(Reuters) – Twitter is under increasing pressure from governments around the world to release user’s private information, with requests rising 40 percent in the first six months of the year, the microblogging company said Wednesday in its semi-annual transparency report.

The United States made three-quarters of the 1,157 data requests during the six-month period, according to the San Francisco-based company’s report. (Report: transparency.twitter.com/)

Governments usually want the emails or IP addresses tied to a Twitter account.

In one well-known case, a French court ordered Twitter in February to turn over information about an anonymous account that posted anti-Semitic tweets. Twitter, which had initially resisted by arguing that the data was stored beyond French jurisdiction in its California servers, ultimately complied in June.

Efforts to censor Twitter content have also risen sharply, the company said.

“Over the last six months, we have gone from withholding content in two countries to withholding content (ranging from hate speech to defamation) in seven countries,” said Twitter legal policy manager Jeremy Kessel.

Twitter was censored the most in Brazil, where courts issued orders on nine occasions to remove a total of 39 defamatory tweets.

The report did not include secret information requests within the United Sates authorized under the Patriot Act, a law enacted after the September 11 attacks. U.S. companies are prohibited from acknowledging the existence of data requests made under those statutes.

Transparency reports such as the one published semi-annually by Twitter have been a particularly contentious issue in Silicon Valley in the wake of a series of leaks in June by former security contractor Edward Snowden, who alleged that major service providers including Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Microsoft Corp systematically pass along huge troves of user data to the National Security Agency.

The companies, which have denied the scope of Snowden’s allegations, have asked the U.S. government for permission to reveal the precise number of national security requests they receive in order to publicly argue that their cooperation with the government has been relatively limited. The negotiations between the companies, which include Twitter, remain ongoing, but firms including Microsoft and Facebook released in June some approximate figures of how many users have been affected by the data dragnet cast by U.S. intelligence.

In the first half of the year, authorities in Japan, another large Twitter user base, made 87 requests while U.K. agencies filed 26. The majority of the requests come in the form of court-issued subpoenas, Twitter said.

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Recall Alert: Michelin Tires Recalled

On July 12, 2013, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in association with Michelin North America, Inc. announced the voluntary recall of some of its most popular lines of tires: Latitude Tour, X Radial LT2, and LTX M/S2 tires. The tires are being recalled due to incidents of pressure loss and tire failure caused by perforations in the sidewall. These perforations cause the tire to lose pressure while driving leading to sudden tire failure increasing the risk of a crash.

The recall involves MICHELIN LTX M/S 2 tires in the following sizes: P275/55R20 111T RBL, P265/65R18 112T and P265/60R18 109T ORWL. It involves the MICHELIN X Radial LT2 tires in the following sizes: P265/65R18 112T and P275/55R20 111T. The sizes affected for the MICHELIN Latitude Tour are: P255/60R19 108S and P255/70R18 112T. Consumers can locate the model numbers on the sidewall of the tires.

These tires were sold on new vehicles and at tire stores and auto repair shops nationwide. Michelin is supposed to notify consumers, and dealers will inspect and replace any affected tires free of charge. Any consumer that believes that they have tires that are affected by this recall can contact Michelin Consumer Care at 855-851-4951 or online at http://www.michelinman.com/voluntarysafetyrecall.

As a consumer advocate and trial lawyer, I am continually troubled by the fact that manufacturers continue to sell products that endanger the lives of consumers. Manufacturers, in their zeal to get products on the market, often cut corners and overlook safety when designing and manufacturing products. Manufacturers have an obligation and opportunity to thoroughly assess product safety before the launch of a product. It should not take incidents like this for manufacturers to make a product safe.

Howard D. Popper, Esq.
One Western Ave.
Morristown, NJ 07960
Tel: (973) 993-8787
Fax: (973) 539-9700
Licensed in New Jersey, Florida and the District of Columbia

Website: WWW.Popperlaw.com

E-Mail: HPopper@Popperlaw.com

“If we are to keep our democracy there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.” — Learned Hand

New Law: Cell Phone.

P.L.2013, c.70. Increases fine and Imposes License Suspension for Talking or Texting on Hand-held Device While Driving. NJ Law.

New Jersey Senate Bill No. 69 (2R) imposes increased fines for first, second and subsequent offenses of talking on a hand-held wireless telephone or texting a message with a hand-held wireless electronic communication device while driving. Specifically, this bill increases the fines to $200 to $400 for a first offense, $400 to $600 for a second offense, and $600 to $800 for third or subsequent offenses.

Howard D. Popper, Esq.
One Western Ave.
Morristown, NJ 07960
Tel: (973) 993-8787
Fax: (973) 539-9700
Licensed in New Jersey, Florida and the District of Columbia

Website: WWW.Popperlaw.com

E-Mail: HPopper@Popperlaw.com

Respondent McNeely was stopped by a Missouri police officer for speeding and crossing the centerline. After declining to take a breath test to measure his blood alcohol concentration (BAC), he was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital for blood testing. The officer never attempted to secure a search warrant. McNeely refused to consent to the blood test, but the officer directed a lab technician to take a sample. McNeely’s BAC tested well above the legal limit, and he was charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI). He moved to suppress the blood test result, arguing that taking his blood without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court agreed, concluding that the exigency exception to the warrant requirement did not apply because, apart from the fact that McNeely’s blood alcohol was dissipating, no circumstances suggested that the officer faced an emergency. The State Supreme Court affirmed, relying onSchmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757, in which this Court upheld a DWI suspect’s warrantless blood test where the officer “might reasonably have believed that he was confronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, under the circumstances, threatened ‘the destruction of evidence,’ ” id., at 770. This case, the state court found, involved a routine DWI investigation where no factors other than the natural dissipation of blood alcohol suggested that there was an emergency, and, thus, the nonconsensual warrantless test violated McNeely’s right to be free from unreasonable searches of his person.