A reason to love Yahoo

Secret Court Declassifies Yahoo’s Role in Disclosure Fight

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and NICOLE PERLROTH, NYT

In the secret court that authorizes national security surveillance requests, everything is considered confidential — even the existence of communications between companies and the court. But this week, the court drew back the curtain slightly, declassifying the fact that Yahoo was the company that fought the court in a momentous case in 2008.

In an article on June 13, The New York Times identified Yahoo as the petitioner in the secret court case, which paved the way for the government to force Internet companies to hand over information about foreigners to the National Security Agency‘s Prism program, authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The court used a heavily redacted version of the decision by the FISA court of review, published in 2008 without Yahoo’s name, to warn other companies that they need not even try to test the legality of FISA requests.

The day after The Times ran the story, Yahoo’s lawyers filed a motion for the secret court to publish records related to the case, including Yahoo’s name.

(More here.)