You seem to have zero respect for the press. By your standard, Tobacco cancer data should never have been leaked and printed.
2. This isn't my standard. It is the standard that courts across the country use. The majority of states (including California) adopted a less stringent version call the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Only 4 states, including my Massachusetts, whose version you see above, haven't adopted the act and instead employee their own versions.
3. Tobacco cancer data might be distinguished. First, it is a stretch to find that it has competitive value. Therefore it would not be classified under trade secret. Second, it probably isn't even covered under copyright because facts are not copyrightable, no matter how much effort was undertook to find them.
But I don't really know the facts of the leaked cancer data. I would have to read them in order to determine whether it was legal for it to be leaked to the press.
If the President of the United States can't block secrets from being published... you think Twitter can? I would submit your knowledge of the practices of Journalism and the law in this area are lacking. Publishing secrets is the business of newspapers. It happens every day. Its their job.
I am very surprised that so many people here fail to understand this. Just because you like Twitter does not mean its not appropriate to publish their extremely newsworthy secrets.
I admit that I have zero knowledge of journalism practices. But my legal knowledge is much greater; I am just over one semester away from graduating from law school.
I am neutral on Twitter. They are a company that I neither like nor dislike and I do not use their product.
For the 1st amendment to be invoked, the federal/state/local government has to be on one side of the "vs." in the case name. Otherwise, it's a normal civil case between two private parties, and the appropriate laws apply.
Similarly, the government can pass a law allowing copyright holders to protect their intellectual property - say, the DMCA. But it's then up to the copyright holders to bring lawsuits against people who publish their work - the government can't force them to do so, and they're completely within their rights to release their work under the GPL or Creative Commons. No free speech issue - it's a property issue.
IANAL, but listen to the law student above. His comments basically square with my understanding from lawyer friends and civics classes and occasional reading of court cases.
From a political philosophy perspective, you could look at it as libertarianism vs. anarchy. The libertarian POV is "You can do anything you want, as long as it hurts no-one." The anarchist POV is "You can do anything you want." The Bill of Rights is intended to protect libertarian ideals, not anarchist ones. It does not give you license to say anything you want, it prevents the government from arbitrarily restricting what you can say. The government can and should still make laws preventing your speech from hurting others.