Company
says court papers would show the public it fought strenuously against
intelligence agencies accessing its data
 |
| Yahoo says its legal argument against intelligence agencies having access to its data should be made public. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/AP |
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.
In June
Yahoo, along with Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other companies, were
identified in NSA documents as participating in a secret surveillance scheme
known as Prism. The documents, obtained by the former NSA contractor Edward
Snowden and first disclosed by the Guardian and Washington Post, claimed
"direct access" to the servers of top tech firms. This particular
characterisation of the program has been the source of strenuous dispute by the
companies.
"Release
of this court's decision and the parties' briefing is necessary to inform the
growing public debate about how this court considers and examines the
government's use of directives," Yahoo said in the filing to the foreign
intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, which rules on surveillance orders
sought by the federal government. "Courts have long recognised the public
has a right to access court records."
Yahoo lost
a 2008 ruling at the Fisa court that has subsequently been seen as a key case
in the government's arguments for pushing the tech firms' peers to comply with
similar requests. Under federal law the ruling and Yahoo's arguments against it
have been treated as classified information.
"The
directives at issue in this debate are at the centre of a robust national
debate represented by countless news articles, a statement from the director of
national intelligence and congressional hearings," Yahoo said in the
filing. Providing more information would "inform this debate and prevent
misunderstandings", the company said.
"Disclosure
of the directives and the briefs in this case would also allow Yahoo to demonstrate
that it objected strenuously to the directives that are now the subject of
debate, and objected at every stage of the proceedings, but that theses
objections were overruled and its request for stay was denied," said
Yahoo.
Yahoo's
move comes as its rivals have also pushed for the government to provide more
public clarity on their surveillance of people's online lives. Both Google and
Microsoft are lobbying for permission to reveal more information about the
numbers and types of requests for information they receive under national
security programs.
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