Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

U.S. Threatened Massive Fine To Force Yahoo To Release Data

Posted by timothy on from the your-government-at-work dept.

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.

17 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. "Gave" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:"Gave" by pr0t0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
  2. It's a bad sign by x181 · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:It's a bad sign by Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 5, Informative

      Snowden calls this "NSA Fatigue"

    2. Re:It's a bad sign by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:It's a bad sign by anmre · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:It's a bad sign by easyTree · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      Requiem for the American Dream
    5. Re:It's a bad sign by demachina · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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
    6. Re:It's a bad sign by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  3. Yahoo knew fine was a bluff by JoeyRox · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    2. Re:Yahoo knew fine was a bluff by Euler · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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?

  4. Whenever I read stuff like this by BringsApples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    --
    Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
  5. Re:Whenever I read stuff like this ..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  6. Classic conflict of interest by troll+-1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. Correction by ewhac · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    You misspelled "illegal." HTH. HAND.

    --
    Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
  8. All doublespeak by Pollux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.