Hacker News Reader

Comment by Svenskunganka | Hacker News Reader

> The Justice Department, which defends federal agencies in court, declined to comment. The Homeland Security Department, which issued the summons, had no immediate comment.

I hate that these kind of cases almost always end up getting the silent treatment. I'm not an American, but I think governmental institutions and agencies should be bound by law to provide an answer to the public for some of their actions, and I think this is such a case. It is important that people get to know why the government wanted this information and who is responsible for issuing the order in the first place, but I guess that's never gonna happen when politicians and officials doesn't want to answer for their actions like the rest of the people has to do.

View on HN

I think there is something in this. At the company I previously worked for, we spent an incredible amount of money and time reminding the government of the law, only for them to stop talking to us. There came a point where I thought, hmmm, y'all should probably have to explain why the f you thought you could send this to us in the first place.

I'm pretty sure that would have actually been the case here, if Twitter had not initiated litigation themselves.

This was a summons, not a warrant or subpoena. I believe–but invite correction if wrong–that the summons itself does not have immediate legal force. Ignoring it would require the government to seek a court order, or drop the matter.

I'd almost wager that they had already tried, and failed, to get some sort of court order. At the very least, someone, somewhere, did their job–either a judge, or some government lawyer who refused to even try.

I wonder if the backstory could be discovered via, for example, a FOIA request? But who knows if getting into the spotlight wouldn't have consequences for this unsung hero. Maybe better not drag some unknown rebel out into the open, lest this all ends with the most ironic way to get fired, ever.

Usually, the agent (I've never seen or dealt with DHS/CBP, mostly FBI) just keeps pestering you until you involve lawyers, often they tell you that you cannot involve lawyers (and you involve them anyway) - but you'd be amazed at how persistent they are. Sometimes as you're alluding to, it's a random agent trying a pot shot at seeing if anyone will notice them using some legality they cannot, and mostly they go away when you tell them no. Often it's misapplied MLAT you're dealing with, and then the rest is search without warrant or court order (usually trying to misapply an agency spesific power as you see in this twitter instance). We really cared about doing the right thing by the customer and paid$$ to do so, I'm not sure how many other companies follow that ideal.

Is there no accountability for the agent? I can guess the answer.. but it's kind of sad. They keep testing the waters to see what they can get away with. And when they find out, they test the waters to see what more they can get away with.. is what it sounds like from your post.

There is not and you are correct. Obviously when you have a business to run it's not like you have the time or resources to go one degree further and try and become enforcement. You shake your head and move on to the next. Sadly, I could have bought 10 senior engineers per year for the cost of legal compliance and policy (around 1.5MM a year).

I think in the US that mostly happens through elected representatives. On the small side, it's known as "constituent services": http://www.npr.org/2014/10/28/359615965/constituent-services...

And on the larger scale, you'll often see elected representatives writing to ask pointed questions. As sehug mentions below, Sen. Wyden wrote today to ask about this:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3540301-040717-RW-Le...

He clearly does this sort of thing a fair bit:

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/library

On that large scale that you're talking about re: Wyden - it's called "congressional oversight". Wyden does this a lot because, as that letter you linked noted, he's the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over CBP (as well as over the more directly finance-related issues he's written on). Note also that the letter is printed on Finance Committee letterhead, not on his own - he's writing on behalf of the committee, not only out of his own personal interest.

FWIW, Sen. Wyden wrote a letter to CBP asking WTF: https://theintercept.com/2017/04/07/sen-ron-wyden-government...

I know we'd all prefer a heartfelt apology when the government beuracy mistreats us, but dropping it isn't such a bad thing.

The worst thing that can happen is that they don't ever reconsider things, never back down, and they dig in even harder every confrontation no matter the circumstances.

All in all, I think the outcome is on the good side of the spectrum.

Why would it be so bad if the government dug in and doubled down? I'd love to see a company like Twitter fight the US government.

Well, dropping it may or may not be a bad thing, but it's really the only option that Twitter had anyway.

If the government withdrew the summons, and Twitter went ahead with their suit, the case would have been mooted by the summons withdrawal anyway, and would have been dismissed.

They could potentially amend the suit for damages to recoup the cost of compliance with an erroneous and arbitrary action, but given qualified immunity, it would be a very high bar indeed, and would almost certainly set the wrong kind of precedent (which is to say that it would reinforce existing precedent.)

Perhaps obviously, the problem is typically political appointees who don't know relevant law and regulation, but have too much authority to be ignored. Going over one's report's head is dangerous. So this is what we get.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com