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Comment by root_axis | Hacker News Reader

> If the FBI messages you and says ‘hey… review this content and see if it’s violating your own policies,’ is that inherently an innocent request? I could see a world where ‘see if it violates your own policies’ is a code for extortion with plausible deniability.

I've seen this hypothetical raised a lot but I don't find it very compelling. If the post isn't in violation of twitter's TOS then twitter has strong legal protections to deny the request and both sides understand this. Without evidence that the FBI actually pressured twitter to take down non-violating content after it was deemed ok, I don't see the issue.

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I'm not going to claim to be an american law expert, but when the agencies can just say "nope" to evidence against them in said court of law, it becomes hard to claim strong legal protections. I may be wrong and misunderstanding the law, but it does seem like that. And as a shot in the dark here I doubt it got any better after the patriot act.

"Joseph P. Nacchio (born June 22, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American executive... Nacchio was convicted of insider trading during his time heading Qwest. He claimed in court, with documentation, that his was the only company to demand legal authority for surreptitious mass surveillance demanded by the NSA which began prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks.[1]

He was convicted of 19 counts of insider trading in Qwest stock on April 19, 2007[2] – charges his defense team claimed were U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February, 2001.[3] This defense was not admissible in court because the U.S. Department of Justice filed an in limine motion,[4] which is often used in national security cases, to exclude information which may reveal state secrets. Information from the Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Nacchio's case was likewise ruled inadmissible.[5] " [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

The government proved insider trading.

>I'm not going to claim to be an american law expert, but when the agencies can just say "nope" to evidence against them in said court of law, it becomes hard to claim strong legal protections. I may be wrong and misunderstanding the law, but it does seem like that. And as a shot in the dark here I doubt it got any better after the patriot act.

This is nonsense. In your example the court said "nope" to the defendant trying to push a conspiracy theory which could not possibly have exonerated him.

Here's a decent read on the Nacchio case without weird conspiracy theory bullshit https://truthonthemarket.com/2008/03/31/some-thoughts-on-the...

is it a conspiracy theory because they said it was? you don't know and neither do I, it does sound like he thought that asking the NSA for what he has a right to ask for, a warrant to give up data, wouldn't impact his chances of renewing government contracts, but it seems it did and they were dropped and the stock plummeted. Could be the other way around and he expected it and did commit fraud, I don't know and won't pretend to not be biased against the NSA, but the retaliation from them is pretty convenient in either case. The concept of being able to exclude evidence just because "natsec might be at risk" is also absurd to me, instead of taking the trial to a judge with clearance or something.

The uncertainty of the sentence aside we can zoom out and see that asking to follow legal processes that every single one of those companies should be following in the first place can very well cause retaliation from the NSA, so all else aside invoking legal protections sure does seem to be bad for companies.

It's a conspiracy theory because Nacchio was actually guilty of insider trading regardless of what the NSA may have done.

From the court decision which you didn't bother to read:

>Even if the classified information were presented and established what he said it would, it could not exonerate Mr. Nacchio as he claims. Essentially, Mr. Nacchio argued that undisclosed positive information can be used as a defense to a charge of trading on undisclosed negative information. We disagree. … If an insider trades on the basis of his perception of the net effect of two bits of material undisclosed information, he has violated the law in two respects, not none.

It's also an anthromorphization fallacy argument. "Twitter" is a company, not a private individual.

If the FBI contacts "Twitter" then they're not talking to any one individual, in fact there's no requirement that be the same person at all.

So Twitter cannot be threatened or threatened with implied threats - it's a limited liability corporation, there's no individual who can be overly inconvenienced or have any emotional reaction to the request.

Threats of regulations or hefty fines can definitely inconvenience the company’s owners, who have a stake in the company’s future.

And importantly, if the individuals using the platform are (hypothetically) being silenced by government agencies levelling threats against the company unless it complies, this could be seen as tantamount to censorship.

The imagery you and others are trying to invoke is one of burly men in black suits turning up on your doorstep at the family home.

Twitter doesn't have that. The employee handling the request doesn't own Twitter. If something happens to Twitter it doesn't happen to them except in a very abstract way (and the person who did fire them was Elon Musk in the end).

Governments absolutely have a means to intimidate company owners: it's subpoenaing them to testify before Congress. Not emailing a mid-level content moderation supervisor who has no way to directly talk to the board of executives or shareholders.

You are very naive. Of course the FBI could target an individual at the company to do their bidding if they wanted. Hell, even law enforcement does similar stuff chasing drug dealers. In such cases the govt has no regard for the individuals safety or financial well being.

At the corporate level its also threatening because of the actions the govt could take against the corporation. Look at all Musks companies now undergoing heavy auditing since he messed with the FBIs twitter.

You have to be naive and only see the happy path and think the govt always has your best interests in mind to think otherwise.

> Look at all Musks companies now undergoing heavy auditing since he messed with the FBIs twitter.

Can you point to examples of this? I hope you’re not referring to things like the earlier investigation of Tesla’s FSD claims when that’s been underway for years and so widely predicted.

You really think an AG or similar can’t have a little brunch with a C level executive resulting in a mandate on operational guidelines in response?

Yes, I absolutely think that. Because how the heck are you going to keep that going as a company wide mandate? Where's the directives that things are now this way? Where's the weirdly timed corporate memorandums?

Corporations are not people: you can't "tell" a corporation to do something, because the people who make it up are a mercurial, constantly varying group. Even if the owners know something, the employees don't: training materials have to be updated, policies modified etc. You can't "imply" a threat to a corporation, because how do you "imply" the threat to all the people who have to actually implement the desired action? How do you replace staff who are not in on "the implication"? You can't: somewhere and somehow you would have to have internal emails, training and onboarding materials.

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