Yahoo Inc, Discloses NSLs

The Internet service provider is the first company to disclose the letters without the court intervention.

Yahoo Inc. becomes the first company to publicly announce its reception of FBI’s National Security Letters (NSL) without going into the hassle of long court battles. For decades, the FBI has been issuing NSL to a large number of companies. These controversial motions would have a gag order annexed to it indicating a strict non-disclosure of the receipt of same by the companies. Such subpoenas allow the feds to get the access of customer records and transaction data from internet service providers and other companies without having a court order.

Up to date, only few handful companies have went out of their way and won lengthy court battles to be exempted from the non-disclosure binding of the NSLs and announced in the public about receiving NSL from the government. The Internet service provider was able to take such a bold step because last year lawmakers approved the USA Freedom Act according to which US attorney general were required to lay down some guidelines for the FBI in compliance of which the Bureau would periodically assess when a National Security Letter gag order will not be necessary and then subsequently lift the such on the basis of its irrelevancy.

According to the newly formed guidelines, the Bureau ought to review the gag orders either at a time when an investigation involving NSL is at its closure or, in the event where the case is still ongoing, three years after the investigation was opened. At each stage, however, the FBI will only be allowed to set leniency on the order if it doesn’t tarnish the investigation in any sense.

It is still not clear whether the investigations to which the letters refer to are still going on or not. The letters were received by the Sunnyvale, Calif. firm in 2013 and 2015 and the company published its “redacted version” on Wednesday. Special agent in the bureau’s Dallas office sent two of the NSLs to Yahoo whereas the third letter was forwarded to the company by bureau’s Charlotte, North Carolina office.

Yahoo’s head of global law enforcement, security and safety, Chris Madsen wrote the following in a blog post: “We believe this is an important step toward enriching a more open and transparent discussion about the legal authorities law enforcement can leverage to access user data.”

The letter doesn’t give away details about the investigation. Also, the gag orders were lifted earlier in May and the company didn’t respond the query regarding to the delay made by the company in the publish of the letters. Moreover, according to a district court, the gag order has no substance since USA Freedom Act has negated the issue of any such orders.