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.

Comments

"Gave"

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how this is all phrased to imply that it's no longer going on and this is all a thing of the past.

Re:"Gave"

[pr0t0]

I think the OP's inference is justified. A rephrasing of the sentence should be used to describe an ongoing program. Also, the article clearly states that the program ended in 2011, lending some support to the inference.

I also do not believe for one New York second that the program is suspended, or if it is, it is only because it was replaced by an even more Orwellian (and dare I say, anti-American) program with a different name.

It's a bad sign

[x181]

It's a bad sign when these types of reports no longer invoke any sort of shock. It's a part of "Americana" now.

Re:It's a bad sign

[Travis Mansbridge]

Snowden calls this "NSA Fatigue"

Re:It's a bad sign

[theshowmecanuck]

I call it shitty.

Re:It's a bad sign

[rmdingler]

Knowing as much as Snowden does about the abilities and vulnerabilities of an online presence,

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?

Re:It's a bad sign

[Charliemopps]

It's a bad sign when these types of reports no longer invoke any sort of shock. It's a part of "Americana" now.

I'm shocked every time.

People choose apathy as a defense mechanism. "I always knew the government was doing this." "This is what I told you all along" etc...
You predicted it so it's not so bad? Screw that, this is shameful and a sad point in American history. It's sad that the people doing this don't even realize future generations will look back on them like we now look back on McCarthy, Stalin, Nixon, etc... They bring shame on themselves and our country.

Re:It's a bad sign

[anmre]

Indeed. It's striking when Americans care more about Ray Rice than we do about methods of tyranny that would make the Stasi cream themselves.

Bread and circuses, and so forth.

Re:It's a bad sign

[fred911]

I call it "The Patriot Act".

Re:It's a bad sign

[easyTree]

Hint: they do realize but don't care. Shame doesn't mean anything to the wolves - that's for the sheep.

Re:It's a bad sign

[demachina]

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.

Re:It's a bad sign

[Anonymous Coward]

The government wins because most of the voting populace does not feel pain from their evil.

At least not directly enough that they can connect the dots.

People feel the pain of an economy in which jobs are few and prices are high, but they don't see how government corruption directly keeps it that way. They think they have nothing to hide so they don't care about being spied on, not realizing how that data is used in aggregate to power decisions that keep the entrenched wealthy elite entrenched and wealthy.

The government is very effective at wagging the dog. So effective at it that even when their lies are made public, people still don't understand, and still don't respond appropriately.

The few of use who do are outnumbered by the tremendous numbers of people who don't.

And that's why the government wins, and always will.

Re:It's a bad sign

[Bite The Pillow]

Who said there's no shock? It wasn't me, and it wasn't the article. And the only one in between is you.

You had, apparently, the first post.

Is it really that hard to shout, "Ha, ha, no one is shocked." when no one has replied with at a minimum the requisite, "I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you."?

Beyond illustrating why quotes belong outside the punctuation, this shows that you are either:

1) Minimizing the possibility of a public backlash, of which there clearly is evidence due to the number of anti-responses

or

2) Functionally retarded

Choose wisely: troll or retard, which is it?

Re: It's a bad sign

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you tell what the general public's reaction is? Can you really believe what is said by the politicians, pundits and talking heads on ABC, CBS, C-Span, CNBC, CNN, UBS or The NY Times, News Corp, Tribune Corp, Washington Post, etc., when they are owned and operated by GE, Disney, Time Warner, Rupert (Fucking) Murdoch, Jeff Bezos and their ilk, can you? We're continually bombarded with FUD and even PBS airs the paranoid war mongering of Dick Cheney telling us of the poverty of the administration's foreign policy. All this is done in the absence of any credible evidence of the 'intelligence' by which a reasonable person might assess the situation for themself. Asimov was right about advanced technology appearing magical, and as such, what should we expect when the government's long term results help create the very morass our elected officials are supposed to protect us from in a culture which reveres the good side of the sword that is used to poke us in the eye, blinding us to the dark side? Snowden has been vilified while Cheney is allowed to kibbitz from the side lines. At least Bush finally displays some good sense by remaining quiet. Of course he's off with daddy warbucks pursuing more evil as part of the Carlysle Group anyway. Hrrrmph.

Re:It's a bad sign

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:It's a bad sign

[chihowa]

The government is very effective at wagging the dog. So effective at it that even when their lies are made public, people still don't understand, and still don't respond appropriately.

The few of use who do are outnumbered by the tremendous numbers of people who don't.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss everybody else as useless sheep. This entire situation is engineered to be difficult to escape.

How are you responding appropriately? You're complaining anonymously on a backwater echo chamber website. Have you actually done anything to fix the situation or would all of the other concerned, but helpless, people see you as just another one of the idiots who still don't understand?

Re:It's a bad sign

[bill_mcgonigle]

There are two things you can do about it: ...
98% of the people don't care much about the spying, and will vote for business as usual.

So, voting 3rd-party isn't actually doing anything about it because it's an action guaranteed to not have a result (electoral NOOP). Maybe it makes you feel warm inside, but it will have no effect on the spymasters. We don't even need to drag out Duverger's Law.

"If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it." - Sam Clemens

Re:It's a bad sign

[easyTree]

Once again, I've got to disagree at a basic level with this reasoning. This is a cog in the machine of disempowerment; the belief that consensus is needed. The will of one mind is enough to keep am ideal alive and effect change.

Re:It's a bad sign

[slimshady76]

And you are falling right into their hands.

Show me how it's any different nowadays. You've basically given your entire free will to a certain class or cast, the upper one. The whole justice system was meant to segregate the masses from the decision making part of the populace. That's because back in the day, when the Union was barely formed, any John Doe could run for a representative seat. They were folks you knew, and whom you could go talk if any of the moves the Government did affected you in any negative way to try to change his point of view. Then, the Justice branch of the Government was born, and with it the possibility to take the masses effectively out of the Government, simply because to pursuit a career in the Justice system you'd have to be rich, and pay your way through University.

It's no different today. Super PACs and all, the system is designed to allow just those in the oligarchy to gain access to positions with enough power to make any substantial change. And guess tho who's well being are those folks lean towards?

Re:It's a bad sign

[magarity]

1. Vote Libertarian on November 4th
2. Vote Green on November 4th

When will the Libertarians and Greens learn the lesson from the Teas? If you want to get elected, work from WITHIN the establishment. There are multiple Tea candidates in office via running under the Republican umbrella. The Libertarians could do the same except all they seem to want to do is siphon votes away from a potentially winning Republican. The Greens need to work from within the Democrats the same way instead of siphoning off. Then we COULD get real change but it's doubtful either the Libs or Greens can get off their ideological high horses.

Re:It's a bad sign

[Magius_AR]

You're part of the problem and you're wrong, because you're only focused on short-term thinking. Change is slow, and a vote matters even if you don't win "today's election", because it's public opinion and sentiment that matters. The parties _mold_ themselves around it. If they know they can get you to continue to vote for them without changing, they'll never change. The entire fact that libertarians are on the rise now in the Republican party is because a movement was started and maintained back then, even knowing they weren't going to sweep/win any elections: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[JoeyRox]

How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?

Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[Rick Zeman]

How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?

You send the shadow court a shadow check?

Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[scotts13]

How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?

...by having lots of people with guns on hand. They can do whatever they want, ESPECIALLY if the programs are covert.

Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[theshowmecanuck]

FTFY

Easy: have an apathetic electorate. We the people by the people and all that.

"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.) as quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

If you don't do something, then people that will do something, will get what they want. And it won't necessarily be what you like or even want; and you will have to live with it until when and if you do something about it.

Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[Euler]

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:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[AHuxley]

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...

Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[Redmancometh]

That's a tough one. I'd put my money on the SEC, but if it was prison rules it'd be the NSA.

Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff

[gl4ss]

no.. you just announce what they want and why you're now paying 250 000... maybe announce it by accident. but you pretty much would need to announce it somehow to shareholders that you're paying 91 mil a year for keeping secrets.

of course, then they might announce secretly that you're in contempt of the secret court. ..anyhow didn't the fucks just a while ago try claiming that prism didn't exist? and why don't these companies just move the servers out of USA too? I mean, Microsoft, Google, etc already pretend to be Irish(or varying other country) companies for taxation. So why stay technically American then at all - why not just move over the borders? probably easier in the long run anyways since now they're breaking privacy laws of other countries and are being put into catch22 by the yanks. would be easier to just move than to comply with secret laws that contradict secret laws of other countries that contradict the public laws of both countries.

Whenever I read stuff like this

[BringsApples]

I wonder why the constitution ever had any power at all over the laws. Why did 9/11 bring such a change in our freedoms? We were told that 9/11 was a failure attempt at removing our freedoms. Yet that's exactly what happened. We lose our freedoms all in the name of not losing our freedoms?

Happy 9/11 anniversary!

Re:Whenever I read stuff like this

[s.petry]

Why did 9/11 bring such a change in our freedoms?

How much time do you have to study on issues and events?

The "accidental theorists" will tell you that this all came as a big shock. Those same people will tell you that despite having massive think tanks and the highest levels of education available, politicians "never saw that coming" on just about any event in history. You know, like Reagan never realized that "Trickle Down" would benefit the rich much more than the poor that was just a big 'Whoops!' which has been policy since the 1980s. None of them ever guessed that arming, funding, and training "terrorists" would come back to bite us in the ass so we continue that policy for at least the same duration of time.

None of this was surprising, except that people have had almost no reaction to it. People have been warning about the state we are currently in since I was a little kid. The take over of media was planned, and took time. People warned about the dangers and were silenced. I'm sure that the accidental theorist would claim that was yet another "whoops" but lets be real. Accidental theory is completely irrational and illogical.

If you really and truly want to answer your question, jump back and read a book by Gary Allen called "None Dare Call it Conspiracy". Take every fact he provides in the book and check it for truthfulness, you will find nothing inaccurate. That book will point you to other sources to read, which will begin to map out a nice web of people that will answer your question.

You can choose the red pill or the blue pill, but if you take the red pill there is no turning back and your life will never be the same.

Re:Whenever I read stuff like this

[Livius]

When terrorists hate Americans "because of their freedoms", it's not about Americans having freedoms, it's because Americans believe freedoms are theirs and no-one else's. If someone thinks your freedoms don't count for anything, you become annoyed at them.

But with Americans falling over themselves to give up their freedoms, maybe that issue will resolve itself.

Re:Whenever I read stuff like this

[AHuxley]

Re 'change in our freedoms?"
"It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built!"
Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money'
http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns... (9.08.2014)

Signals intelligence was to "collect it all" and then sort. The next step was some lock box law for phone records to get around parallel construction in open US courts.
The UK understood if people know about signals intelligence they can move away from telco products.
The US seems to hope that all people will enjoy the freedom of buying and using that next tame consumer grade telco product.

Re:Whenever I read stuff like this

[BringsApples]

I think this is as good an answer as I'll get, thanks (and I will check out that book). It seems like since Regan (and don't take me as a left or right, I think that stuff is where all this shit starts anyway) took office, politics has been focused on a single world power. That power seems to be taking over all countries, America included. I used to wonder what it was like in Nazi-controlled Germany. How did the people put up with it? Now I know. It's that we're torn between following these insane laws, and either a civil war, or martial law. And frankly I can just barely see the difference anymore.

Re:Whenever I read stuff like this

[TitusC3v5]

It changed it because the 9/11 attacks targets the two pillars of American power: the banks and the government. It scared them shitless that may actual be attacked (oh, wow, apparently they have a much different reaction when it's not other people they're sending to die). At which point they said screw everything in order to give themselves the illusion of their old safety.

Re:Whenever I read stuff like this .....

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Classic conflict of interest

[troll -1]

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.

Re:Classic conflict of interest

[Bite The Pillow]

Really?

Are they instead nominated by the Executive and then confirmed by the Legislative?

Or are they

made up of 11 federal district court judges who are selected by the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Maybe they are given magic powers by Leprechauns and allowed to vote by the number of Trolls they fellate?

Re:Classic conflict of interest

[DamnOregonian]

I just came.

Correction

[ewhac]

...federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program.

You misspelled "illegal." HTH. HAND.

Re:Steve Earle said it best

[cheater512]

Then again, maybe you Americans will pull your head out of the sand.

Just remember

[epyT-R]

A vote for democrats and/or republicans, whose parties increase the state's reach for ideological reasons and to corner the market, is a vote for more of the police state mentality, taxation, and deficit spending required to enforce it all. Don't let the left divide with stupid social justice and single issue shit, because a free country has liberty and justice FOR ALL, not state forced 'privilege' for specific castes at the expense of others (labeled as 'hate groups'), and choosing who 'wins' and who 'loses' in life based on attributes that weren't supposed to matter. Don't let the neo-right tell you that corporates care about steady jobs or lower taxes for the working class either. Ironically, those "he's worse than me" ads are perfect at showing that neither party has an objective or functional solution for what ails the country. Fuck them. The gubernatorial elections are coming up for many states. For those of you advocating 'working within system' style change, here's an opportunity. If you can, vote against both and send a message.

All doublespeak

[Pollux]

Terrorists did not take away our freedoms. They were only successful in killing 2,996 people and causing about $19 billion in property damage. We gave our own freedoms away.

And in more doublespeak, Obama shared this with us today:

“We carry on because as Americans we do not give in to fear. Ever."

Nope. Americans never give into fear. We also don't allow virtual strip searches at airports, we don't allow the federal government to spy on our private cellular communications, and we guarantee all political whistle-blowers immunity from criminal charges.

Re:All doublespeak

[gnu-sucks]

Big brother gave a speech and named the latest/newest foreign enemy of America. The crowds cheered. The inner party clapped feverishly. The media (ministry of truth) immediately launched new stories and interviews supporting big brother's speech. The lower class bought it hook and sinker.

There were no laws needed. Big brother decided what was right and what was wrong. If you had an independent thought and were deemed too intelligent, you simply vaporized. You could never tell exactly when they were listening...

Go read 1984.pdf. NOW.

Re:All doublespeak

[sconeu]

I recently visited the Reagan library to take in the baseball exhibit. Since I was there, I took the tour first. It ended with a multimedia presentation that included the quote:

"Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts."

While I may not be a fan of the man, I believe he really did try to do that.

Nowadays? Let's face it, neither Bush nor Obama could say that with a straight face

Too Bad They Didn't Pull a Lavabit

[mentil]

If they decided to eat the fine and get sucked dry, they could spend every last dying breath telling everyone on the internet how injust this was. It would've gone on long enough for something to happen.

Re:Too Bad They Didn't Pull a Lavabit

[Bite The Pillow]

I can't find LavaBit stock quotes. I can find Yahoo stock quotes very easily back 5 years and more.

That makes a huge difference.

Initially, Yahoo was betting on public perception to buoy the reputation and therefore the stock. That failed with the threat of fines, because those losses are reportable to investors.

Initially, LavaBit was betting on public perception. They apparently folded before fines could be levied.

Yahoo was public, and could not "pull a LavaBit". There are vast differences between the LavaBit options and the Yahoo options. You are comparing apples to SchrÃdinger's cat because of ignorance. Stop that.

Re:Too Bad They Didn't Pull a Lavabit

[pla]

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.

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Re:It is Well Past Time

[Bite The Pillow]

Did you read the article? Yahoo tried it, and pretty much failed.

Yahoo is a public company, and did not want to have a $91 million loss in addition to their already failed everything else.

How do you have a successful business with every page redirecting to static text?

And no one uses Yahoo, at least intentionally. How the shit do they fight back with a barely captive audience?

It's almost like you took your barely functioning understanding of the economy, and applied it to a minimalistic understanding of how economics actually works.

So Yahoo takes the burden, what happens to the rest of the companies? The competition? They learn not to oppose the government. Yahoo, from the article, was the first to comply. If they did not, and died as a company, would anything be different other than fewer @yahoo.com email addresses?

and yahoo is not done paying yet

[Dan667]

The damage the US has done to US Tech Companies has just started. International companies are dumping American Companies even though they tried to do the right thing. Something needs to be done to reign in the US government and in particular the military and nsa.

Re:and yahoo is not done paying yet

[pijokela]

I work on business software projects in Finland. We'd like to use AWS on many of our projects, because it's very convenient and a lot of PaaS and other tools are provided on there. However, I have not met a single client that would allow us to use AWS or some other US based service for storing data. So we use the local clouds that only offer IaaS servers and not much else.

And this has changed a lot in just a couple of years.

SEC filing: "Millions lost. No Details. Ask NSA."

[Fencepost]

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."

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Re:Illegal as hell

[countach]

I was wondering about that. Do the Supremes hold secret court too under these circumstances?

I thought part of the whole point of the Supreme court was to establish important legal precedents. Can you do that when it is all secret? Because to use the precedent, the whole legal community needs to know all the juicy details.

Secret courts are the biggest threat to a functioning democracy that one could possibly conceive of.