[patmcc]

The government can ask private companies not to publish things, it does that for "national security" all the time. The company can tell them to pound sound - that's been well established. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/16/wh... for example. But there's nothing illegal (and most certainly not 30 year prison sentence illegal) about the government saying "hey could you review these tweets please"?

Do we know what they contained? Were they threats? Spam? Copyright infringing? Disagreements about tax policy?

[gavinhoward]

It's called "soft power," and the use of "review" in those messages is clearly meaning something more than that. Otherwise, the government would not have suggested anything at all.

[newZWhoDis]

> The government can ask

It actually can not.

The dude behind you with a pipe in his hand asks for your car keys in the parking lot.

Is that ok? He just asked is all…

[ethanbond]

Yes they can. Well established and not even controversial in legal circles.

[NewLogic]

Wait until everyone hears about ITAR restrictions...

[newZWhoDis]

It’s clearly illegal, it’s conspiracy to defraud the United States.

United States citizens have explicit rights, and corporate employees colluding with government officials to “voluntarily” nullify those rights are guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States

The government represents us, a collusion to defeat our rights is conspiracy against us and subject to civil and criminal action