Yahoo wants Fisa objections revealed
Yahoo has called on Fisa, the secretive US surveillance court, to let it publish its legal argument against a case that gave the government "powerful leverage" in persuading tech companies to co-operate with a controversial data-gathering program.
In a court filing first reported by San Jose Mercury News the company argues the release would demonstrate that Yahoo "objected strenuously" in a key 2008 case after the National Security Agency (NSA) demanded Yahoo customers' information.
There is a growing demand for more daylight to be shed on the operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISC. It is impossible to evaluate the impact and the legality of the NSA data collection programs without more information about the role of this specialty secret court in the establishment of the programs.
Yesterday, thanks to Villanova Rhodes, I got connected with the official Rules of Proceedure for the FISC. In reading through them I was struck by how much the procedures seem to suggest adversarial proceedings between the government and other parties who are opposing the proposed actions by the government. I was having difficulty fitting that into the picture of a court that is normally ruling on ex parte request by the government for authorization to engage in secret surveillance. The whole point is that the objects of surveillance aren't supposed to know about it, so they would not be able to make objection before the court.
Apparently when telcos and IT companies are the target of national security letters compelling them to turn over customer data to the NSA, they have an opportunity to file and action before FISC. All the records of such proceedings are secret classified information.
One of many important questions about NSA's ever expanding dragnet of data collection is the relationship between the government and the private corporations that operate the internet and global telecommunications. These companies have strong business incentives to present themselves as unwilling victims of a heavy handed surveillance state. Since they are companies conducting global businesses they must worry not only about the concerns of the US public but also about the opinions of people in the many countries that have been revealed as targets of the spying activities.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. Do companies such as Yahoo really want the entire record laid out on the table or are they depending on the government to keep it secret and let them play the role of injured victim? Without more information I am unwilling to accept their contentions about the nature of this relationship.