When Yahoo! lost its court case to not turn over user communications in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA: a secret court that decides how you can be spied upon), it was a major development in PRISM.
PRISM is the mass electronic surveillance program launched in 2007 by the NSA and exposed by Edward Snowden.
Of course, the development of PRISM was a main priority and the Yahoo! case was vital for the feds. So in 2007, it became necessary for the US government to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which gave the NSA the ability to demand user information from online service providers like AOL, Apple, Google and Microsoft.
A version of the court ruling had been released in 2009 but was so heavily redacted that observers were unable to discern which company was involved, what the stakes were and how the court had wrestled with many of the issues involved.
“We already knew that this was a very, very important decision by the FISA Court of Review, but we could only guess at why,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at American University.
PRISM was first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, prompting intense backlash and a wrenching national debate over allegations of overreach in government surveillance.
Documents made it clear that the program allowed the NSA to order U.S.-based tech companies to turn over e-mails and other communications to or from foreign targets without search warrants for each of those targets. Other NSA programs gave even more wide-ranging access to personal information of people worldwide, by collecting data directly from fiber-optic connections.
In the aftermath of the revelations, the companies have struggled to defend themselves against accusations that they were willing participants in government surveillance programs — an allegation that has been particularly damaging to the reputations of these companies overseas, including in lucrative markets in Europe.
Yahoo, which endured heavy criticism after The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper used Snowden’s documents to reveal the existence of PRISM last year, was legally bound from revealing its efforts in attempting to resist government pressure. The New York Times first reported Yahoo’s role in the case in June 2013, a week after the initial PRISM revelations.
Both the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, an appellate court, ordered declassification of the case last year, amid a broad effort to make public the legal reasoning behind NSA programs that had stirred national and international anger. Judge William C. Bryson, presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, ordered the documents from the legal battle unsealed Thursday. Documents from the case in the lower court have not been released.
this c**p has to end now tell them to go to hell
Everyone vote conservatives in this November!
Stand up we have to fight this C**p so DONE