The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by X - formerly Twitter - of a lower court's 2023 ruling that challenged a ban on X revealing how often the US government requested user data for national security investigations.
X had previously said that the Supreme Court justices should look at the case, stating it was a "critical" matter. However, X Corp. v. Garland appeared on a list of denied petitions released on Jan. 9.
This case goes back to when Twitter originally filed a suit in 2014, the year after whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the scope of US spying and surveillance, including telecoms surveillance.
At the time, the US government relaxed restrictions on what they could reveal about user data - relating to national security - they requested from companies. These companies could publish government requests for the data, but only in broad terms, with increments as little as 100 or as much as 1000.
Twitter wanted to release the precise number of requests it had received in a prior six-month period, citing that redactions demanded by the likes of the FBI exceeded First Amendment rights.
However, the 2023 ruling - from a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel - concluded that “Twitter has a First Amendment interest in commenting on matters of public concern involving national security subpoenas,” but its request to publish the precise number of requests “would risk making foreign adversaries aware of what is being surveilled and what is not being surveilled.”
