Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) Sues the Department of Justice and FBI Over “Privacy Probes”

Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) is all set to sue the Department of Justice and FBI in order to win the right to reveal more information and details about the surveillance of its users, which is administered under government orders.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday this week by Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR); the case was filed in Federal Court of California. The main objective of the lawsuit is to win the right to release a full-fledged transparency report containing the details of all the requests issued by the government for acquiring user information from Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR). The report that has been published by the company does not contain the exact count of requests for national security. The main reason is that Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) and other internet based companies are not allowed to publish the exact number even if the company received no requests at all.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) said in a blog, which was published online, that the First Amendment gives the company the right to answer the concerns raised by its users; it was further said in the blog that companies, under the same Amendment, must also be allowed to respond to the US government statements by offering details and necessary information regarding the scope of surveillance conducted by the US government.

Both the Department of Justice and FBI spokespeople could not be reached for comments on this issue.

For years now, The United States government has given itself the freedom to access users of high-speed internet and their phone networks with the objective to identify and catch any suspected terrorists and other law breakers. Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) is not the only company that has been asked to share its user details, The FBI has also started to pursue other companies like Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Skype and other similar platforms to allow the government to access their users’ data including chats, photos, videos, emails etc. These internet companies are however resistant and not comfortable in sharing their entire user database. These companies claim that they only share the required information when ordered by the court. They also claim that in order to remain loyal to their users they are fighting hard to win the right to inform their users about the surveillance activities conducted by the United States and other governments.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) is once again not the only company to have filed a lawsuit against the US governments agencies. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and a few others have also filed lawsuits to get the right to disclose information regarding public surveillance requests from the government. The US government has also responded by saying that it will reveal the exact number of National Security requests issued for acquiring customer data on an annual basis. However Google and Microsoft remain adamant that they should be given the right to reveal the number of times the government agencies request content on a particular user; this content includes emails as well.

Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) kicked off today’s session at $53.12 and at 2:58 pm EDT was trading at $54.54.