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U.S. Threatened Massive Fine To Force Yahoo To Release Data 223

Advocatus Diaboli writes The U.S. government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 if it failed to comply with a broad demand to hand over user data that the company believed was unconstitutional, according to court documents unsealed Thursday that illuminate how federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program. The documents, roughly 1,500 pages worth, outline a secret and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle by Yahoo to resist the government's demands. The company's loss required Yahoo to become one of the first to begin providing information to PRISM, a program that gave the National Security Agency extensive access to records of online communications by users of Yahoo and other U.S.-based technology firms.
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U.S. Threatened Massive Fine To Force Yahoo To Release Data

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  • "Gave" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:22PM (#47885821)

    I like how this is all phrased to imply that it's no longer going on and this is all a thing of the past.

  • It's a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)

    by x181 ( 2677887 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:24PM (#47885831)
    It's a bad sign when these types of reports no longer invoke any sort of shock. It's a part of "Americana" now.
    • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Informative)

      by Travis Mansbridge ( 830557 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:27PM (#47885855)
      Snowden calls this "NSA Fatigue" [wired.com]
      • I call it shitty.
        • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday September 12, 2014 @12:19AM (#47887107)

          I call it shitty.

          Is it shitty enough for you to DO something about? There are two things you can do about it:
          1. Vote Libertarian on November 4th
          2. Vote Green on November 4th
          Both the Libertarian Party and Green Party have promised to put a stop to the spying.
          98% of the people don't care much about the spying, and will vote for business as usual.

          • There are two things you can do about it: ...
            98% of the people don't care much about the spying, and will vote for business as usual.

            So, voting 3rd-party isn't actually doing anything about it because it's an action guaranteed to not have a result (electoral NOOP). Maybe it makes you feel warm inside, but it will have no effect on the spymasters. We don't even need to drag out Duverger's Law.

            "If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it." - Sam Clemens

            • by s.petry ( 762400 )

              Well, the answer can't be to maintain the status quot or nothing changes. The answer also can't be "do nothing" or nothing changes. I have, and will recant the importance of people to get people they know and trust on ballots. It does not matter how "political" they are, just that they have a high level of ethics and morals.

              Sure, the puppet masters fun more than just the D and R candidates, but they don't fund all of them. In fact they don't fund all of the D and R candidates either.

              If massive changes g

            • You're part of the problem and you're wrong, because you're only focused on short-term thinking. Change is slow, and a vote matters even if you don't win "today's election", because it's public opinion and sentiment that matters. The parties _mold_ themselves around it. If they know they can get you to continue to vote for them without changing, they'll never change. The entire fact that libertarians are on the rise now in the Republican party is because a movement was started and maintained back then,
          • Both the Libertarian Party and Green Party have promised to put a stop to the spying.

            Of course they have, its called pandering to the masses. The masses want the spying to stop, so promise that. These parties know they will never have to actually do anything about it because they know they will never make the landslide gains needed to actually govern - but then their goals are not to form a government, but to increase the parties reach, so even a single additional seat does that.

            And you are falling right into their hands.

            • And you are falling right into their hands.

              Show me how it's any different nowadays. You've basically given your entire free will to a certain class or cast, the upper one. The whole justice system was meant to segregate the masses from the decision making part of the populace. That's because back in the day, when the Union was barely formed, any John Doe could run for a representative seat. They were folks you knew, and whom you could go talk if any of the moves the Government did affected you in any negative way to try to change his point of view.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            Both the Libertarian Party and Green Party have promised to put a stop to the spying.

            Didn't a bunch of Republicans and Democrats make that same promise? What kind of results have we gotten from that?

            • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

              I read this argument often and here is my response.

              Provided you are going to vote for someone you can:
              Vote for the guys who made the mess in the first place. Taking them at their word that they really mean to clean it up. You must do this knowing that they thought these things you are so outraged by where good ideas at one time. Which should make you question if they truly share your values and lead you to wonder if their solution will be worse than the problem is today.

              Or

              You could vote for someone new.

          • 1. Vote Libertarian on November 4th
            2. Vote Green on November 4th

            When will the Libertarians and Greens learn the lesson from the Teas? If you want to get elected, work from WITHIN the establishment. There are multiple Tea candidates in office via running under the Republican umbrella. The Libertarians could do the same except all they seem to want to do is siphon votes away from a potentially winning Republican. The Greens need to work from within the Democrats the same way instead of siphoning off. Then we COULD get real change but it's doubtful either the Libs or Gre

      • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:09PM (#47886071) Journal
        Knowing as much as Snowden does about the abilities and vulnerabilities of an online presence,

        even he is on record as saying, "I'm going to slip up and they (American intelligence) are going to hack me."

        Though the public has seemingly grown tired of revelations regarding the misdeeds of government, the government has not tired in its pursuit of of the prosecution of Mr Snowden. Does the government win because of their persistence or due to our short attention span?

        • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:35PM (#47886205)

          The government wins because most of the voting populace does not feel pain from their evil.

          At least not directly enough that they can connect the dots.

          People feel the pain of an economy in which jobs are few and prices are high, but they don't see how government corruption directly keeps it that way. They think they have nothing to hide so they don't care about being spied on, not realizing how that data is used in aggregate to power decisions that keep the entrenched wealthy elite entrenched and wealthy.

          The government is very effective at wagging the dog. So effective at it that even when their lies are made public, people still don't understand, and still don't respond appropriately.

          The few of use who do are outnumbered by the tremendous numbers of people who don't.

          And that's why the government wins, and always will.

          • by chihowa ( 366380 ) *

            The government is very effective at wagging the dog. So effective at it that even when their lies are made public, people still don't understand, and still don't respond appropriately.

            The few of use who do are outnumbered by the tremendous numbers of people who don't.

            I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss everybody else as useless sheep. This entire situation is engineered to be difficult to escape.

            How are you responding appropriately? You're complaining anonymously on a backwater echo chamber website. Have you actually done anything to fix the situation or would all of the other concerned, but helpless, people see you as just another one of the idiots who still don't understand?

          • by Kjella ( 173770 )

            Well even if you got most people to agree this is a bad thing there's also the small problem of what line of action would ultimately make things better and not be horribly much worse in the meantime. It'd be an awful shame if it ended up being "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".as they too are corrupted by the establishment, now you have a third party whose politics you feel is nuts as well. Or perhaps I should say that the other way around, chances are they'd have to sell out to get to power otherwi

        • I don't get your point, nor why you are at +5 currently. Has Snowden been hacked? Is there even any question?

          He appeared supportive of Russia, and explained his reasoning. The government has apparently not been successful at hacking Snowden. The public has tired, as Snowden said, of the constant reports of misconduct.

          The government does not win, because lots of people have not, individually, tired.

          Did I adequately answer your question? Regardless, will you answer any of mine?

          • First two questions: Snowden's own words Bro.

            I immediately discount any claim of peasant-like fealty to Russia as the vernacular of a man with few options.

            Beware /. poster, your experience as one who has not tired of revelations of the corruption of government is not indicative of the public at large.

      • by fred911 ( 83970 )

        I call it "The Patriot Act".

    • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:14PM (#47886087)

      It's a bad sign when these types of reports no longer invoke any sort of shock. It's a part of "Americana" now.

      I'm shocked every time.

      People choose apathy as a defense mechanism. "I always knew the government was doing this." "This is what I told you all along" etc...
      You predicted it so it's not so bad? Screw that, this is shameful and a sad point in American history. It's sad that the people doing this don't even realize future generations will look back on them like we now look back on McCarthy, Stalin, Nixon, etc... They bring shame on themselves and our country.

      • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)

        by easyTree ( 1042254 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:23PM (#47886141)

        Hint: they do realize but don't care. Shame doesn't mean anything to the wolves - that's for the sheep.

        • No, I care, but there isn't anything I can do about it...

          Getting upset about something I can't do anything about is a waste of energy...

          Or were you planning to revolt? Let me know how that goes...

    • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)

      by anmre ( 2956771 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:18PM (#47886103)

      Indeed. It's striking when Americans care more about Ray Rice [go.com] than we do about methods of tyranny that would make the Stasi cream themselves.

      Bread and circuses, and so forth.

    • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:5, Interesting)

      by demachina ( 71715 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:27PM (#47886151)

      Note the date, 2008, not 2002. Approximately the time financial markets started crashing and the Occupy and Tea Party movements started building. Ya think the U.S. government was more worried about Islamic terrorists or ordinary Americans who would soon be fed up with massive corruption in D.C. and Wall Street. Were they trying to prevent another 9/11 or building the capacity to suppress the backlash when millions of ordinary people would soon be thrown out of their jobs and homes, while Wall Street would get massively bailed out, and return to business as usual, getting rich.

      The U.S. did a spectacularly good job of crushing Occupy. Did they use domestic spying to do it.

      War is when your government tells you who the enemy is, revolution is when you figure it out for yourself.

    • Re:It's a bad sign (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bite The Pillow ( 3087109 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:42PM (#47886259)

      Who said there's no shock? It wasn't me, and it wasn't the article. And the only one in between is you.

      You had, apparently, the first post.

      Is it really that hard to shout, "Ha, ha, no one is shocked." when no one has replied with at a minimum the requisite, "I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you."?

      Beyond illustrating why quotes belong outside the punctuation, this shows that you are either:

      1) Minimizing the possibility of a public backlash, of which there clearly is evidence due to the number of anti-responses

      or

      2) Functionally retarded

      Choose wisely: troll or retard, which is it?

    • This is in part because we can sense that future, even worse, shocks are coming.

      Now that they have all the money AND have devalued the currency by a factor of 100 AND have all the power and control over every aspect of our lives, there is only one way for things to get better for THEM.

      And that is to find ways to get rid of most of us.

      People randomly pulling us over and stealing from us is designed to provoke a backlash. There will be more of it, and worse. It is time to stop using the "Welcome to th
  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:27PM (#47885863)
    How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?
    • How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?

      You send the shadow court a shadow check?

      • by Euler ( 31942 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:22PM (#47886129) Journal

        Would have been interesting, paying the fine would require disclosure to shareholders? Is that a violation of 'super secret stuff'? Who wins SEC vs. NSA?

        • by Redmancometh ( 2676319 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @09:45PM (#47886531)

          That's a tough one. I'd put my money on the SEC, but if it was prison rules it'd be the NSA.

        • by Rich0 ( 548339 )

          Yeah, I was wondering that as well. How does that show up on the balance sheet? Do you put in the annual statement "Risks may or may not include failure to cooperate with a request to disclose data that the government may or may not have made, which may or may not have resulted in millions of dollars in fines?"

      • by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        no.. you just announce what they want and why you're now paying 250 000... maybe announce it by accident. but you pretty much would need to announce it somehow to shareholders that you're paying 91 mil a year for keeping secrets.

        of course, then they might announce secretly that you're in contempt of the secret court. ..anyhow didn't the fucks just a while ago try claiming that prism didn't exist? and why don't these companies just move the servers out of USA too? I mean, Microsoft, Google, etc already prete

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )

          and why don't these companies just move the servers out of USA too

          I seem to recall a view being pushed hard that if an American company is involved somewhere then the servers are American even if they are in New Zealand - but it's till being tested in various courts. Such a thing tends to get very political however and the rule of law is unlikely to apply - only appeasement and deals.

    • by scotts13 ( 1371443 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:58PM (#47886033)

      How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?

      ...by having lots of people with guns on hand. They can do whatever they want, ESPECIALLY if the programs are covert.

      • It's a legitimate question though.... If Yahoo had held out and paid the fine, what do they say on the next financial conference call to Wall street about where the money is going? Do they say they are being fined by an unspecified government agency that they cannot specify for reasons they are not allowed to state? Are they allowed to say that? Are they allowed to NOT say where it is going under public company financial disclosure laws? Me thinks these laws would come head to head.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:25PM (#47886149) Journal
      re "How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?"
      The 'The One Telco Exec Who Resisted The NSA Has Been Released From 4+ Years In Jail" (2013/09/27)
      https://www.techdirt.com/artic... [techdirt.com]
    • Has the government, and keep in mind this relates to all three branches, refused to admit that a FISC exists, or that the FISA was passed?

      Specifically, which parts do "the government" refuse to admit exist?

      • I used the past tense, "refused". Yahoo was threatened back in 2008. PRISM was highly classified then.
    • by X.25 ( 255792 )

      How can you fine someone for not cooperating in activities that the government refused to even admit existed?

      Because people in "free world", over the course of last 40-50 years, allowed governments to heavy regulate every aspect of their lives. That includes companies too, obviously.

      So, whether you know it or not, you are breaking laws and regulations every single day. Literally.

      All it takes is for them to have a reason to go after you.

      This is one of the reasons why "I don't care if government spies on me, I have nothing to hide" attitude is beyond retarded. But people don't understand it until shit happens to the

  • by BringsApples ( 3418089 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:27PM (#47885869)
    I wonder why the constitution ever had any power at all over the laws. Why did 9/11 bring such a change in our freedoms? We were told that 9/11 was a failure attempt at removing our freedoms. Yet that's exactly what happened. We lose our freedoms all in the name of not losing our freedoms?

    Happy 9/11 anniversary!
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:37PM (#47885911)

      James Madison said it!

      "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
      - James Madison

    • The law is meaningless when there is no one left to enforce it.
    • by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:18PM (#47886107)

      Why did 9/11 bring such a change in our freedoms?

      How much time do you have to study on issues and events?

      The "accidental theorists" will tell you that this all came as a big shock. Those same people will tell you that despite having massive think tanks and the highest levels of education available, politicians "never saw that coming" on just about any event in history. You know, like Reagan never realized that "Trickle Down" would benefit the rich much more than the poor that was just a big 'Whoops!' which has been policy since the 1980s. None of them ever guessed that arming, funding, and training "terrorists" would come back to bite us in the ass so we continue that policy for at least the same duration of time.

      None of this was surprising, except that people have had almost no reaction to it. People have been warning about the state we are currently in since I was a little kid. The take over of media was planned, and took time. People warned about the dangers and were silenced. I'm sure that the accidental theorist would claim that was yet another "whoops" but lets be real. Accidental theory is completely irrational and illogical.

      If you really and truly want to answer your question, jump back and read a book by Gary Allen called "None Dare Call it Conspiracy". Take every fact he provides in the book and check it for truthfulness, you will find nothing inaccurate. That book will point you to other sources to read, which will begin to map out a nice web of people that will answer your question.

      You can choose the red pill or the blue pill, but if you take the red pill there is no turning back and your life will never be the same.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:49PM (#47886303)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I think this is as good an answer as I'll get, thanks (and I will check out that book). It seems like since Regan (and don't take me as a left or right, I think that stuff is where all this shit starts anyway) took office, politics has been focused on a single world power. That power seems to be taking over all countries, America included. I used to wonder what it was like in Nazi-controlled Germany. How did the people put up with it? Now I know. It's that we're torn between following these insane law
        • by s.petry ( 762400 )
          Oh no, it goes way beyond Reagan. He was an easy example for me since the I started to wake up to how corrupt things were under Reagan (I was in the military during his last term). The Gary Allen book was published in I believe 1972, and will open your eyes to corruption going back to at least the very early 1960s..
    • All doublespeak (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:19PM (#47886115) Journal

      Terrorists did not take away our freedoms. They were only successful in killing 2,996 people and causing about $19 billion in property damage. We gave our own freedoms away.

      And in more doublespeak, Obama shared this with us today:

      “We carry on because as Americans we do not give in to fear. Ever." [go.com]

      Nope. Americans never give into fear. We also don't allow virtual strip searches at airports, we don't allow the federal government to spy on our private cellular communications, and we guarantee all political whistle-blowers immunity from criminal charges.

      • Big brother gave a speech and named the latest/newest foreign enemy of America. The crowds cheered. The inner party clapped feverishly. The media (ministry of truth) immediately launched new stories and interviews supporting big brother's speech. The lower class bought it hook and sinker.

        There were no laws needed. Big brother decided what was right and what was wrong. If you had an independent thought and were deemed too intelligent, you simply vaporized. You could never tell exactly when they were listenin

      • by sconeu ( 64226 )

        I recently visited the Reagan library to take in the baseball exhibit. Since I was there, I took the tour first. It ended with a multimedia presentation that included the quote:

        "Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts."

        While I may not be a fan of the man, I believe he really did try to do that.

        Nowadays? Let's face it, neither Bush nor Obama could say that with a straig

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )
          I don't think he tried to do that at all. His first act as President was to do a deal with terrorists, which of course he'd been setting up behind the scenes for months in a conspiracy with people inside intelligence agencies that comes pretty damn close to treason. Later he sent warships to support Iraq. He supplied weapons to Hezbolla less than a year after they blew up more than a hundred marines. He kicked the dying Russian bear to try to look tough and came very close to provoking a nuclear war. H
    • by Livius ( 318358 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:28PM (#47886159)

      When terrorists hate Americans "because of their freedoms", it's not about Americans having freedoms, it's because Americans believe freedoms are theirs and no-one else's. If someone thinks your freedoms don't count for anything, you become annoyed at them.

      But with Americans falling over themselves to give up their freedoms, maybe that issue will resolve itself.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:38PM (#47886241) Journal
      Re 'change in our freedoms?"
      "It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built!"
      Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money'
      http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns... [www.dw.de] (9.08.2014)

      Signals intelligence was to "collect it all" and then sort. The next step was some lock box law for phone records to get around parallel construction in open US courts.
      The UK understood if people know about signals intelligence they can move away from telco products.
      The US seems to hope that all people will enjoy the freedom of buying and using that next tame consumer grade telco product.
    • Because of fear.

      Yes, we lost freedoms, and people forecast that we would.

      Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

      Yeah, he was a smart mutherfucker.

      Why did the Constitution have any power? Because it was the description of how we put the country together. It was the description of who had power, and which powers they had. Was is the operative word.

      That stopped when people shit their pants because a few small percent of people die

    • It changed it because the 9/11 attacks targets the two pillars of American power: the banks and the government. It scared them shitless that may actual be attacked (oh, wow, apparently they have a much different reaction when it's not other people they're sending to die). At which point they said screw everything in order to give themselves the illusion of their old safety.
      • It changed it because the 9/11 attacks targets the two pillars of American power: the banks and the government.

        Absolutely false. Those two groups have benefited the most from the attacks, the banks and government were not targets of the attack.

        Cui Bono becomes very interesting when finding out that numerous officials provided false information to the press and public about what we knew regarding the attacks. For example Bush flat out lied that we never considered such an attack, the FAA and military ran a simulation a year prior regarding the exact scenario of a plane being flown into WTC in an act of terrorism.

    • a piece of paper never has nor will it ever have power. it is only a physical manifestation of a broader reality which may or may not be in-line with the written word. i think the bigger question it raises is, were we ever really 'free'? or were certain things just 'permitted' so long as they didn't represent a threat to the extant power structure?
  • by troll -1 ( 956834 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:45PM (#47885943)
    The judges in these kind of cases are appointed by the executive, the same branch of government they are supposed to keep in check. This is a problem because the executive has a tendency to appoint only judges with views similar to itself. So it's not surprising these judges often rule in favor of the executive.
    • Really?

      Are they instead nominated by the Executive and then confirmed by the Legislative?

      Or are they

      made up of 11 federal district court judges who are selected by the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

      Maybe they are given magic powers by Leprechauns and allowed to vote by the number of Trolls they fellate?

    • by pla ( 258480 )
      The judges in these kind of cases are appointed by the executive, the same branch of government they are supposed to keep in check.

      Remember, kids - Nothing says "legitimate democratic government" like extortionate secret courts!

      Un-fucking believable. Well, no, entirely too believable. On the bright side, federal judges get appointed for life, so we have a very straightforward recall procedure.


      / 28 USC section 375, of course - What did you think I meant?
    • I agree it's a problem, but what's the alternative? Politicising the judiciary with elections has problems too.

  • Correction (Score:5, Informative)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @07:47PM (#47885953) Homepage Journal

    ...federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program.

    You misspelled "illegal." HTH. HAND.

    • ...federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program.

      You misspelled "illegal." HTH. HAND.

      You misspelled "treasonous".

    • ...federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA's controversial PRISM program.

      You misspelled "illegal." HTH. HAND.

      You misspelled "traitorous".

  • That's from 2008. You know who the guy responsible, the head of the executive branch, was at the time. Punish his party at the polls next presidential election.

  • Just remember (Score:5, Insightful)

    by epyT-R ( 613989 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:18PM (#47886109)

    A vote for democrats and/or republicans, whose parties increase the state's reach for ideological reasons and to corner the market, is a vote for more of the police state mentality, taxation, and deficit spending required to enforce it all. Don't let the left divide with stupid social justice and single issue shit, because a free country has liberty and justice FOR ALL, not state forced 'privilege' for specific castes at the expense of others (labeled as 'hate groups'), and choosing who 'wins' and who 'loses' in life based on attributes that weren't supposed to matter. Don't let the neo-right tell you that corporates care about steady jobs or lower taxes for the working class either. Ironically, those "he's worse than me" ads are perfect at showing that neither party has an objective or functional solution for what ails the country. Fuck them. The gubernatorial elections are coming up for many states. For those of you advocating 'working within system' style change, here's an opportunity. If you can, vote against both and send a message.

  • by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:30PM (#47886169)

    If they decided to eat the fine and get sucked dry, they could spend every last dying breath telling everyone on the internet how injust this was. It would've gone on long enough for something to happen.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The US government could not fine Yahoo. Only a judge can do that.

    • I can't find LavaBit stock quotes. I can find Yahoo stock quotes very easily back 5 years and more.

      That makes a huge difference.

      Initially, Yahoo was betting on public perception to buoy the reputation and therefore the stock. That failed with the threat of fines, because those losses are reportable to investors.

      Initially, LavaBit was betting on public perception. They apparently folded before fines could be levied.

      Yahoo was public, and could not "pull a LavaBit". There are vast differences between the L

    • by pla ( 258480 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @11:00PM (#47886857) Journal
      It would've gone on long enough for something to happen.

      For what to happen, exactly?

      "We the People" count as fucking sheep, more concerned with Kardashians than the Constitution. What exactly do you think more awareness of the problem would have gotten us?

      The general public now knows about the NSA's spying programs, just like they learned about Bush (senior)'s CIA running the global drug trade to arm the Taliban 30 years ago, just like they learned about J. Edgar's FBI's CoIntelPro 30 years before that, just like they put Joe Kennedy in charge of the SEC 30 years before that. And yet... Do you see Keith Alexander's head on a pike in a conspicuous public place? Do you see the entire agency disbanded for breach of public trust, and everyone who ever worked there rendered unemployable due to the taint on their resumes?

      No. No, you don't. Because we deserve the government we have. We exist as a nation run by bread and circuses, and we like it.


      / Dear $Deity - You can send that asteroid any time now... Perhaps the intelligent dragonfly empire 100 million years from now will do better than the domesticated apes did.
  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @08:44PM (#47886271)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Did you read the article? Yahoo tried it, and pretty much failed.

      Yahoo is a public company, and did not want to have a $91 million loss in addition to their already failed everything else.

      How do you have a successful business with every page redirecting to static text?

      And no one uses Yahoo, at least intentionally. How the shit do they fight back with a barely captive audience?

      It's almost like you took your barely functioning understanding of the economy, and applied it to a minimalistic understanding of h

    • How naive. If the CEO did that they'd be promptly fired and replaced.

    • It would have been nice to see them try that, but realistically, it would be in contempt of court to just say, it's ok we'll pay the fine, so go away. The executive would end up in jail, and someone would be appointed to tow the line. Nothing would have changed in the end.

  • I call it extortion. Can the federal government be prosecuted for racketeering?
  • This country is fucked. Move on to the next one, ASAP.

  • by Dan667 ( 564390 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @09:54PM (#47886573)
    The damage the US has done to US Tech Companies has just started. International companies are dumping American Companies even though they tried to do the right thing. Something needs to be done to reign in the US government and in particular the military and nsa.
    • I work on business software projects in Finland. We'd like to use AWS on many of our projects, because it's very convenient and a lot of PaaS and other tools are provided on there. However, I have not met a single client that would allow us to use AWS or some other US based service for storing data. So we use the local clouds that only offer IaaS servers and not much else.

      And this has changed a lot in just a couple of years.

  • by Fencepost ( 107992 ) on Thursday September 11, 2014 @10:09PM (#47886629) Journal
    I wonder how charges like that could be reported on legally-required documents for publicly traded companies.

    "USA Federal gov't fines: $10M*

    * Details not available. Ask the NSA, maybe they'll tell you."
  • In order to issue a fine the action should have required the courts and appeals process up even unto the Supreme Court before any fine could be started. Frankly the loss of 4,000 people, several buildings and and three aircraft did not and does not constitute a threat to national security. The US is strong enough to take quite a few similar attacks without collapse of the nation. All that was really proven was that some clever Arab lunatics managed to do some harm. It shows that they have no
    • I was wondering about that. Do the Supremes hold secret court too under these circumstances?

      I thought part of the whole point of the Supreme court was to establish important legal precedents. Can you do that when it is all secret? Because to use the precedent, the whole legal community needs to know all the juicy details.

      Secret courts are the biggest threat to a functioning democracy that one could possibly conceive of.

  • As a public company, Y! would have needed to report the fine eventually. How would that go?

Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.

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