Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law. A divided Supreme Court rejects a
Speaker 1: religious challenge, tell us a little about the facts of
Speaker 1: the case. Interviews with prominent attorneys in Bloomberg Legal experts,
Speaker 1: I guess his former federal prosecutor Jimmy Garula joining me
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Law reporter Jordan Ruben. And analysis of important
Speaker 1: legal issues, cases and headlines the Supreme Court takes on
Speaker 1: state secrets. Multiple lawsuits were filed against the emergency rule?
Speaker 1: Is this lawsuit for real? Bloomberg Law with June Grasso
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Show. I'm
Speaker 1: Kimberly Robinson and I'm Greg Store. We're in for Jane Grasso.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the show allegations of voter fraud in
Speaker 1: Florida and a big new whistleblower complaint against Twitter. But first,
Speaker 1: the Justice Department is under pressure to change positions and
Speaker 1: depending Supreme Court case and called for the justices to
Speaker 1: overrule a series of cases that critics say makes resident
Speaker 1: of US territory second class citizens with US isn't aware
Speaker 1: of equally American who represents the plaintiff in the case
Speaker 1: versus United States? Thanks for joining us my pleasure. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be on your show. So before we jump
Speaker 1: into the cases that you're asking the justices to overturn,
Speaker 1: these so called insular cases, can you tell me about
Speaker 1: what you're asking the justices to do here? What is
Speaker 1: it that your clients are asking for in this case?
Speaker 1: So I represent John City c Manu and other individuals
Speaker 1: born in American Samoa who are now currently living in
Speaker 1: Utah and under discriminatory federal statute despite being born on
Speaker 1: US soil, the federal government does not recognized in the citizens,
Speaker 1: instead labeling them with the subordinate status of non citis
Speaker 1: the national. So this means they have US passports, they're Americans,
Speaker 1: but they're not citizens, and their passports and facts have
Speaker 1: a disclaimer in them saying that the bearer of this
Speaker 1: passport is a national, but not a citizen of the
Speaker 1: United States. Now whatever that means, I mean that is
Speaker 1: incredibly confusing to lawyers, much less to my clients. And
Speaker 1: so as a result, they can't vote in state or
Speaker 1: federal elections, they're ineligible for certain jobs, and all they're
Speaker 1: asking the court to recognize is what citizenship clause of
Speaker 1: the Fourteenth Amendment already guarantees that if you're born on
Speaker 1: sovereign ust soil, you have a rights of citizenship. And
Speaker 1: so you said earlier that there's actually a citizenship clause
Speaker 1: in the Constitution that says, if you're born on American soil,
Speaker 1: then you are an American citizen. And yet the territories
Speaker 1: are subject to these statutes. And that's where these insular
Speaker 1: cases come in. Right, Can you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about this series of cases and what it is
Speaker 1: that they held. And so the instant cases are a
Speaker 1: series of Supreme Court decisions decided following the Spanish American War,
Speaker 1: when the United States found itself with these overseas territories
Speaker 1: like Puerto Rico and Guam that were inhabited by population
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court justices disparaged as alien races, savages, uncivilized,
Speaker 1: unset to be U S citizens. And up until the
Speaker 1: Constitution had always recognized and lawyers had always recognized that
Speaker 1: should the United States acquire areas the US territory, the
Speaker 1: people born there would have a constitutional rights of citizenship.
Speaker 1: Those territories would be on the past to statehood. But
Speaker 1: with the acquisition of these overseas territories, political leaders didn't
Speaker 1: want to extend those rights. The United States wanted to
Speaker 1: join the Club of Imperial Nations, and the only thing
Speaker 1: really standing in the way of that was the U. S. Constitution.
Speaker 1: And so eventually, in a few years after the executive
Speaker 1: brand mentioned, Congress try to buzz the lines. These questions
Speaker 1: came to the U. S. Supreme Court, which essentially ruled
Speaker 1: that Congress has discretion to act outside traditional constitutional limits
Speaker 1: and that the people of these areas would never be
Speaker 1: on the path to eventual full political participation, and that's
Speaker 1: these areas could be held as colonies. And Justice John
Speaker 1: Marshall Harlan, who folks may know as the Loan dissenter
Speaker 1: and the Plussy versus Ferguson, was also the most local
Speaker 1: dissenter in the Insular cases, really making the case that
Speaker 1: our constitution is anti colonials. What would overturning the Insular
Speaker 1: cases mean for American Samoa, and in particular, tell me
Speaker 1: if I've got this wrong, but I understand the American
Speaker 1: Samoa governments has been on the other side of this case,
Speaker 1: and they've expressed concern that there are some cultural practices
Speaker 1: in American Samoa, like the collective ownership of land requirements
Speaker 1: that a certain percentage of the people who own land
Speaker 1: have a certain percentage of their ancestry being Americans smoan.
Speaker 1: Are those potential consequences that those practices would be deemed
Speaker 1: unconstitutional if the Court were to overturn the insular cases. Yes,
Speaker 1: so kind of. The most direct result of overruling in
Speaker 1: cases would be simply to returning to where they stood
Speaker 1: before them, which the United States has always had. Territories
Speaker 1: have always been part of our constitutional structure. Congress has
Speaker 1: always had broad power in those territories. But what the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and Congress's view prior to the iner cases
Speaker 1: was is that certain stop signs of the Constitution provides,
Speaker 1: like the citizenship clause, that Congress has no power to
Speaker 1: deny birthright citizenships, apply throughout the United States, including the territories.
Speaker 1: And what the Tent Circuit and other circuits and other
Speaker 1: lower courts have done is dramatically expand the scope of
Speaker 1: what the case has actually helped. With respect to the
Speaker 1: opposition from elected officials in American sam MOA, there are
Speaker 1: different views among elected officials within and between different territories.
Speaker 1: You know, American Samoa position comes down to this agreeing
Speaker 1: with the United States that Congress has unfettered discretion to
Speaker 1: answer this question of citizenship. UM and scholars have looked
Speaker 1: at these concerns about these land ownership rules have really
Speaker 1: identified that they're not related to questions of citizenship or
Speaker 1: even the insular cases. In fact, an American Samoa right now,
Speaker 1: the current case law, they're a case decided by three
Speaker 1: federal District court judges sitting by designation in American Samoa
Speaker 1: upheld those land rules without applying the inser cases framework,
Speaker 1: but simply applying traditional equal protection analysis, which certainly applies
Speaker 1: in each of the territories today. That's new where who
Speaker 1: represents the plane of in fittymus on o versus the
Speaker 1: United States. You're listening to Bloomberg Law. Up next, we
Speaker 1: continue our conversation, including efforts to love the Biden administration
Speaker 1: to switch sides. And Kimberly Robinson and I'm Greg Stewart.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Law with June Grasso
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Gregg Storm and I'm Kimberly Robinson.
Speaker 1: We're in for June Grasso. We've been talking with Niowere
Speaker 1: of equally American about a case pending before the US
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Before we left, we were talking about the
Speaker 1: cases that you're asking the justices to overturn. Now, tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the lobbying effort to get
Speaker 1: the US on your side in this case. What does
Speaker 1: that look like, What steps are being taking and by
Speaker 1: which groups? Yeah, so, you know, the question for the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice and the Biden administration to decide is
Speaker 1: whether to support or oppose calls to overrule the insular cases.
Speaker 1: And so just a few months ago, Justice Course such
Speaker 1: a justice so to mayor both agreed that it was
Speaker 1: time for the United States Supreme Court to overrule the
Speaker 1: Insular cases. And echoing their views have been a broad
Speaker 1: array of civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union,
Speaker 1: Latino Justice pro Best, the Legal Defense Fund, and others
Speaker 1: who have called upon the Biden administration to jettison these archaic,
Speaker 1: racist Supreme Court decisions. At the same time, a number
Speaker 1: of bar associations have also taken a stand, calling on
Speaker 1: the Biden administration to support, rather than opposed, calls to
Speaker 1: overrule the Inser cases. The American Bar Association, just a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago passed a resolution supporting calls to
Speaker 1: turn the page on the in cases and the colonial
Speaker 1: playwork they established. The New York State Bar Association has
Speaker 1: passed a similar resolution, with bar associations in the US,
Speaker 1: Virgin Islands and Guam being very active and seeking to
Speaker 1: advance equality and overruling the in cases. And we shall
Speaker 1: soon hear what the Biden administration position is in these cases.
Speaker 1: They're set to file their deadline as August twenty nine,
Speaker 1: so we'll soon know what they've decided. Then we'll look
Speaker 1: beyond that to see what the Supreme Court has to set.
Speaker 1: So there was a case last term involving social security
Speaker 1: benefits in the island of Puerto Rico in which the
Speaker 1: Biden administration did not ask the court to overturn the
Speaker 1: insular cases. Is there something about your case that gives
Speaker 1: you reason to hope that the administration may come out differently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The case last term, United States versus Via Madero, dealt
Speaker 1: with the application of the Equal Protection Clause to federal
Speaker 1: laws that deny federal benefits to residents a certain territories
Speaker 1: while extending them to others, and all throughout the case,
Speaker 1: while the cases kind of hung in the background. They
Speaker 1: weren't central to the actual holdings of the lower courts,
Speaker 1: and the United States had not relied on them to
Speaker 1: advance the argument that residents of Porto Rico could be
Speaker 1: denied on supplemental security income benefits and citizen monuversus United States.
Speaker 1: The Department of Justices argument really begins and ends with
Speaker 1: the cases, So unlike prior cases where the cases were
Speaker 1: in the background, they really are front and center in
Speaker 1: the fit Monum case, and in our petition we expressly
Speaker 1: asked the Supreme Court to consider whether or not to
Speaker 1: overrule the cases. You know, I'm remembering back under President Obama,
Speaker 1: where the Justice Department did in fact change positions on
Speaker 1: the Defense Against Marriage Act in the same sex marriage context,
Speaker 1: and just wondering how unusual is it for an administration
Speaker 1: to kind of do a one eight. At the beginning
Speaker 1: of Biden's term, the Justice Department did change a number
Speaker 1: of its positions from what the Trump Justice Department had
Speaker 1: been litigating. But in fact, probably the more apt president
Speaker 1: to look at in terms of the Justice Department is
Speaker 1: former Acting Solicitor General Neil katial Um. In the Obama
Speaker 1: administration issued a confession of air with respect to the
Speaker 1: Hormatsu case, that's the Japanese internment case, saying that the
Speaker 1: United States have been wrong to argue in favor of
Speaker 1: Japanese internment and really condemning those cases even as they
Speaker 1: remained quote unquote good law under Supreme Court precedent. And
Speaker 1: that's really what all that we're asking the Listener General
Speaker 1: to do here. We wrote her a letter claiming that
Speaker 1: the Justice Departments simply don't rely on these racist cases.
Speaker 1: If they want to continue defending the discriminatory statutes, that's
Speaker 1: up to them. They do have some other arguments, but
Speaker 1: what they shouldn't do is rely on cases that sit
Speaker 1: in the same class as Plessy versus Ferguson, Dread Scott,
Speaker 1: and Cormatsu Um. So, you know, that's what what arguments
Speaker 1: the Department Justice makes to advance their cases completely within
Speaker 1: their discretion. And it's actually a much less of a
Speaker 1: lift for them to decide to stop relying on racist
Speaker 1: Supreme Court cases than other examples like don't know where
Speaker 1: they actually changed their litigating position to support the others
Speaker 1: five and they had been supporting in the case. Remind
Speaker 1: us just exactly where this case stands. This is not
Speaker 1: a case that the Justices have agreed to consider yet, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're still at the review stage. And so at the
Speaker 1: district court, the district court judge ruled in favor of Mr.
Speaker 1: City Simano, recognizing that under Constitution he had the rights
Speaker 1: to citizenship. At the circuit court stage, that decision was
Speaker 1: reversed two to one, with three separate opinions being written
Speaker 1: by the judges at the Tent Circuit. We appealed for
Speaker 1: review by the full Tent Circuit. Weren't successful, but two
Speaker 1: judges did write a very long and scholarly opinion dissenting
Speaker 1: to the denial of that review. And so now we've
Speaker 1: asked the court to take up the case. The anarchist
Speaker 1: briefs that then filed in support of the Supreme Court review.
Speaker 1: And now when people hear from the United States Department
Speaker 1: Justice in the Sister of General on whether they will
Speaker 1: support or oppose the calls to overrule the INFIR case
Speaker 1: is in this case, Neil. One final question. You know
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, you know, how these cases have
Speaker 1: been criticized sort of across the board, including from the
Speaker 1: justices themselves, you know, across the ideological spectrum. Why is
Speaker 1: it that these cases are still on the books and
Speaker 1: still considered good law. What work are they doing now
Speaker 1: that might make the justices hesitate to take them off
Speaker 1: the books. It's really not clear, and that's been one
Speaker 1: the challenges and overruling them. You know, over the last
Speaker 1: five years, there's been three or four big Supreme Court
Speaker 1: cases involving Puerto Rico, where again the inser cases kind
Speaker 1: of hung in the background, but as the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: you know, says they should be helped to their facts
Speaker 1: and narrows them that limit situations where they necessarily arise
Speaker 1: and are central to the disposition of a case. So
Speaker 1: ours is one of perhaps the only situations where lower
Speaker 1: courts would squarely rely on the cases to reach the
Speaker 1: legal result in a case, you know, the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice has been hesitant to call in the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to overrule them, even when pressed by Justice Court. That's
Speaker 1: three or four separate times, and the argument last term,
Speaker 1: and the Justices themselves until recently have been hesitants too,
Speaker 1: so not kind of reaching out to decide the issue
Speaker 1: even when you know it's been in the mix. And
Speaker 1: that's problematic because you know, the Supreme Court itself is
Speaker 1: responsible for the development of this doctrine. You know, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court and the Instant their cases reached well beyond
Speaker 1: um the issues in the case to establish this colonial framework.
Speaker 1: So just as the Supreme Court and the justices who
Speaker 1: sit on it were themselves responsible for the instant cases,
Speaker 1: they also need to be responsible for some of the
Speaker 1: solution and addressing the harms that have splunk from that
Speaker 1: of the last more than twenty years. Well, thanks so
Speaker 1: much to our guests nowhere. You're listening to Bloomberg Law.
Speaker 1: I'm Kimberly Robinson and I'm Greg Store. Coming up next.
Speaker 1: Florida has arrested meet people for voter fraud, even though
Speaker 1: many of those people say they thought they were entitled
Speaker 1: to vote. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloombird Law with
Speaker 1: June Grasso from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Kimberly Robinson and I'm
Speaker 1: Greg Store. We're in for June Grasso. Florida Governor Ron
Speaker 1: De Santis last week trumpeted the arrest of twenty people
Speaker 1: who allegedly committed voter fraud by casting ballots, even though
Speaker 1: they were convicted felons. But it turns out. Many of
Speaker 1: those people say they thought they were entitled to vote.
Speaker 1: With us to talk about this is Neil Voles. He
Speaker 1: is the deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Neil,
Speaker 1: this all stems from a balled initiative that your group sponsored.
Speaker 1: Tell us what that balled initiative did. Yeah, well, Gregg
Speaker 1: kimberly one, thanks for having having us on and shining
Speaker 1: a light on this important issue. In two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: the voters of Florida past Amendment four, which restored the
Speaker 1: voting eligibility for nearly one point four million people with
Speaker 1: past felony convictions. At folks like myself and others in
Speaker 1: our movement who had passed felony convictions and who up
Speaker 1: until that point had to deal with a lifetime voting
Speaker 1: ban in the state of Florida. So this was there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of history here, because this is kind
Speaker 1: of like a Dickens novel, right, the best of times
Speaker 1: the worst of times. On one hand, we saw the
Speaker 1: largest expansion of democracy in our country in a generation,
Speaker 1: but we also saw the implementation of that amendment end
Speaker 1: up requiring people to pay certain financial obligations before they
Speaker 1: are in fact eligible to vote, which means that there
Speaker 1: are hundreds of thousands of people with past convictions who
Speaker 1: are still not yet able to vote in a state
Speaker 1: of Florida. That's right. Yeah, that was one of the
Speaker 1: questions that I had was, you know, there is this
Speaker 1: requirement that felons have to pay off all fines and
Speaker 1: fees before being able to vote. What effect does that
Speaker 1: have with restoring voting rights? Is there any kind of
Speaker 1: evidence that most people have been able to get their
Speaker 1: voting rights back or is this being a of the
Speaker 1: book for that well one. As far as our organization
Speaker 1: and this movement, I mean, we just give up every day,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of put our work boots on and
Speaker 1: just keep moving forward. And I know according to the
Speaker 1: voter file last months voter file UM, there are but
Speaker 1: two hundred sixteen thousand people with past convictions who are
Speaker 1: currently registered in the state of Florida. And that's a
Speaker 1: lot of people, a lot of families, a lot of
Speaker 1: voices being heard. But we know there's still a long
Speaker 1: way to go, especially when you consider that there are
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people who have continue and not
Speaker 1: be eligible because they ope financial obligations. What do you
Speaker 1: see are the impacts of these arrests if we see
Speaker 1: that defines and the implementing the legislation is kind of
Speaker 1: holding up the ability of people to regain the right
Speaker 1: to vote. Is this going to have any effect on
Speaker 1: that as well? Yeah, I mean to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: there's such a human element to this, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's not a better advocate for democracy, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: than somebody lost the right to vote and got it back.
Speaker 1: So we know that there's a deeper conversation going on
Speaker 1: here about how we see each other and and and
Speaker 1: and the role in society. But on a very tangible level,
Speaker 1: it also just shines a light on an issue that
Speaker 1: we've been talking about for the last four years since
Speaker 1: the passage of Amendment four. Everywhere we go publicly in
Speaker 1: private meetings, we've been saying the same thing that the
Speaker 1: process is broken, that what we need is a statewide
Speaker 1: database that would allow people to become eligible or understand
Speaker 1: that they're eligible vote from the government on the front end,
Speaker 1: because everybody who's being impacted by this latest move by
Speaker 1: the governor and this election police course actually is in
Speaker 1: the spot in which we should not be um We
Speaker 1: know that when someone registers the vote is it's the
Speaker 1: responsibility of the state that determined an individual's eligibility prior
Speaker 1: to issue a voter identification card. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: people who got identification card voter ID cards from the
Speaker 1: government and therefore it gone through the front end of
Speaker 1: the process. To then spend time and um taxpayer dollars
Speaker 1: investigating and law enforcements time and now arresting people who
Speaker 1: have been given voter ID cards on the front end
Speaker 1: years ago just seems like we're not doing it right,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, the best way
Speaker 1: to fight crime is to stop it from happening in
Speaker 1: the first place. Tell us a little more about what
Speaker 1: you're reading and hearing about the people who were arrested
Speaker 1: and why they say they thought they were entitled to vote,
Speaker 1: in addition to the fact that they actually had those
Speaker 1: voter registration cards that you mentioned. Yeah, it's a great question,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of exemplifies kind of the humanity
Speaker 1: of this story, right because across the state, we have
Speaker 1: individuals with their individual stories and family members who are
Speaker 1: reaching out to us who are concerned about their loved ones,
Speaker 1: and we know that it's important for people to be
Speaker 1: able to know that somebody's got their back. And then
Speaker 1: that's the role of FRC and reaching out and talking
Speaker 1: and walking it out with people who are impacted by this.
Speaker 1: The through line of these conversations really just keeps coming
Speaker 1: back to the fact that the states them is not
Speaker 1: working for anybody, right that, uh, you know, we need
Speaker 1: to fix the system to prevent the criminalization of voting,
Speaker 1: and the waste will spending the tax dollars to investigate
Speaker 1: and prosecute flow to citizens. Right, It's just less costly
Speaker 1: and easier to prevent those situations from happening in the
Speaker 1: first place. And when you talk to somebody who gets
Speaker 1: caught up in that process, you know, we don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what every individual's case is. Somebody might have come
Speaker 1: in from another state and they they thought that their
Speaker 1: conviction had been you know, cleared up, or somebody you know,
Speaker 1: went through the clemency process and and and and had
Speaker 1: their voting rights restored. We don't know everybody's individual situation.
Speaker 1: But that's part of the situation that we're dealing with,
Speaker 1: which is the government is the one who can provide
Speaker 1: assurances for folks who are voting. You know, if you
Speaker 1: can't rely on the government to verify their voting and eligibility.
Speaker 1: Who can they rely on? And so to come back
Speaker 1: years afterwards and to begin to prosecute people just shows
Speaker 1: how the system isn't working. Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: That was Neil Voles, the deputy director of the Florida
Speaker 1: Rights Restoration Coalition. Coming up next, Twitter faces a whistleblower
Speaker 1: complaint file by its former security chief. I'm Greg Store
Speaker 1: and I'm Kimberly Robinson. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Kimberly Robinson
Speaker 1: and I'm Greg Store. We're in for June Brusso. Twitter
Speaker 1: is facing a new whistleblower complaint with its former head
Speaker 1: of security claiming severe shortcomings and the company's handling of
Speaker 1: users personal data. News of the complaints sent Twitter shares
Speaker 1: tumbling on Tuesday. With us to talk about it is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News reporter Leah Nilan. She covers the Federal Trade Commission. Leah,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here. Let's start off by just telling
Speaker 1: us who this whistleblower is. Yeah. So, Peter Zak was
Speaker 1: the head of cybersecurity for Twitter. He was brought in
Speaker 1: about after there was another hack of Twitter system, and
Speaker 1: he was there until January when he was fired by
Speaker 1: the Twitter CEO allegedly for performance issues. UM he filed
Speaker 1: a whistle blower complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, the
Speaker 1: Justice Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. That whistleblower
Speaker 1: complaint was also sent to members of Congress, and so
Speaker 1: you know, the allegations here are said not only to
Speaker 1: put user data at risk, but also UM, perhaps national security.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about what allegations are actually in
Speaker 1: the whistle blower complaint. There's a lot of them. So
Speaker 1: there are several allegations about bots, the number of bots
Speaker 1: that Twitter says it has on its platform versus what
Speaker 1: it internally thinks are on the system. This is an issue,
Speaker 1: of course in um elon Musk's potential takeover of Twitter
Speaker 1: and the lawsuit that is now pending up in Delaware
Speaker 1: that's going to trial in October. The other big issue
Speaker 1: is that Twitter has been under order with the Federal
Speaker 1: Trade Commission over at cybrus A scurity practices since two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. There was at hack back in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine that the FTC investigated and then they reached the
Speaker 1: settlement with Twitter then um and put them under order.
Speaker 1: So they are supposed to be reporting to the FTC
Speaker 1: things on their privacy and data security for twenty years.
Speaker 1: He says that Twitter has not accurately been portraying things
Speaker 1: about its privacy and data security to federal regulators, and
Speaker 1: that they have been in violation of this consent decree.
Speaker 1: This would not actually be the first time that Twitter
Speaker 1: had violated the consent decree. It has already paid a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars to the Federal Trade Commission
Speaker 1: for taking user phone numbers that users had uploaded for
Speaker 1: security purposes and using them for targeted advertising. What has
Speaker 1: been the reaction to this complaint? What our lawmakers saying
Speaker 1: about it? What, if anything, are the agency saying about it?
Speaker 1: The agencies are being pretty mum about it right now. Um.
Speaker 1: They usually don't disclose if they are investigating something, but
Speaker 1: almost always when a rate of this nature would be
Speaker 1: submitted to the FTC or even the dj that would
Speaker 1: at least look at it, particularly from someone of this
Speaker 1: level at the company. Congress, however, has been very vocal
Speaker 1: about their concerns you know, most members of Congress actually
Speaker 1: used Twitter, so there is um, you know, a little
Speaker 1: bit of concerned about their own accounts. There is also
Speaker 1: a lot of concern given that, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: Justice Department just convicted a former Twitter employee of using
Speaker 1: his access at the company to spy on behalf of
Speaker 1: the Saudi Arabian government on dissidents. And those were some
Speaker 1: of the sort of like national security concerns that Zak
Speaker 1: talked about in his complaint. He suggested that the Indian
Speaker 1: government had been doing something similar about those who sort
Speaker 1: of opposed the current regime. He also raised some concerns
Speaker 1: about Russia and China, China's access to the platform. Earlier,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the forty four billion dollar deal between Twitter
Speaker 1: and Elon Musk. This has been going back and forth
Speaker 1: or quite a while. Now. Can you tell us how
Speaker 1: the allegations in there could have affect this legal fight? Yes. So,
Speaker 1: one of the big issues in Musk's legal fight has
Speaker 1: to do with the number of bots on Twitter's platform.
Speaker 1: These are computer created accounts, and obviously advertisers don't really
Speaker 1: want to be paying for their ads to be shown
Speaker 1: to computers. They want to pay for their ads to
Speaker 1: be shown to people. Um. So, Musk has alleged that
Speaker 1: the number of bots on the platform is actually much
Speaker 1: higher than what Twitter has disclosed publicly. Twitter says that
Speaker 1: they believe it's about less than five percent of they
Speaker 1: have a funny metric for it, but about five percent
Speaker 1: of active accounts, and za Co says that actually it's
Speaker 1: probably higher than that, and that you know, Twitter has
Speaker 1: been sort of fudging the numbers a little bit internally
Speaker 1: so that they don't have to come up with a
Speaker 1: very clear metric for the number of bots that would
Speaker 1: obviously help you know, Musk's complaint in Delaware, since he
Speaker 1: is trying to walk away from this deal for Twitter
Speaker 1: because of allegations that they didn't you have him enough
Speaker 1: information to accurately estimate the number of thoughts. And so,
Speaker 1: immediately after this complaint became public, he started posting on
Speaker 1: Twitter about how this helped him. There was a a
Speaker 1: meme he posted of Jiminy cricket from Pinocchio. Um And so,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously his lawyers and he were pretty happy
Speaker 1: about this disclosure. The meme referenced whistling. If I recall, yes,
Speaker 1: so step back for a second. Obviously these are allegations
Speaker 1: and so we don't know, you know, the extent to
Speaker 1: which they are true. But how big of a problem
Speaker 1: is this for Twitter? It certainly seems as though it's
Speaker 1: a multifaceted issue for them that they're going to have
Speaker 1: to deal with on on several fronts. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: what's interesting is compared to the other tech companies, Twitter
Speaker 1: hasn't had as much difficulty in Washington. Yes, they have
Speaker 1: had these investigations by the FTC over security practices in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven and then more recently the one
Speaker 1: over phone numbers, but they haven't near really had as
Speaker 1: much difficulties as like Google, which is facing you know,
Speaker 1: about five different anti trust investigations, or Facebook, which is
Speaker 1: also facing several anti trust investigations. Jack Dorsey has testified,
Speaker 1: the former Twitter CEO has testified on the Hill, but
Speaker 1: not nearly as many times as for example, Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: has been dragged up there. But this is like definitely
Speaker 1: the biggest whistleblower complaint that is Twitter has faced, and
Speaker 1: and sort of regulatory issues that Twitter has faced in
Speaker 1: Washington yet, and the fact that it is very multifaceted,
Speaker 1: that it involves you know, user privacy and security. It
Speaker 1: involves national security, It involves potentially lying to advertisers. I mean,
Speaker 1: it runs the gamut, and Twitter, as I said, has
Speaker 1: not generally dealt with as big problems like this in
Speaker 1: the past. What has been Twitter's response so far? Have
Speaker 1: they said anything about the allegations. They've mostly said, you know,
Speaker 1: he was fired for performance issues in January, so please
Speaker 1: take a grain of salt of anything he's saying. And
Speaker 1: you know, they have categorically denied some of his allegations.
Speaker 1: They say that, you know, they particularly have pushed back
Speaker 1: on the allegations about bots and have said that they
Speaker 1: don't think that his allegations are accurate and that they
Speaker 1: intend to contest some of them. What happens next with this,
Speaker 1: or do we know what happens next? Well, obviously you know,
Speaker 1: the trial involving Elon Musk is coming up in October.
Speaker 1: Some of this will definitely get aired there. The FTC,
Speaker 1: as I said, is not probably not going to confirm
Speaker 1: that it's looking into this. It sometimes does confirm in
Speaker 1: what they consider major cases. So for example, it confirmed
Speaker 1: in the Cambridge Analytica case that I was looking at
Speaker 1: Facebook just because that was of such intense public interest.
Speaker 1: But um, they would be looking at this complaint and
Speaker 1: possibly bringing Twitter in to explain why they think that
Speaker 1: this does not violate the consent to cree that they've
Speaker 1: been out for over a decade, and then probably you
Speaker 1: know a lot of members of Congress have already said
Speaker 1: that they want to hear from this whizzle blow personally,
Speaker 1: so we may sort of see a bunch of congressional
Speaker 1: hearings in the same way that we did with Facebook
Speaker 1: whistle blower friends. As how again, lest Fall, can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about these national security concerns?
Speaker 1: You know, there's an allegation in the witial blower report
Speaker 1: that talks about the access that employees have to certain
Speaker 1: high profile accounts. How does that factor into the concerns
Speaker 1: that are being raised here? Yeah, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: different national security concerns. You know. He says that a
Speaker 1: lot of Twitter employees have access that would allow them
Speaker 1: to uh sort of take over prominent accounts and or
Speaker 1: look in to the d ms that people send. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that could be problematic. I mean, you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: be talking about super secret things on Twitter d m s.
Speaker 1: But aside from that, you know, the case that the
Speaker 1: Justice Department had brought um against the employee who was
Speaker 1: spying for the Saudies. The allegation there was, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people in Saudi Arabia had created accounts anonymously,
Speaker 1: but insiders could see, for example, the email or phone
Speaker 1: number that was associated with the account, and if they
Speaker 1: gave that to the government, it would be a way
Speaker 1: for the government to sort of track down people who
Speaker 1: are critics and potentially do you harm to them in
Speaker 1: real life. The the overall kind of atmosphere that this
Speaker 1: complaint suggests about Twitter, tell me if I'm wrong, seems
Speaker 1: to be that this is all stuff that Twitter just
Speaker 1: doesn't care about that much, that it doesn't make a
Speaker 1: priority to deal with these national security issues and just
Speaker 1: general user experience issues. Isn't that right? Yeah, The complaint
Speaker 1: alleges that a lot of Twitter executives just cared much
Speaker 1: more about the company's stock price, that's the company continuing
Speaker 1: to get new users, and they did about the security.
Speaker 1: The whistleblower, as we mentioned, had only been brought in,
Speaker 1: but he is a very prominent cybersecurity expert. He had
Speaker 1: worked you know, for the federal government at places including DARPA.
Speaker 1: He is a well known hacker, so he knows this
Speaker 1: stuff backwards and forwards. And he was talking about Twitter
Speaker 1: not having updated software, not really having information on all
Speaker 1: of the computers that could access its servers. He alleged that,
Speaker 1: you know, if Twitter didn't even have enough backups, so
Speaker 1: if there had been a cyber attack in which they
Speaker 1: attack some of the data centers, the company might not
Speaker 1: even be able to keep its platform up or bring
Speaker 1: it back online. So he was focused a lot more
Speaker 1: on some of the infrastructure cyber security issues then maybe
Speaker 1: past whistleblowers. And he has a lot of knowledge and
Speaker 1: respect within the community, so I think that's why a
Speaker 1: lot of people are taking his complaints seriously. And so
Speaker 1: these are just allegations at this point. But if they
Speaker 1: do turn out to be accurate, what is it that
Speaker 1: can be done about it? Is it only something that
Speaker 1: Twitter can take care of it, or is there something
Speaker 1: that Congress can do for their action by federal officials
Speaker 1: that they can take to kind of clear up these shortcomings. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: if Twitter is found to have violated the Federal Trade
Speaker 1: Commission's consent to create the FTC could impose bines on them,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, they had already paid a one fifty
Speaker 1: million dollar fine. The FTC also does have the ability
Speaker 1: to impose liability on individuals, So if they had found
Speaker 1: that Twitter was flagrantly not paying attention to these issues,
Speaker 1: they could try and impose penalties on individuals. And then
Speaker 1: if they did find that there were other sort of
Speaker 1: employees who had been spying for governments, as in the
Speaker 1: case of the Saudi Arabian case, they could potentially bring
Speaker 1: criminal charges. Okay, well, thank you very much, Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission reporter Leah Nilan. That does it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Bloomberg Law. I'm Greg Store and I'm
Speaker 1: Kimberly Robinson. This is Bloomberg