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U.S. Threatened Massive Fine To Force Yahoo To Release Data
Advocatus Diaboli writes The U.S. government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 if it failed to comply with a broad demand to hand over user data that the company believed was unconstitutional, according to court documents unsealed Thursday that illuminate how federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program. The documents, roughly 1,500 pages worth, outline a secret and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle by Yahoo to resist the government's demands. The company's loss required Yahoo to become one of the first to begin providing information to PRISM, a program that gave the National Security Agency extensive access to records of online communications by users of Yahoo and other U.S.-based technology firms.
James Madison said it!
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- James Madison
The judges in these kind of cases are appointed by the executive, the same branch of government they are supposed to keep in check. This is a problem because the executive has a tendency to appoint only judges with views similar to itself. So it's not surprising these judges often rule in favor of the executive.
even he is on record as saying, "I'm going to slip up and they (American intelligence) are going to hack me."
Though the public has seemingly grown tired of revelations regarding the misdeeds of government, the government has not tired in its pursuit of of the prosecution of Mr Snowden. Does the government win because of their persistence or due to our short attention span?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Would have been interesting, paying the fine would require disclosure to shareholders? Is that a violation of 'super secret stuff'? Who wins SEC vs. NSA?
re "How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?"
The 'The One Telco Exec Who Resisted The NSA Has Been Released From 4+ Years In Jail" (2013/09/27)
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Note the date, 2008, not 2002. Approximately the time financial markets started crashing and the Occupy and Tea Party movements started building. Ya think the U.S. government was more worried about Islamic terrorists or ordinary Americans who would soon be fed up with massive corruption in D.C. and Wall Street. Were they trying to prevent another 9/11 or building the capacity to suppress the backlash when millions of ordinary people would soon be thrown out of their jobs and homes, while Wall Street would get massively bailed out, and return to business as usual, getting rich.
The U.S. did a spectacularly good job of crushing Occupy. Did they use domestic spying to do it.
War is when your government tells you who the enemy is, revolution is when you figure it out for yourself.
@de_machina
I wonder how charges like that could be reported on legally-required documents for publicly traded companies.
"USA Federal gov't fines: $10M*
* Details not available. Ask the NSA, maybe they'll tell you."
fencepost
just a little off
It would've gone on long enough for something to happen.
For what to happen, exactly?
"We the People" count as fucking sheep, more concerned with Kardashians than the Constitution. What exactly do you think more awareness of the problem would have gotten us?
The general public now knows about the NSA's spying programs, just like they learned about Bush (senior)'s CIA running the global drug trade to arm the Taliban 30 years ago, just like they learned about J. Edgar's FBI's CoIntelPro 30 years before that, just like they put Joe Kennedy in charge of the SEC 30 years before that. And yet... Do you see Keith Alexander's head on a pike in a conspicuous public place? Do you see the entire agency disbanded for breach of public trust, and everyone who ever worked there rendered unemployable due to the taint on their resumes?
No. No, you don't. Because we deserve the government we have. We exist as a nation run by bread and circuses, and we like it.
/ Dear $Deity - You can send that asteroid any time now... Perhaps the intelligent dragonfly empire 100 million years from now will do better than the domesticated apes did.
I call it shitty.
Is it shitty enough for you to DO something about? There are two things you can do about it:
1. Vote Libertarian on November 4th
2. Vote Green on November 4th
Both the Libertarian Party and Green Party have promised to put a stop to the spying.
98% of the people don't care much about the spying, and will vote for business as usual.