The US government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 every day if it didn't hand over user data to the NSA, according to recently unsealed court documents.
In a blog post, Ron Bell, general counsel of Yahoo, said the release of over 1,500 documents shed light on the firm's previously undisclosed fight with the NSA over user data access.
He said that the company "refused to comply with what we viewed as unconstitutional and overbroad surveillance and challenged the US Government's authority."
"Our challenge, and a later appeal in the case, did not succeed said Ron Bell. He added that court material showed "how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the US government's surveillance efforts."
According to Bell, the court upheld laws preceding Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. This is more commonly known as Prism, which was revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
"Despite the declassification and release, portions of the documents remain sealed and classified to this day, unknown even to our team," said Bell.
One document from May 2008 showed that the US government not only threatened to impose a $250,000 fine on Yahoo each day it didn't hand over data but would then double this fine each week the internet giant failed to turn over data. Unsurprisingly, Yahoo complied with the legal action.
Bell said that Yahoo's fight against the US government would continue.
"We are still pushing for the FISC to release materials from the 2007-2008 case in the lower court. The FISC indicated previously that it was waiting on the FISC-R ruling in relation to the 2008 appeal before moving forward. Now that the FISC-R matter is resolved, we will work hard to make the materials from the FISC case public, as well," he said.
He added that Yahoo would continue to "contest requests and laws that we consider unlawful, unclear, or overbroad".
-
AI coding tools are booming – and developers in this one country are by far the most frequent usersNews AI coding tools are soaring in popularity worldwide, but developers in one particular country are among the most frequent users.
-
Cisco warns of critical flaw in Unified Communications Manager – so you better patch nowNews While the bug doesn't appear to have been exploited in the wild, Cisco customers are advised to move fast to apply a patch
-
Scania admits leak of data after extortion attemptNews Hacker stole 34,000 files from a third-party managed website, trucking company says
-
Hackers are lying low in networks to wage critical infrastructure attacks - here’s how they do itNews Hackers are researching key IT workers in their bid to gain access to vital systems
-
ASUS, Cisco, Netgear devices exploited in ongoing Chinese hacking campaignNews Critical national infrastructure is the target of sustained attempts from state-sponsored hackers, according to Five Eyes advisories
-
Capita tells pension provider to 'assume' nearly 500,000 customers' data stolenCapita told the pension provider to “work on the assumption” that data had been stolen
-
US reveals bespoke tool that took down Russian malware operationNews Snake had been used to steal NATO countries’ data for 20 years
-
Move away from memory-unsafe languages like C and C++, NSA urgesNews The US agency advises organisations to begin using languages like Rust, Java, and Swift
-
US gov issues fresh warning over Russian threat to critical infrastructureNews The FBI, NSA and CISA have urged network defenders to be on "heightened alert" for Russian cyber attacks
-
Gumtree site code made personal data of users and sellers publicly accessibleNews Anyone could scan the website's HTML code to reveal personal information belonging to users of the popular second-hand classified adverts website
