US Govt’s Threat of Daily Fine for Yahoo Shows Aggressive Push for Data

The federal government was so determined to collect the Internet communications of foreign Yahoo customers in 2008 that it threatened the company with fines of $250,000 a day if it did not immediately comply with a secret court order to turn over the data.

 The threat — which was made public Thursday as part of about 1,500 pages of previously classified documents that were unsealed by a federal court — adds new details to the public history of a fight that unfolded in secret at the time, as Yahoo challenged the constitutionality of a statute that legalized a form of the Bush administration’s program of warrantless surveillance of foreigners — and lost.

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