Twitter Drops Lawsuit Against U.S. Government Over Anti-Trump Account - TIME

Twitter Drops Lawsuit Against U.S. Government Over Anti-Trump Account

Posted: 07 Apr 2017 11:05 AM PDT

(SAN FRANCISCO) — Twitter Inc on Friday dropped a lawsuit it filed the previous day against the U.S. government, saying the government had withdrawn a summons for records about who was behind an account critical of President Donald Trump.
A lawyer for the social media company, Mark Flanagan, wrote in court papers that a U.S. Justice Department lawyer told Twitter about the withdrawal of the summons on Friday and that the demand “no longer has any force or effect.”
It was not immediately clear why the government had withdrawn the summons or whether it had closed an investigation it said it was conducting. The Justice Department, which defends federal agencies in court, declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security, which issued the summons, had no immediate comment.

Twitter cited freedom of speech as a basis for not turning over records about the account, @ALT_uscis. The people behind the account have not disclosed their identities, but the use of “ALT” with a government agency acronym has led many to assume government employees are behind such tweets.
The lawsuit said the account “claims to be” the work of at least one federal immigration employee.
The acronym U.S. CIS refers to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the account describes itself as “immigration resistance.” Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico and has promised to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
Following Trump’s inauguration in January, anonymous Twitter feeds that borrowed the names and logos of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies appeared to challenge the president’s views on climate change and other issues. They called themselves “alt” accounts.
A Twitter spokesman declined to comment beyond the court papers.
The lawsuit gave Twitter a chance to assume a favorite role as a defender of free speech, offering a respite for a company that has struggled recently to expand its audience, excite investors or attract new revenue streams.
On Thursday, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement that the summons was a waste of resources to try to uncover an anonymous critic, and he called on the Homeland Security inspector general to investigate who directed the “witch hunt.”

United Airlines video: Man dragged off flight so staff could take his seat, leaked email reveals - Independent

United Airlines video: Man dragged off flight so staff could take his seat, leaked email reveals

In a letter to employees, United Airlines' parent company chief executive Oscar Munoz revealed the company had been trying to make room for four employees of a partner airline, which resulted in four passengers being told to get off the flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Louisville.
After the plane was fully boarded, the company’s “gate agents were approached by crew members that were told they needed to board the flight”, the message leaked to ABC said.
"We sought volunteers and then followed our involuntary denial of boarding process (including offering up to $1,000 in compensation) and when we approached one of these passengers to explain apologetically that he was being denied boarding, he raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions," Mr Munoz said.
"He was approached a few more times after that in order to gain his compliance to come off the aircraft and each time he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent."
Mr Munoz said he was “upset” by the incident, but added that employees had “followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this”.
The airline had at first asked for volunteers to give up their seats for the airline staff, offering $400 (£322) and then when no one came forward $800 (£645) per passenger. When no one agreed to leave the flight, United selected four passengers at random.
Three got off, but the fourth refused, saying he had patients he needed to treat.
Three city aviation department security officers, got on the plane and after two officers tried to reason with the man, a third pointed at the man “basically saying, 'Sir, you have to get off the plane,”' said Tyler Bridges, a passenger whose wife, Audra D Bridges, posted a video on Facebook.
One of the security officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from his window seat, across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms.
Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, “Please, my God,” ''What are you doing?“ ''This is wrong,” ''Look at what you did to him“ and ”Busted his lip.“
“We almost felt like we were being taken hostage,” said Tyler Bridges. “We were stuck there. You can't do anything as a traveller. You're relying on the airline.”
Chicago's aviation department said the security officer who grabbed the passenger had been placed on leave.
“The incidence on United Flight 3411 was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure and the actions of the aviation security officer are obviously not condoned by the Department,' the department said in a statement.
After a three-hour delay, United Express Flight 3411 took off without the man aboard.
Airlines are allowed to sell more tickets than seats on the plane, and they routinely overbook flights because some people do not show up.
It is not unusual for airlines to offer travel vouchers to encourage people to give up their seats, and there are no rules for the process. When an airline demands that a passenger give up a seat, the airline is required to pay double the passenger's one-way fare, up to $675 (£544) provided the passenger is put on a flight that arrives within one to two hours of the original. The compensation rises to four times the ticket price, up to $1,350 (£1,088), for longer delays.
When they move passengers onto other flights, airlines are required to give those passengers a written description of their compensation rights.
Last year, United forced 3,765 people off oversold flights and another 62,895 United passengers volunteered to give up their seats, probably in exchange for travel vouchers. That is out of more than 86 million people who boarded a United flight in 2016, according to government figures. United ranks in the middle of US carriers when it comes to bumping passengers.
ExpressJet, which operates flights under the United Express, American Eagle and Delta Connection names, had the highest rate of bumping passengers last year. Among the largest carriers, Southwest Airlines had the highest rate, followed by JetBlue Airways.

Malicious apps can take the simple movement and work out how to access people's most private details - Independent

Malicious apps can take the simple movement and work out how to access people's most private details
People's passwords could be exposed with just a tilt of their phone, according to a new study.
Research from Newcastle University shows that PINs and passwords can be found just by watching how a phone moves when it is being held. And they warn that same information could be used by malicious websites and apps, to gain access to the most personal parts of people's lives.
In the study, researchers were able to guess a password just by watching the movement of a device. They had 70 per cent accuracy on the first guess, and 100 per cent by the fifth.
And there appears to be no easy way of solving the issue, which could compromise the smartphones and tablets that contain much of our personal lives.
Lead author Dr Maryam Mehrnezhad, a research fellow in the School of Computing Science, said: "Most smartphones, tablets, and other wearables are now equipped with a multitude of sensors, from the well-known GPS, camera and microphone to instruments such as the gyroscope, rotation sensors and accelerometer.
"But because mobile apps and websites don't need to ask permission to access most of them, malicious programs can covertly 'listen in' on your sensor data and use it to discover a wide range of sensitive information about you such as phone call timing, physical activities and even your touch actions, PINs and passwords."
The sensors needed are in most phones. But there is no uniform way of managing them, and so no easy way to solve them, according to the findings in the International Journal of Information Security.
Dr Mehrnezhad said: "More worryingly on some browsers we found that if you open a page on your phone or tablet which hosts one of these malicious codes and then open, for example, your online banking account without closing the previous tab, then they can spy on every personal detail you enter.
"And worse still, in some cases, unless you close them down completely, they can even spy on you when your phone is locked.
"Despite the very real risks, when we asked people which sensors they were most concerned about we found a direct correlation between perceived risk and understanding.
"So people were far more concerned about the camera and GPS than they were about the silent sensors."
All of the major browser providers, like Google and Apple, have been informed of the problem, the researchers said. But none has been able to come up with  a way of keeping passwords secure.

Independent