty of is being publicly negative about their employer. That's not illegal for employees of corporations, and I'd be really surprised if it was illegal for employees of the government (but I haven't looked into it).
Of course, corporations and the government might like to fire employees who do this, and they'd be within their rights to do so (I think, in general) but if said employees are anonymous then they don't know who to fire, and if speaking freely is perfectly legal then they have no grounds to compel Twitter (or whoever) to unmask the account.
And it doesn't take sharing classified information to get in trouble. Pointing someone to public information validates them as accurate - including whatever conjecture included - and counts.
I spent time in the intelligence community. Your opinion and my opinion don't matter.. only the law, the agreements in place, and the tenacity of those who choose to enforce them and to what degree.
These are the only things I'm interested in. My personal opinions aside, I'm genuinely curious whether the government has a legitimate legal leg to stand on here. The reason I'm still replying is that none of those you've suggested have been terribly convincing.
Whether anonymous political speech by someone claiming to be an employee of the federal government but not acting in an official capacity is or is not a violation of the Hatch Act or any other applicable law (dubious) or any agreement they may have signed as a condition of employment is one question. Whether the fact that this individual has claimed anonymously to be a federal employee can compel Twitter to release their personal details on the basis of an assumption that either or both of the aforementioned factors (laws, agreements) will apply to them is another question entirely. While they're anonymous, how would you know which agreement they signed, if any? How would you know whether they are actually a federal employee?
"Tenacity" aside, this seems like the most plausible theory yet, but still a stretch. But I am not a lawyer.
edit: this update is relevant: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/04/07...
That doesn't really sound like they politely asked for it.
No one's making the argument that twitter is some bastion of free speech, but it seems reasonable to respect them for not complying to government strongarm tactics to criminalize their own users. The law is well on twitter's side on this one.
Comparing this to selectively banning trolls from their own business is just a false equivalence.