Yahoo cites victory in transparency over federal government surveillance

Yahoo yielded to a government threat of a $250,000 a day fine in releasing customer information to federal intelligence agencies. This new revelation shows how ruthless the federal government was in pursuing their secret surveillance program noted a spokesperson for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. (Reuters, September 12, 2014, by Edwin Chan and Alexei Oreskovic)

The court-sanctioned release of information about the surveillance and demands placed on Yahoo is considered to be a victory for Yahoo who is concerned with reassuring clients that their privacy is protected. “We consider this an important win for transparency, and hope that these records help promote informed discussion about the relationship between privacy, due process and intelligence gathering,” said a Yahoo lawyer. Yahoo still considers the surveillance program a serious threat to citizen’s privacy and indicated that after the threat of fines they only complied with government demands in a small number of cases. (San Jose Mercury News, September 12, 2014, by Brandon Bailey, Steve Johnson and Patrick May)