Twitter may not publicly quantify the number of times the FBI demands user information from it for national security investigations, a federal appellate court ruled Monday.
The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FBI was justified in blocking the social media giant from publishing aggregate counts of such requests in its biannual “Transparency Report” online because doing so could jeopardize national security.
Circuit Judge Daniel Bress, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote that although the court acknowledged “Twitter’s desire to speak on matters of public concern,” the “government’s restriction on Twitter’s speech is narrowly tailored in support of a compelling government interest: our Nation’s security.”
