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Oct 14 2016, 12:52 pm ET
Lawmakers
Ask the White House to Review Yahoo's Email Spying
by Reuters -
A bipartisan group of 48 lawmakers in the
U.S. House of Representatives on Friday asked the Obama administration to brief
Congress "as soon as possible" about a 2015 Yahoo program to scan all
of its users' incoming email at the behest of the government.
Lawmakers want to learn
more about a 2015 Yahoo program to scan all of its users' incoming email at the
behest of the government. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic REUTERS
The request comes amid scrutiny by privacy
advocates and civil liberties groups about the legal authority and technical
nature of the surveillance program, first revealed by Reuters last week. Custom
software was installed to search messages to hundreds of millions of accounts
under an order issued by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
"As legislators, it is our
responsibility to have accurate information about the intelligence activities
conducted by the federal government," according to the letter, organized
by Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan and Democratic
Representative Ted Lieu of California.
"Accordingly, we request information
and a briefing as soon as possible for all members of Congress to resolve the
issues raised by these reports."
Investigators searched for messages that
contained a single piece of digital content linked to a foreign state sponsor
of terrorism, sources have told Reuters, though the nature of the content
remains unclear.
Intelligence officials said Yahoo modified
existing systems used to stop child pornography and filter spam messages on its
email service.
But three former Yahoo employees told
Reuters the court-ordered search was done by a module buried deep near the core
of the company's email server operation system, far below where mail sorting
was handled.
The Senate and House intelligence
committees were given a copy of the order when it was issued last year, sources
said, but other members of Congress have express concern at the scope of the
email scanning.
Some legal experts have questioned the
breadth of the court order and whether it runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution's
Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Half of registered U.S. voters believe the
Yahoo program violated the privacy of customers, according to a poll of 1,989
people conducted last week by Morning Consult, a polling and media company.
Twenty-five percent were supportive of the
program because of its potential to stop criminal acts, the survey found, while
another quarter did not know or had no opinion.
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