[sage_joch]

If Twitter and Yahoo really wanted to disclose this information, there is nothing the government could do to stop them. Civil disobedience is one of the most important tools we have against Orwellian governments. And doing the right thing is infinitely more important than following authoritarian orders.

[insuffi]

I'm sorry, but that's wishful thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojS4zGDc4JI - QWest

http://www.wired.com/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/

Does QWEST CEO going to jail for refusing to cooperate ring any bells?

[cdr]

It helped that Nacchio was actually blatantly guilty of insider trading and all sorts of super shady behavior.

It's unlikely his prosecution even had anything to do with the NSA, as much as he likes to tell that story.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25488178/past-qwest-go...

[throwaway2048]

Selective prosecution is a key tool of an oppressive government, reposting one of my comments here, which was related to a politician seemingly getting a similar treatment:

       The problem with your post is exactly why selective prosecution is the
     very embodiment of an oppressive regime. After all they DID break the
     law, and they SHOULD be punished right? Who could argue with that.

     Meanwhile half of Washington is doing the same thing, with the full
     knowledge of people like the NSA, and the facts are sure to come out if
     they take a meaningful stand against their agenda.

     The example of the soviet election is also an excellent one. They knew
     every bit of information about every candidate, and merely had to expose
     the ones that didn't toe the line properly as the criminals or terrible
     people they were.

     Just like every single other person ever, they did something illegal or
     unsavory at some point in their life.

     Make no aspersions, the kind of information the NSA holds is complete
     and total political power.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6695068

You an absolutely be sure that at the bare minimum a large minority of CEOs of large company are in or have been in a similar situation. Laws on insider trading are very all encompassing and are broken on a regular basis by practices that are considered normal. It may have been fraud, and it may have been illegal, but that dosen't make it any less of a leveraging tool for people like the NSA.

[Istof]

That might be true, but law enforcement agencies are trained to reconstruct evidence via a process called "parallel construction" to avoid revealing their sources (NSA for example) so you might never know the whole thruth: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140203/11143926078/parall...

[joe_the_user]

Your link isn't even an account of the trial or the details of the charges, it's just one guy disputing one version of the Nacchio story.

The "fraud" involved an overly optimistic assessment of Qwest's future. That might indeed legally be fraud but it's hardly blatant in the sense one might argue it's a fairly common occurrence and most instances of such behavior go to civil, not criminal court.

"In its case, the government stated that Nacchio continued to tell Wall Street that Qwest would be able to achieve aggressive revenue targets long after he knew that they could not be achieved. This helped it buy up regional phone rival US West, the government alleges."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio#Insider_trading....

[CamperBob2]

Interesting, but if Nacchio's so shady and unethical, I wonder why he didn't just do the easy, obvious thing, and play ball with the NSA?

[insuffi]

I don't know if I would call it blatant guilt. The prosecution of insider trading in this case seemed to be very selective. How often do CEOs go to jail for that?

[hagbardgroup]

With enough budget and motivation, it'd be easy to paint even you -- regardless of who you are and what you have done -- as a villain, especially with the cooperation of the press.

[psbp]

Why doesn't the hacker community lionize this guy as much as they do Snowden?

[jessaustin]

Some possibilities:

- He's an executive, not a hacker.

- It's easy to believe a CEO is guilty of insider trading, because all CEOs are guilty of insider trading. (Few people take the next step to wonder why insider trading is a crime at all.)

- He's actually in prison, which makes him less sympathetic.

- He's a Bellhead, which makes him less sympathetic to me. (I've worked at multiple descendants of Ma Bell, so my prejudice was earned.)

- The biggest thing, I think, is most of us imagine that if we just behave in socially-accepted ways, that's enough to keep us out of trouble. It's uncomfortable to consider the possibility that isn't true.

[mike-cardwell]

This is what anonymous leaks are for

[nroach]

Corporations generally don't do civil disobedience but individuals do. The chief reason is that corporations are responsible to their shareholders and disregarding the rule of law makes for a very easy shareholder suit if profit is impacted. That's one reason that B-Corps now exist in many jurisdictions. They allow for officers and directors to avoid liability for "doing the right thing."

[PhasmaFelis]

> Corporations generally don't do civil disobedience but individuals do. The chief reason is that corporations are responsible to their shareholders and disregarding the rule of law makes for a very easy shareholder suit if profit is impacted.

And individuals run the risk of being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and killed, depending on the issue and the area. If civil disobedience was risk-free, it wouldn't be necessary.

[why-el]

I think fighting through ACLU is more fruitful. What you are asking for could cause both companies to shutdown, effectively killing one of the few places (Twitter in this case) through which the same distress you are feeling against governments is voiced throughout the world.

[tokipin]

I think if Twitter was forced to shut down, a PR shitstorm of amazing proportions would erupt. There is no way the government would win that battle. And that's part of the point of civil disobedience: publicity.

[why-el]

Fair point. :) I could see that scenario unfolding.

[enscr]

Twitter is a godsend for unbiased news. In many developing countries, Twitter is playing a very important role of spreading the revolution against incumbents. Granted that it's penetration is a tiny fraction of print & TV media but going forward, it'll be an essential fabric for survival of society.

[dublinben]

What kind of "unbiased" news do you find on Twitter? Its role in revolutions around the world has been greatly overstated by Western journalists and techies.

[insuffi]

I agree with you, but I don't know if you'll agree with me. In my experience, revolutions generally do not generate any sort of unbiased news. As a rule of thumb, it attracts extremist/opposition groups from both sides of the spectrum with their own agendas. Not to mention regular people themselves fall victim to bias.

How much can you really discern about the situation from a few tweets without context?

That's why I think regular investigative journalism should still be the norm.

[enscr]

India is witnessing an arguably revolutionary uprising against crony capitalism, their political nexus, unchecked flow of black money & corruption from top to bottom. The elections in the capital (Dec '13) were a strong indicator of what people want as opposed to what media portrays. Social media played a very important role in bringing a party from inception to near majority in almost a year. That was phenomenal. Now the same party is resource stretched to reach out the masses in the biggest election in the world (at country level). The media has blacked out most of the positive news (for obvious reasons). This is where twitter comes in. It's cementing day to day advancements of a revolution across the country. Unfortunately twitter is still limited to a very tiny fraction of the population.

[mtimjones]

Twitter has been systematically silencing voices on the right that apparently someone in their org disagrees with. Twitter is a political machine, and you'll see it used more and more in this way...

[dredmorbius]

I'd argue "unfiltered" or "less filtered" rather than "unbiased". You're going to get multiple biases, including both the party line and the opposition (either or both of which may have its own distortions).

Sorting out the truth from this is itself a challenge. Economic historian Philip Mirowski has interesting comments on how neoliberals see deliberate distortions of the media as an arguably good thing (Mirowki, and I, disagree with this). Determining credibility (and advertising who is credible) remains a challenge, even with social / decentralized media.

[enscr]

Right. unfiltered is a better generic term. Though I should state that it's unbiased from my perspective when I can trust a source.

[wdr1]

I question if they would receive much support from the general population if they did.

Sadly, it would be easy for the story to fit the existing narrative of "evil corporations seeing themselves as above the law."

[marincounty]

The IRS could make the head honchos' lives miserable. This seems to be all their Achilles heal? And when it comes to their money--it all gets a bit fuzzy.

[ensignavenger]

The IRS yes, but also the SEC has a history of retaliating against executives who don't cooperate with the Feds.

[unclebucknasty]

The question is, what law(s) are being used by the government to take these actions with Twitter/Yahoo? For instance, are these NSL letters?

If these are not actual laws, but rather gray-area interpretations of laws being used, then each company can decide whether to challenge them and have their days in court.

But, if the government is clearly operating within the law, then it is the law/lawmaking itself that should be challenged.

[cbsmith]

Two phrases to keep in mind: fiduciary responsibility and shareholder lawsuits... and that is assuming the government doesn't go after them.