Mood:
celebratoryNow Playing: Yahoo faced $250,000 per day fines for PRISM dissidence
Topic: Privacy & Security
The requests are part of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and overseen by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R
Full Article here:
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2365903/yahoo-faced-usd250-000-per-day-fines-for-prism-dissidence
The secret courts overseeing the National Security Agency (NSA) threatened Yahoo with daily $250,000 fines if it failed to comply with their orders.
Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell revealed the court's threats in a blog post, following a court victory allowing the firm to publish 1,500 pages of secret papers chronicling its bid to fight the NSA's data requests.
"In 2007, the US Government amended a key law to demand user information from online services. We refused to comply with what we viewed as unconstitutional and overbroad surveillance and challenged the US government's authority. Our challenge, and a later appeal in the case, did not succeed," read the post.
"At one point, the US government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply."
Yahoo was one of many firms involved in the infamous PRISM mass surveillance campaign. The campaign saw the NSA siphon data from the companies using National Security Letters.
The requests are part of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and overseen by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R).
The nature of the requests mean the companies involved are not allowed to disclose receiving the orders or what information was handed over without risking arrest.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer claimed she would face "treason" charges if she declined to comply with the requests in June 2013.
Bell listed the court ruling as a key victory in Yahoo's ongoing bid to be more transparent about its part in PRISM and pledged to publish the documents on the company's Tumblr blog in the very near future. He added that Yahoo will continue to work to release further documents relating to PRISM.
"Our fight continues. We are still pushing for the FISC to release materials from the 2007-2008 case in the lower court. The FISC indicated previously that it was waiting on the FISC-R ruling in relation to the 2008 appeal before moving forward," he said.
"Now that the FISC-R matter is resolved, we will work hard to make the materials from the FISC case public, as well."
Yahoo has also made several technical upgrades to its services security in a bid to protect its users from surveillance campaigns since news of PRISM broke. Most recently Yahoo began encrypting all information that moves between its data centres.
