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Yahoo CEO Says It Would Be Treason To Decline To Cooperate With the NSA
McGruber writes "During Wednesday's TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Marissa Meyer was asked what would happen if Yahoo simply declined to cooperate with the NSA. She replied 'Releasing classified information is treason. It generally lands you incarcerated.' Meyer also revealed that the 2007 lawsuit against the Patriot Act had been filed by Yahoo: 'I'm proud to be part of an organization that from the very beginning in 2007, with the NSA and FISA and PRISM, has been skeptical and has scrutinized those requests. In 2007 Yahoo filed a lawsuit against the new Patriot Act, parts of PRISM and FISA, we were the key plaintiff. A lot of people have wondered about that case and who it was. It was us ... we lost. The thing is, we lost and if you don't comply it's treason.'"
This spin on this article is amazing. What happens if you decline cooperation is classified information. That doesn't mean that declining to cooperate leads to a treason charge, just that whatever happens if you decline, is classified information. Releasing classified information is a treason charge, but that's a separate issue altogether.
Yet no American has been convicted of Treason since the 50s.
Except that there is no common law precedent for doing so (AFAIK), and to make that stretch would be to take a huge gamble as to what happens under appeal.
Luckily, you don't have to worry about common law precedent and appeals so much in trials held in a secret court.
Aid and Comfort is often referred to as "harboring a fugitive" -- which, if Yahoo Mail has evidence of where someone is hiding or what they are up to, and Yahoo has the means to ferret that out, but doesn't provide the information to the government when they ask for it with a warrant, could be considered treason. From there to providing any information to the government because they've requested it, and being in contempt of a secret court if you refuse to do so or talk about it, is the slippery slope we've slid down.
So protecting foreign combatants by intentionally masking their communications and refusing to assist the federal government in their apprehension is NOT giving them aid and/or comfort.
I'm curious...if it were drug runners laundering money through a major US bank, would you consider that assisting them in such a way that would be against the RICO act?
(note: I'm not siding with the government, or against those who would give the NSA the middle finger - let them do their own legwork, but I'm curious where you draw the line, and how straight that line is)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I'm guessing that providing weapons and training to Al Qaeda would qualify as treason. I mean except when it's our own government doing it, of course.
"the feds can declare your argument "frivolous" and ignore it."
She just has to blast it on millions of computer screens. They won't be able to ignore the political outrage from the public over trying to jail a woman with a baby that is fighting government tyranny. Secret agencies and courts tend to fade away from scrutiny by the general public.
PS
I keep getting the feeling that hollywood was trying to tell us about this for decades but we weren't listening because we thought it was entertainment and wouldn't believe it would happen to us. The movies of the last few decades sure described a lot of the current issues. Either that or hollywood was trying to program us to be insensitive to the changes.
Either way, you've got the best P.S. I've seen in a long while. Sci-fi writers had some of this long before Hollywood, but who takes that seriously? Other than some of us, maybe.
Perhaps it doesn't matter; I've the scary thought that even if the bulk of the populace got angry and demanded an end to such practice that it would make no difference to outcome.
It used to be that legislators tended to behave well in being responsive to their constituents in order to get the votes to get re-elected; now I suspect they have more fear of having the past five or ten years of their emails and phone calls outed than they fear having to return to private life to try to make an honest living.
I am sure that the woman who would not let her employees work at home, but has a nursery built next to her office, would he happy to let the NSA listening in on your conversations, but hers.