Yahoo Scanned User Emails for US Intelligence

[Claire.]

Yahoo secretly scanned customer emails for US intelligence.

Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said two former employees and a third person apprised of the events.

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to a spy agency's request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time. It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources, who did not want to be identified.

Source: Reuters

[supervike]

We not only invited Big Brother into our homes, we go to lengths to keep him well informed, and well fed.

[Paranormal Panther]

This is troubling, but it's not shocking or stunning news. It's part of a trend that really started after 9/11, which was the Ur of the slowly developing cancer of our Constitution. I doubt that you would be surprised by future revelations that will make this one pale in comparison. It wouldn't surprise me if they *read* our emails.

[Ashotep]

Really not surprised they would do this.  Whenever you send an email anymore you may as well figure someone besides the person you sent it to is reading it.

[.ZZ.]

I'd like to know exactly which search terms were used.

I agree with Ash, nothing should be considered private these days.

[Zenith]

8 hours ago, -ZZ- said:

I'd like to know exactly which search terms were used.

I agree with Ash, nothing should be considered private these days.

Yeah I'd like to know the search terms as well so that I can start using them. Think of the chaos if everyone did that LOL.

[Claire.]

The latest on this is that the Yahoo scan by U.S. intelligence fell under a foreign spy law expiring next year.

Quote

A Yahoo operation in 2015 to scan the incoming email of its customers for specific information requested by the U.S. government was authorized under a foreign intelligence law, parts of which will expire next year, two U.S. government officials familiar with the matter said.

Reuters on Tuesday reported that the Yahoo program was in response to a classified U.S. government request to scan emails belonging to hundreds of millions of Yahoo users.

The revelation rekindled a long-running debate in the United States over the proper balance between digital privacy and national security. The collection in question was specifically authorized by a warrant issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said the two government sources, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

Source Reuters

Edited October 6, 2016 by Clair

[Paranormal Panther]

22 hours ago, Clair said:

The latest on this is that the Yahoo scan by U.S. intelligence fell under a foreign spy law expiring next year.

Today, it's "foreign spies" (yeah, right). Tomorrow, it's citizens who criticize the government.

[LV-426]

On 05/10/2016 at 0:53 AM, Paranormal Panther said:

This is troubling, but it's not shocking or stunning news. It's part of a trend that really started after 9/11, which was the Ur of the slowly developing cancer of our Constitution. I doubt that you would be surprised by future revelations that will make this one pale in comparison. It wouldn't surprise me if they *read* our emails.

To be honest, I'm not sure 9/11 was the start, just a convenient catalyst for furthering an agenda.

Knowledge is power, as the saying goes, and governments and businesses around the globe would just love to have every shred of information they can gather on us. The problem is that, in this digital age, it's becoming an increasingly realistic goal with every advancement in technology.

The more information these people accumulate, the more their power and wealth grows. It's not hard to imagine some dystopian future where "Big Brother" controls every aspect of our lives.

I'm no conspiracy theorist either, just an observer on how much the world has changed in the last few decades.

[Paranormal Panther]

27 minutes ago, LV-426 said:

To be honest, I'm not sure 9/11 was the start, just a convenient catalyst for furthering an agenda.

Knowledge is power, as the saying goes, and governments and businesses around the globe would just love to have every shred of information they can gather on us. The problem is that, in this digital age, it's becoming an increasingly realistic goal with every advancement in technology.

The more information these people accumulate, the more their power and wealth grows. It's not hard to imagine some dystopian future where "Big Brother" controls every aspect of our lives.

I'm no conspiracy theorist either, just an observer on how much the world has changed in the last few decades.

Your observations are correct. It's almost like we should apologize to the conspiracy theorists of the past, whose warnings should have been heeded. You don't have to be a prophet or a psychic to see where current trends will lead if we don't reverse course. We'll go from a security state to a police state. We live in a mixture and variation of Huxley and Orwell. It's a brave new world of genetic manipulation. The real 1984 looks like paradise next to our tortuous interpretations, of Constitutional liberties, that are justified with the use of doublespeak. At this juncture, all roads lead to dystopia. 

[Use your brain]

Yahoo email accounts were all hacked in 2014. I'm against big brother as much as anyone, but if this is true it makes more sense than you may think. They probably caught one of the hacked emails up to something nefarious and wanted to see what the endgame to this breach was.

Edited October 7, 2016 by Use your brain
Phone autocorrect

[Only_]

They all do it. All the big companies. They collect our data one way or another.

I don't think this story really matters anyway since Yahoo is now in Verizon's hands. Different people are going to be in charge.

Edited October 7, 2016 by TruthSeeker_

[Dark_Grey]

14 hours ago, Paranormal Panther said:

Your observations are correct. It's almost like we should apologize to the conspiracy theorists of the past, whose warnings should have been heeded. You don't have to be a prophet or a psychic to see where current trends will lead if we don't reverse course. We'll go from a security state to a police state. We live in a mixture and variation of Huxley and Orwell. It's a brave new world of genetic manipulation. The real 1984 looks like paradise next to our tortuous interpretations, of Constitutional liberties, that are justified with the use of doublespeak. At this juncture, all roads lead to dystopia. 

The fact that you are here now talking about it implies that this discussion is happening in many other places. There are a lot of people who are too busy/lazy/ignorant to care about any of this but there is also a strong population that reads between the lines and won't stand for it.

[GlitterRose]

Big Brother is busy looking at everyone's sexting while the actual terrorists are not getting caught. 

That might need to be rethought.

[Paranormal Panther]

8 hours ago, Dark_Grey said:

The fact that you are here now talking about it implies that this discussion is happening in many other places. There are a lot of people who are too busy/lazy/ignorant to care about any of this but there is also a strong population that reads between the lines and won't stand for it.

I hope and pray that more people will join us. It's like the Bible says. People perish from lack of knowledge. State propaganda won't provide it.

[Dark_Grey]

2 hours ago, Paranormal Panther said:

I hope and pray that more people will join us. It's like the Bible says. People perish from lack of knowledge. State propaganda won't provide it.

It also says "the meek will inherit the Earth". I think "the meek" didn't have a voice until the internet connected them.

[White Unicorn]

On 10/4/2016 at 4:56 PM, Clair said:

Yahoo secretly scanned customer emails for US intelligence.

Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said two former employees and a third person apprised of the events.

Some surveillance experts said this represents the first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to a spy agency's request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time. It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources, who did not want to be identified.

Source: Reuters

This is not really news, I know it's been going on with other companies besides Yahoo since the time of 911 and maybe even  before. Tech and communication policing is nothing new but it's more of a challenge now since most everyone uses internet and social media in many different ways to connect then in the past. 

I don't really think it's a bad thing if you have nothing illegal to hide.US would have had many more terrist attacks in the without it. However there are also some who police who have been caught using their clearance for personal use. God only knows how each government uses it. 

Snowdan really was one of the ones to bring more transparency to this subject and others concerning intelligence monitoring things considered personal. He is a traitor for letting many secrets out so other threats to US may learn ways to bypass our Intelligence methods. 

Edited October 8, 2016 by White Unicorn

[Paranormal Panther]

20 hours ago, Dark_Grey said:

It also says "the meek will inherit the Earth". I think "the meek" didn't have a voice until the internet connected them.

You call us meek. I call us the 97%.