As the PRISM story from last week mutates, it has been interesting to see how many of the Internet companies have fought NSA requests, completely unlike what we saw with AT&T and Verizon when it was exposed that they were allowing the NSA to split network fibers and monitor all traffic in real time. Google for example recently went out of their way to point out they refused NSA attempts to install their own gear on network, and now the New York Times reports that both Yahoo and Twitter also tried to fight secretive rubber-stamped FISA court requests.

According to the Times, Yahoo's lost battle against the government set the precedent for other Silicon Valley companies to either follow suit, or to be held in violation of the law (something the NSA never seems to be despite lying repeatedly to Congress):

quote:

---

Like almost all the actions of the secret court, which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the details of its disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order, one of the few public documents ever to emerge from the court. The name of the company had not been revealed until now. Yahoo’s involvement was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the proceedings. Yahoo declined to comment.

---

The Times makes it clear that despite their bad reputation on some fronts for user privacy, many of Silicon Valley's biggest companies did actually try to put up a fight. That's a far cry from someone like AT&T, who not only didn't put up a fight, in many instances went out of its way to advise government on how to more easily break the law.