US judge blocks Twitter’s bid to reveal government surveillance requests

Twitter will not be able to reveal surveillance requests it received from the US government after a federal judge accepted government arguments that this was likely to harm national security after nearly six-years of legal battle. The social media company had sued the US Department of Justice in 2014 to be allowed to reveal, as part of its “Draft Transparency Report”, the surveillance requests it received. It argued its free-speech rights were being violated by not being allowed to reveal the details. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted the government’s request to dismiss Twitter’s lawsuit in an eleven page order filed in the US District Court for Northern California.