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Yahoo Scanning Order Unlikely To Be Made Public: Reuters (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the can-you-keep-a-secret dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Obama administration officials briefed key congressional staffers last week about a secret court order to Yahoo that prompted it to search all users' incoming emails for a still undisclosed digital signature, but they remain reluctant to discuss the unusual case with a broader audience. Executive branch officials spoke to staff for members of the Senate and House of Representatives committees overseeing intelligence operations and the judiciary, according to people briefed on the events, which followed Reuters' disclosure of the massive search. But attempts by other members of Congress and civil society groups to learn more about the Yahoo order are unlikely to meet with success anytime soon, because its details remain a sensitive national security matter, U.S. officials told Reuters. Release of any declassified version of the order is unlikely in the foreseeable future, the officials said. The decision to keep details of the order secret comes amid mounting pressure on the U.S. government to be more transparent about its data-collection activities ahead of a congressional deadline next year to reauthorize some foreign intelligence authorities. On Tuesday, more than 30 advocacy groups will send a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking for declassification of the Yahoo order that led to the search of emails last year in pursuit of data matching a specific digital symbol. The groups say that Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, under which sources said the order was issued, requires a finding that the target of such a wiretap is probably an agent of a foreign power and that the facility to be tapped is probably going to be used for a transmission. An entire service, such as Yahoo, has never publicly been considered to be a "facility" in such a case: instead, the word usually refers to a phone number or an email account.

3 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Transparancy by techno-vampire · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And now we know what Obama meant when he claimed that he'd run the most transparent administration in history: absolutely nothing. Just remember, a vote for Hillary is a vote for four more years of lies, evasions, secret warrants and other unconstitutional actions.

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    1. Re:Transparancy by jonwil · · Score: 2

      A vote for Trump is also four more years of lies, evasions, secret warrants and other unconstitutional actions.

      No-one who actually stands a snowballs chance in hell of becoming president is going to actually DO anything about the spying (no matter what they may say during an election campaign).

      At least a vote for Clinton isn't a vote for a guy who has said things that would probably get you thrown in jail or worse if you said them openly on the street in any number of Arab countries.

    2. Re:Transparancy by golodh · · Score: 2
      @ techno-vampire

      And now we know what Obama meant when he claimed that he'd run the most transparent administration in history: absolutely nothing.

      You realise that you're being totally ridiculous as well as having your partisan bias show though, right?

      It's insane (and party-political) to suggest that an ongoing counter-intelligence operation, that has been confirmed by a judge to meet the criteria agreed on by law, should be splattered on the front page just to satisfy your idle curiosity.

      It's insane because counter-intelligence operations are needed to prevent spies and/or terrorists from being effective when they work here and in doing so and thereby to protect our security.

      We have laws and procedures in place to ensure that snooping is done only when warranted. They are being followed and it has been determined that in this case the snoop order is warranted. Even the House Intelligence committee has been briefed (as it should), and apparently they agree too. So much for your smear that it might be "unconstitutional".

      Yet there you are posting unjustified, snide, and derogatory comments. Well, that's your right. But it makes your comments squarely party-political because you're trying to make a government, that is simply doing its job, look bad just because you don't like it.

      In a word: deplorable.