Twitter discloses two NSLs after lifting of FBI gag order; next hearing for its lawsuit against US government over disclosure of NSLs is February 14
Today, we're able to speak openly about two national security requests for the first time, specifically two national security letters (NSLs).
Context & Ripple Effects
Twitter has been fighting the US government over NSL gag orders since filing its lawsuit, with an unnamed internet firm and telecom firm represented by EFF backing it via an amicus brief in 2015. A court ruling that year also exposed for the first time that the FBI needs no warrant to obtain browsing, shopping, and location history through NSLs (scope ruling).
The disclosure now lands mid-momentum: days earlier, Cloudflare revealed its own 2013 NSL and joined CREDO and EFF in challenging the constitutionality of the letters and their gag orders. With the FBI lifting Twitter's gag and a February 14 hearing scheduled, the company can finally speak to what it received.
First-order effects
- Twitter can now publish details of two national security letters it previously could not acknowledge, giving its February 14 hearing a concrete disclosure record rather than an abstract secrecy claim.
- The FBI's decision to lift the gag removes one of Twitter's core grievances in the lawsuit while leaving the underlying legality of NSL gag orders unresolved.
Second-order effects
- Cloudflare, CREDO, and EFF gain fresh evidence that public pressure and litigation produce disclosures, strengthening their parallel constitutional challenge to the FBI's NSL practices.
- Other tech firms weighing whether to contest their own gag orders see a working template: sue, wait out the government, then disclose once the gag lifts.
Third-order effects
- If gag orders keep dissolving under legal pressure, NSL secrecy shifts from absolute to negotiated — a trajectory the EFF's later FOIA win on records of how and when the FBI lifts gags pushes further.
- The countervailing signal matters too: a US appeals court subsequently upheld NSL gag orders despite challenges from Microsoft, Twitter, and others, meaning the end state is contested rather than settled.
The trend: Tech companies' lawsuits against the FBI are converting national security letter secrecy into a piecemeal, litigated transparency regime, one lifted gag order at a time.