Yahoo Becomes First Company To Disclose FBI National Security Letters (tumblr.com)

Yahoo has disclosed receipt of three national security letters (FBI requests for data that Yahoo is typically barred from sharing) and published redacted copies of the letters online for anyone to see. The company says that the move "marks the first time any company has publicly acknowledged receiving an NSL following the reforms of the USA Freedom Act." The bill was created last year allowing companies to gag orders relating to National Security Letters. Engadget reports: It takes some doing to get permission to acknowledge the receipt of a letter, too -- Yahoo says that the FBI needs to review if the nondisclosure provision is still necessary for each specific NSL before allowing a company to publish it, and even then certain information needs to be redacted before being made available to the public. Still, when companies do get these gag orders lifted, it allows them to notify the investigated parties that the FBI was looking into their data, and it's a big win for transparency overall.

Comments

WTF does this mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The bill was created last year allowing companies to gag orders relating to National Security Letters."

That sentence in TFS makes absolutely no sense.

Here's what they asked for...

[nuckfuts]

Here's what the letters asked Yahoo! to hand over:

• Subscriber name and related subscriber information
• Account number(s)
• Date the account opened or closed
• Physical and or postal addresses associated with the account
• Subscriber day/evening telephone numbers
• Screen names or other on-line names associated with the account
• All billing and method of payment related to the account including alternative billed numbers or calling cards
• All e-mail addresses associated with the account to include any and all of the above information for any secondary or additional e-mail addresses and or user names identified by you as belonging to the targeted account in this letter
• Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned to thi3 account and related e-mail accounts
• Uniform Resource Locator (URL) assigned to the account
• Plain old telephone
• The names of any and all upstream and downstream providers facilitating this account's communications
• The above-listed information from "inception of the targeted account to the present" if this request cannot be processed as presently written

We are not directing you to provide, nor should you provide, information pursuant to this letter that would disclose the content of any electronic communication. Title 18 United States Code 2510(8) defines content as "any information concerning the substance, purport, or meaning of" a communication. Subject lines of e-mails are content information and should not be provided pursuant to this letter.