from the made-a-deal-they-couldn't-refuse dept.
Ars Technica reports that Yahoo is getting ready to release 1,500 pages of court documents related to their battle against participating in the NSA's PRISM program. From the article:
A leaked top-secret slide about PRISM shows that Yahoo was one of the first participants, having begun contributing to the database in March of 2008. It did so under severe duress. Company executives believed the government's demand for data was "unconstitutional and overbroad" and fought it in court.
After it lost, Yahoo was threatened with $250,000 per day fines if it didn't comply with the program. Not only that, but the government got permission to share the ruling with other companies in order to put pressure on them as well, according to a just-published report by The Washington Post.
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After having the court documents unsealed and the gag order lifted, Yahoo is finally free to talk about that one time when the government wanted to fine it $250,000 a day (!!) for refusing to comply with a FISA court order to turn over data on its customers. Two of the lawyers (Mark Zwillinger and Jacob Sommer) who represented Yahoo in that court battle, have written a post detailing the behind-the-scenes activity.
First off, they note that it's kind of amazing they're even able to discuss it at this point.
Having toiled in secret until recently, and having originally been told we would need to wait 25 years to tell anyone of our experience, it is refreshing to be able to write about the case in detail.
That's the normal declassification schedule, which at this point would still be nearly 18 years away. Fortunately, Ed Snowden's leaks have led to an accelerated schedule for many documents related to the NSA's surveillance programs, as well as fewer judges being sympathetic to FOIA stonewalling and exemption abuse.
We've talked several times about how the government makes it nearly impossible to sue it for abusing civil liberties with its classified surveillance programs. It routinely claims that complainants have no standing, ignoring the fact that leaked documents have given us many details on what the NSA does and doesn't collect. But in Yahoo's case, it went against its own favorite lawsuit-dismissal ploy.
First, the government's prior position on standing may be a bit of a surprise. In more recent cases, like Clapper, it has argued that only the provider has standing to challenge surveillance orders under the FISA Amendments Act, not individual users who may have been caught up in the surveillance. But, in this fight, the government argued that Yahoo had no standing to challenge a directive on the basis of the Fourth Amendment rights of its users.
[...]
The government filed ex parte documents in support of its surveillance program, many of which Yahoo had no access to during the legal struggle. Not only did the government force Yahoo to respond on its own schedule, but it kept the company in the dark about its justifications and other aspects of its programs. Yahoo couldn't ask for these documents in discovery, nor did it even know these existed.
[...]
When it comes to the nation's security, apparently no legal deck can be stacked high enough. The government forces those who challenge its secret programs to wage courtroom battles with only the barest minimum of information. And, should it decide the defendant isn't moving fast enough, it can pursue exorbitant (and admittedly coercive) fines until it gets the cooperation it's seeking.
Related: US Government Threatened Yahoo with $250K Daily Fine
Since word spread that Yahoo! backdoored its own email servers for US intelligence services, we've heard from rival webmail providers denying they have put in place similar arrangements.
That Yahoo! has a cosy relationship with the Feds is not surprising, especially given what we know about PRISM and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. What is bizarre is that Yahoo!'s engineering team did not, it is claimed, involve its internal security team and introduced exploitable vulnerabilities into the email scanning system.
There's also the issue that this blanket surveillance, as reported, potentially scoops up private and personal communications of millions of innocent people.
We asked Google if it created a similar mechanism in which g-men can search all incoming messages for certain keywords, or if it has been asked to. A spokesman told us:
We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'No way.'
Previously:
Yahoo "Secretly Scanned Emails for US Authorities"
US Government Threatened Yahoo with $250K Daily Fine if it didn't use PRISM
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @07:17AM
You don't need no money, brother! Bama gonna take care of you! Unless you white or nerdy. Yahoo too nerdy. Pay up suckas! Bama need dat money. To give to his homeys!!!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @07:42AM
You could have cut this short. Just write "I'm a stupid asshole". You are just wrong on so many levels...
Please go and die silently somewhere.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @09:53AM
Corporate, you say? You mean like SoylentNews Corporation and its Board of Directors? That's right! SoylentNews is a corporation! with a fucking board! of motherfucking directors! They like bullet-point lists of bullshit, too, you corporate asshole!
Looky. I can link to the black urban dictionary, my african american brother [urbandictionary.com]!
Next time you feel like replying to a troll, just write this: "You are so right on so many levels, I want desperately to subscribe to your newsletter."
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @11:03AM
I believe rich is the qualifying term here, to differentiate Soylent from, say, Comcast.
You are an idiot.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @11:27AM
do you realize that a decent portion of the ownership of comcast and many other "rich" corporations is by funds investing on behalf of future working class retirees?
socialist idiots like you would have the entire working class nailed to the wall
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @11:51AM
Only 40% of Americans have a 401(k) and only 15% make annual contributions to an IRA. The "working class," lower 80% of the population own barely 15% of the national wealth, and what they have is overwhelmingly house and property, not stocks.
No one sane is arguing that all people should have the same income, regardless of skills or effort. The "liberals" are only arguing that the fruits of labor are disproportionately distributed to people who came into the game wealthy. Pay the workers a little more, and they will 1) buy more products and increase corp revenue and 2) save a few pennies and increase corp investment.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @12:53PM
Yeah, "investing" for tax breaks in high-risk hedge funds owned by their families that tank at the first market hiccup.
How much of your 401(k) survived 2008, Mr. Rockefeller? 25%? Oh, wait, Mr. Rockefeller doesn't need a 401(k)! Too bad for you, John Doe. Get back to work!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @01:59PM
> socialist idiots like you would have the entire working class nailed to the wall
Seems like the last 30 years of trickle-down has already done that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nishi.b on Friday September 12 2014, @07:24AM
One of the main problems here is the existence of secret courts in the US. How can there be justice if the court and its decisions are not public ? I would understand if it was about one individual, to hide the fact that he will be watched, but broad spying like this...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by _NSAKEY on Friday September 12 2014, @07:35AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @11:19AM
I can't understand, if it's a secret program, how would they fine them? Did they threat them with traffic tickets?
"A traffic camera has registered your vehicle at nearly the speed of light. Here is a $250,000 ticket"
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday September 12 2014, @05:44PM
direct debit. they just take it straight out of yahoo's bank accounts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 12 2014, @09:54AM
How bout a new "cloud computing" service?
You can find them at nsa.gov...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by g33kgirl on Friday September 12 2014, @10:06AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Friday September 12 2014, @12:57PM
Wow, that's just throwing salt in the wound. Not only does the US government feel that they can hold secret courts to try people for breaking secret laws and be forbidden from talking to anyone about it, they have the nerve to decide that they can share information about it with anyone they feel like despite the other party being forbidden to utter a peep to anyone!
How on earth was anyone brazen enough to even ask this of the court, much less have it granted?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by morgauxo on Friday September 12 2014, @01:40PM
It was probably pretty easy when the day before they golfed, dined and shared hookers with the judge.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Friday September 12 2014, @03:56PM
The phrase "Land of the free, home of the brave" is quickly joining the ranks of "Democratic Republic of X" in terms of gross or ironic misrepresentation.
Sure, Americans might still be "more" free than most countries, but as soon as you use that as an excuse to justify or dismiss objectively worsening conditions, you've lost the argument and proved the point.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by datapharmer on Friday September 12 2014, @04:50PM
I'm curious as to what would happen in a scenario where they agreed to just pay the fines. Sure, 250k a day is a lot of money, but that would also mean a fight between government agencies - as a public company they would need to disclose their ongoing financial obligation via an 8-k filing? or similar financial disclosure?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Marand on Friday September 12 2014, @05:24PM
I find it more curious that they're willing to throw massive fines like that at a corporation as retaliation for daring to fight them, but when a corporation is actually breaking the law all that happens is a slap-on-the-wrist fine that the company can write off in a day or two and is less than the profits they derived from the law-breaking activities.
Could they have chosen any better way to prove their corruption?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday September 13 2014, @02:24AM
What percentage of Yahoo's profits is $250k/day?
Cuz I'm wondering how it compares to those slaps-on-the-wrist you mention.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Saturday September 13 2014, @04:29AM
Unless I did something wrong (which is possible, I did this quickly), some quick napkin math puts it at something like 15% of their profits.
By comparison, the most recent case of someone being found guilty by the US that I could think of was the Apple ebook price-fixing settlement, which is supposed to -- unless appeals change it -- cost Apple $450mil ($400mil to customers, $50mil legal fees) according to The Register, out of something like $40bil yearly profits. It's practically a rounding error for them, how is that supposed to be punitive?
A quick check of wikipedia for the MS antritrust case of the 90s didn't even turn up any numbers, just a few things that amounted to a promise to play nice. I couldn't think of anything else offhand, other than a EU antitrust against MS that cost them ~10% profit. I vaguely recall that one being considered harsher than US judgments.
Keep in mind this is just really quick number checking of a few cases that I remembered, so it's not necessarily a great sample. The Apple judgment was what I had in mind when I made the earlier comment, though, because I happened to remember that number due to it being fairly recent.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Saturday September 13 2014, @04:37AM
Interesting comparison, thanks. I'm reminded of BofA being fined repeatedly for rounding the last fraction of a percent of interest to themselves, rather than paying it to depositors as required. Last couple incidents I heard about (this was many years ago), the fine was $2M, a figure so lacking in punitive impact that BofA went right back at it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday September 13 2014, @05:03AM
That sounds about par for the course. I'm also not surprised that it's a bank, either. I was going to say more on it, but there isn't really much to say. It's just sad.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday September 13 2014, @01:40PM
Banks seem to do whatever the hell they please. Frex, Chase was found to be unilaterally changing the terms of mortgages to require flood insurance even when said mortgage specifically said it wasn't required, and was in cahoots with an insurance company that charged 3x the already-outrageous FEMA rate. This wound up as a class action suit and the court said Chase had to cease and desist. Well, that lasted about 3 years and they were right back at it, and this time without any official protest nor even a peep about being in violation of the court order, tho this time without the inflated insurance rate. But even the FEMA rate added $300,000 (per Chase's own estimate for the lifetime of an average loan) to every mortgage. The irony is that most of the people losing their homes from this are in 1) low-income and 2) in areas that have never flooded in all of recorded history, nonetheless flagged by FEMA as "flood hazards".
(Yeah, I'm more'n average bitter about this one, being I'm one of the folks who lost their house because of it.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday September 13 2014, @01:02AM
Seems like having any juridical or business presence in US is now a liability. In the land of secrecy and the home of the letter delivery. Very similar to the beginnings of a dictator regime.