Civil Society, Other Groups Seek Answers to Yahoo Email Scanning From DNI Clapper
Nearly three dozen civil society, Islamic, library, privacy and watchdog groups want Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to shed light on the alleged government order forcing Yahoo to scan hundreds of millions of customer emails. Last week, the company…
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asked Clapper to provide clarity on the matter (see 1610190061). The coalition letter, which signatory Electronic Frontier Foundation linked to in a blog post Tuesday, said they "believe such a massive scan ... particularly if it involves the scanning of email content, could violate [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], the Fourth Amendment, and international human rights law, and has grave implications for privacy." The groups want Clapper to disclose how DNI justified the surveillance, release the FISA court opinion, disclose whether email content was scanned, provide what types of selectors or search terms are allowed under the authority it used and disclose the total number of times, and when, such an order has been issued to a provider. Other signatories include Access Now, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Center for Democracy and Technology, Free Press, New America's Open Technology Institute, R Street Institute and TechFreedom. DNI didn't comment on the coalition letter.