A firm granted special access to Twitter’s universe of data was instructed by the social media company to stop sharing information with US intelligence agencies, according to a report published over the weekend by the Wall Street Journal.
The move effectively cuts off domestic spy outfits from data analysis conducted by the private firm Dataminr. The company sifts through countless tweets for breaking news, patterns, and other useful information on behalf of both private sector and government clients.
In a statement to the WSJ, Twitter said that the “data is largely public and the US government may review public accounts on its own, like any user could.”
The company also told The Verge that it “never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes” in the first place. It added that the decision reflects longstanding policy, and “not a new development.”
Twitter has a five-percent stake in Dataminr. But the company is also reportedly bound to domestic spy services. It receives some funding from a private investment firm known as In-Q-Tel, which backs products that assist US intelligence agencies.
Unnamed intelligence officials claimed that Twitter was concerned about appearing too cozy with spying agencies–revealed in 2013 by Edward Snowden’s disclosures to be engaged in mass domestic espionage. They also claimed that the information provided by Dataminr had proven useful in the past, particularly during the Paris terrorist attacks last November.
The WSJ noted that Dataminr will still retain ties to the US government via a $255,000 contract with the Department of Homeland Security.
Twitter’s decision comes amid a long-running legal scuffle between the popular social network and the intelligence community.
The company sued in 2014 to disclose the exact number of National Security Letters it receives—a move that is currently barred by federal gag orders. Last week, a federal judge in California denied a government motion to move the proceedings to the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
