Yahoo fought NSA surveillance in 2008, faced $250,000 per day fine

[Tech_Dreamer]

Wow! Now that's something i didn't expect from Yahoo..

Newly released  Documents* says that Yahoo (along with other search engines out there)  were threatened by the US government to comply with PRISM surveillance requirements, or face a $250,000 per day fine in 2008. While Yahoo fought the demand through the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, it ultimately lost and complied with the order, which paved the way towards mass surveillance of Internet users.

 

  *more than 1,500 pages of once-secret papers from Yahoo’s 2007-2008 challenge to the expansion of U.S. surveillance laws, contents of the documents are still a secret & only a few have been able to 'physically' see them.

 

 

 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has made an official statement regarding the court documents, confirming that Yahoo resisted the government's demands initially, but ceded on April 25, 2008 after the FISC "held that the directives were lawful and ordered Yahoo! to comply."

 

The FISC ruled that "the U.S. Government has sufficient procedures in place to ensure that the Fourth Amendment rights of targeted US persons are adequately protected and that the acquisition of foreign intelligence to be obtained through the directives issued to Yahoo!, as to these individuals, is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Additionally, it ruled that "any incidental acquisition of the communications of non-targeted persons located in the United States and of non-targeted U.S. persons, wherever they may be located, is also reasonable under the Fourth Amendment."

 

 

Users come first at Yahoo. We treat public safety with the utmost seriousness, but we are also committed to protecting users' data. We will continue to contest requests and laws that we consider unlawful, unclear, or overboard...

                                                                                      - Yahoo

 

portions of the documents remain sealed and classified to this day,only the very top yahoo officials had eyes only access to the released document, even some high tier yahoo team members haven't been able to get access to the declassified documents, the news is out from those who have seen it..

 

 

Key takeaways from these documents include:

• An expanded version of the FISC-R opinion in the case, originally released in 2008 in a more redacted form.

• The release of the never-before-seen 2008 FISC opinion that we challenged on appeal.

• The parties’ briefs, including some of the lower court briefings in the appendices.

• An Ex-Parte Appendix of classified filings.

• A partially redacted certification filed with the FISC, as well as a mostly unredacted directive that Yahoo received. 

 

Yahoo, which endured heavy criticism after The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper used Snowden’s documents to reveal the existence of PRISM last year, was legally bound from revealing its efforts in attempting to resist government pressure. The New York Times first reported Yahoo’s role in the case in June 2013, a week after the initial PRISM revelations.

 

 

Link: http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/09/12/newly.released.documents.shed.light.on.2008.fisc.hearings/

 

 

Post your thoughts & comments down below...

[flibberdipper]

Still don't like Yahoo, since the mail part of things sucks.

[jezza39]

I honestly don't understand the FISA courts, the point of courts are a fair, just and transparent resolution of issues. Why even bother having the court? No one wins, might as well staff it with the NSA chief and call it a day, results are the same anyway

[Humbug]

Only real solution is for giant tech companies to move their business and server farms out of the USA. Then they are not subject to US laws, and servers are not hosted with connectivity from US ISPs who can be pressured into snooping traffic.

[Trik'Stari]

I honestly don't understand the FISA courts, the point of courts are a fair, just and transparent resolution of issues. Why even bother having the court? No one wins, might as well staff it with the NSA chief and call it a day, results are the same anyway

They can claim that "oh we have people to argue for the accused" etc.

 

What Yahoo should have done, was suffer a sudden "data loss" of everything they had. Oops sorry NSA, our data got wipe by a hardware problem, go fuck yourselves.

 

Go fuck yourselves NSA

[jezza39]

They can claim that "oh we have people to argue for the accused" etc.

 

What Yahoo should have done, was suffer a sudden "data loss" of everything they had. Oops sorry NSA, our data got wipe by a hardware problem, go fuck yourselves.

 

Go fuck yourselves NSA

 

Courts need accountability, that's why we have them. This FISA court crap is a joke.

[Trik'Stari]

Courts need accountability, that's why we have them. This FISA court crap is a joke.

That was my point. They can claim that they have someone that argues for the "defendant". Although no one will ever actually know.

 

Nevermind that in American courts it completely violates your right to face your accuser.

 

The NSA and most of the rest of the Federal Government need to just be shut down.

[Tech_Dreamer]

imo NSA is doing something that's pretty good, in a sense , problem occured when they refused to admit it , especially when they lied to congress about it @ that point even if it was for safety reasons, they were distancing themselves & pushing themself into an unstopable isolated power house with no oversight, sort of isolating & overgrowing themselves, the same behaviour a terrorist does, sooner or later they will use it against people(humanity) & they will have a valid reason to counteract the reason they did it , it starts with protection, later to 'Perfection' which blinds even the most powerful, Ed.Snow sorta brushed off on this subject as one of the reason he decided to do what he did,

 

I'm pretty sure NSA has caught a hefty amount of pottentials & targetted personels, before an event, which could've made a worse events, So far NSA's been like captain jack sparrow, a good bad guy...but same pottential applies to them.