Friday 12 September 2014
Yahoo describes secret court battle with US government over surveillance
Yahoo said on Thursday that the US government threatened to fine the company US$250,000 a day if it did not comply with demands to go along with an expansion of US surveillance by surrendering online information, a step the company regarded as unconstitutional.
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Associated Press
12 September 2014
Yahoo said on Thursday that the US government threatened to fine the company US$250,000 a day if it did not comply with demands to go along with an expansion of US surveillance by surrendering online information, a step the company regarded as unconstitutional.
The outlines of Yahoo’s secret and ultimately unsuccessful court fight against government surveillance emerged when a federal judge ordered the unsealing of some material about the web portal’s court challenge.
In a statement, Yahoo said the government amended a law to demand user information from online services, prompting a challenge in 2007. Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed the programme last year.
“Our challenge, and a later appeal in the case, did not succeed,” Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell said in a statement.
The new material about the case, first reported by The Washington Post, underscored “how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the US government’s surveillance efforts”, Bell added. “At one point, the US government threatened the imposition of US$250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply.”
Bell said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court upheld the predecessor to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. Section 702 refers to the programme called PRISM, which gave the government access to online communications by users of Yahoo.
The company said it was committed to protecting user data and it would continue to contest requests and laws that it considered unlawful, unclear or overly broad.
“We consider this an important win for transparency, and hope that these records help promote informed discussion about the relationship between privacy, due process and intelligence gathering,” said Bell.
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