MOSCOW, September 12 (RIA Novosti) - The US government allegedly threatened Yahoo with daily fines of $250,000 if the company failed to hand out user information under NSA's PRISM surveillance program, Yahoo informed on its blog.
"In 2007, the U.S. Government amended a key law to demand user information from online services. We refused to comply with what we viewed as unconstitutional and overboard surveillance and challenged the U.S. Government's authority. At one point, the U.S. Government threatened the imposition of $250,000 in fines per day if we refused to comply," Yahoo wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
Papers released on Yahoo's website show the company's formerly secret and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle against the National Security Agency (NSA) and its surveillance rules.
Not wishing to hand out user information, Yahoo took NSA's surveillance request to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in 2007, which oversees requests for surveillance warrants. The court ordered the company to provide US authorities with the requested data.
Yahoo's role in the 2007-2008 lawsuit remained classified until 2013. "We fought to declassify and to share the findings from the case," the company wrote. Now, FISC has agreed to unseal the proceedings.
"We consider this an important win for transparency and hope that these records help promote informed discussion about the relationship between privacy, due process, and intelligence gathering," the company stated.
Yahoo! Inc. is a US Internet corporation based in Sunnyvale, California. Well-known for its search engine, the company offers a number of online services, including e-mail service Yahoo mail.
A large number of major tech firms, including Apple, Microsoft and Google, were listed by the NSA as taking part in an extensive US surveillance program called PRISM. The program was launched in 2007 and exposed six years later by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
