Twitter challenge to US national security probes moves forward

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers weighed the Obama administration's attempt to sidetrack Twitter's legal challenge to the government's tight lid on national security investigations that reach into the tech industry. After a lengthy hearing, Judge Gonzalez Rogers indicated she would rule later in the case, which she signaled raised tough new legal questions pitting the government's need to protect the secrecy of national security probes against the free speech rights of Internet titans such as Twitter.

Twitter is going further than the rest of the tech industry, seeking broader rights to expose how much government surveillance, if any, is going on in the Twitterverse. Twitter's legal salvo involves both national security letters sent by the FBI that forbid the release of information and National Security Agency demands for Internet user data.