Last Updated on October 26, 2016, 6:23 pm ET
On Tuesday, October 25, ARL joined a coalition of civil society groups raising concerns regarding recent reports that Yahoo! had been compelled under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to scan the emails of all of its users for a “signature” associated with a foreign power. The letter raised serious concerns over user privacy and also noted that such scanning could violate FISA and the Fourth Amendment.
The letter calls on the Director of National Intelligence to publicly disclose the interpretations of law relied upon to justify the scanning order; to release FISA Court opinions that compelled such surveillance (and as required under the USA FREEDOM Act); disclose whether scanning of e-mail content occurred under this order; disclose the selectors the government believes are permissible; and to indicate the number of times such an order was issued compelling the scanning of all incoming emails.
