Yahoo appears to have provided
the U.S government with key word scanning of each and every email message
traversing the Yahoo network for a limited time period. See http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKCN1241YT. There are significant legal and technological
issues triggered by this news.
On the
legal side, it appears that the national intelligence community can and will
make a case for email carrier scans of an entire user population when a narrower
set of suspects and email accounts cannot be identified. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act imposes
no cap on the number of scanned email accounts, nor does it impose a
requirement that government agencies first exhaust all internal options before
seeking industry cooperation, or compliance with a court order.
On the
technological side, it appears that only Yahoo could have executed the scans on
short notice, because Yahoo email subscribers can opt to encrypt their
messages. Having written or at least
installed the encryption technology, Yahoo may be the only one able to
deencrypt and conduct deep packet inspection of massive traffic volume on a
real time basis.
As to the
impact on Verizon’s acquisition of the company, I suspect this news will not
have any effect. It seems like Yahoo had
no basis to contest the order (if there was one) in light of the short notice,
limited duration and likely assertion by government officials that the company
alone could achieve the desired outcome.
On matters
of national security, even at the risk of abuse and overuse, government assertions
about the potential for imminent harm trumps individual privacy concerns.
