Yahoo says it faced $250,000 daily fines for defying US surveillance requests
The U.S. government once threatened to fine Yahoo US$250,000 a day if it failed to assist with its surveillance efforts, Yahoo said Thursday.
Yahoo said it was threatened with the fines after it challenged surveillance powers granted to the U.S. government under the Protect America Act of 2007. The information has come to light now because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees how those laws are implemented, agreed to unseal documents in the case.
Yahoo said it was “extremely rare” for the court to make such records public. It highlighted some of their contents in a blog post and said it would soon post the 1,500 pages of unsealed documents online. “We consider this an important win for transparency,” Yahoo General Counsel Ron Bell said in a blog post.
