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Yahoo 'faced vast fines' over surveillance refusal

YAHOO revealed on Thursday that not co-operating with email surveillance could have cost the company a quarter of a million dollars a day in fines.

Newly released documents showed the US government tried to impose the huge fine in 2008 if Yahoo didn’t co-operate with an expansion of surveillance by surrendering online information.

“International terrorists… use Yahoo to communicate over the internet,” claimed then director of national intelligence Mike McConnell in the documents.

“Any further delay in Yahoo’s compliance could cause great harm to the US, as vital foreign intelligence information… will go uncollected.”

The outlines of Yahoo’s ultimately unsuccessful court fight against government surveillance emerged when a federal judge ordered the unsealing of material about Yahoo’s court challenge.

Yahoo said the government amended a law to demand user information from online services, prompting the challenge in 2007.

“Our challenge and later appeal in the case did not succeed,” Yahoo general counsel Ron Bell said.

“We had to fight every step of the way to challenge the US government’s surveillance efforts,” Mr Bell added.

“At one point, the government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines each day we refused to comply.”

“The government has conducted warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance for decades and such surveillance has been upheld under the Fourth Amendment by every appellate court to decide the question,” insisted then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

“The government’s implementation of the Protect America Act… adequately protects the privacy of US persons,” he claimed.

Yahoo ultimately lost the battle in a surveillance review court.

But the company said on Thursday that it will continue to contest requests and laws it considers unlawful, unclear or overly broad.

“We… hope these records help promote informed discussion about the relationship between privacy, due process and intelligence gathering,” Mr Bell said.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the papers showed the need for more openness about government surveillance.

“The secrecy that surrounds these court proceedings prevents the public from understanding our surveillance laws,” ACLU lawyer Patrick Toomey said.

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