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September 12, 2014 8:40 am - NewsBehavingBadly.com

nsa-government-spying-2[su_right_ad]Yahoo announced Thursday that the government threatened to fine the company $250,000 a day if it did not comply with demands to go along with an expansion of U.S. surveillance by surrendering information about its users. Yahoo considered the government’s demands to be unconstitutional and challenged the government in court.

“We refused to comply with what we viewed as unconstitutional and overbroad surveillance and challenged the US government’s authority,” said Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell.

“At one point, the US government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply,” Bell said.

Yahoo lost the court case and was forced to surrender 1,500 pages of documents.

“The secrecy that surrounds these court proceedings prevents the public from understanding our surveillance laws,” said ACLU staff attorney Patrick Toomey. “Today’s release only underscores the need for basic structural reforms to bring transparency to the NSA’s surveillance activities.”[su_csky_ad]

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

4 responses to Government Threatened To Fine Yahoo $250,000 Per Day

  1. Dave September 12th, 2014 at 9:58 am

    The government has trashed the Fourth Amendment and we’re going to war for the eleventy-third time. Suddenly, Jimmy Carter doesn’t seem so bad.

    • Deborah September 12th, 2014 at 4:46 pm

      You could have mentioned that this was in 2007, and that Yahoo! began complying May 12th, 2008.

  2. hard2findu September 12th, 2014 at 10:43 am

    when people act like sheep they are treated as such

  3. Tom Ward September 12th, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    Always liked Yahoo.