Yahoo CEO Mayer: we faced jail if we revealed NSA surveillance secrets

[villager]

Source: Guardian

Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook struck back on Wednesday at critics who have charged tech companies with doing too little to fight off NSA surveillance. Mayer said executives faced jail if they revealed government secrets.

Yahoo and Facebook, along with other tech firms, are pushing for the right to be allowed to publish the number of requests they receive from the spy agency. Companies are forbidden by law to disclose how much data they provide.

During an interview at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mayer was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the US surveillance industry was up to. "Releasing classified information is treason and you are incarcerated," she said.

Mayer said she was "proud to be part of an organisation that from the beginning, in 2007, has been sceptical of – and has been scrutinizing – those requests [from the NSA]."

Yahoo has previously unsuccessfully sued the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, which provides the legal framework for NSA surveillance. In 2007 it asked to be allowed to publish details of requests it receives from the spy agency. "When you lose and you don't comply, it's treason," said Mayer. "We think it make more sense to work within the system," she said.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/11/yahoo-ceo-mayer-jail-nsa-surveillance

[bluesbassman]

1. Let me see if I have this straight. Wall Street CEOs crash and burn the economy...

Bank CEOs preside over fraudulent mortgage practices that put people out on the street, Big Oil CEOs run companies that collude with each other to gouge the public, and not one of them will ever see the front door of a prison (unless they look out the window of their limos as they drive by), yet poor little Mark and Marissa are worried they're going to get tossed in the poky for releasing data?

My friends, we live in a fucked up world.

[villager]

2. Well, clearly, it's the one thing our government might throw a CEO in jail *for*

After all, no one had better block access to the info on us citizens!

[hughee99]

18. Apparently, corporations can fuck the people all they want. They're only worried about jail if they

fuck the government.

[99th_Monkey]

3. How are all these "Gag Orders" not a direct brazen violation of the 1st Amendment again?

oh that's right ... "state secrets" trumps the US Constitution. <-- but I don't buy it for a second.

[avaistheone1]

4. Dude, where's my country?

[Trillo]

10. "separation of church and state"

separation of business and state?

[blackspade]

5. Apparently Mayer doesn't know what 'treason' is.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Correct--she's using the wrong word, but she's not kidding about the jail part.

[blackspade]

13. True.

But if your going to take the plunge, at least use the correct terminology!

[idwiyo]

6. Awww, you poor innocent CEOs! I feel for you...

[Helen Borg]

7. The more people have...

And the less likely it is they will do something that leads to losing it.

[DeSwiss]

8. K&R

''Every fact of science was once Damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and progress, everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man's refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. As Oscar Wilde truly said, Disobedience was man's Original Virtue.'' ~Robert Anton Wilson

[24601]

9. going to work enables you to pay taxes unless you think taxes are only for the other people

sending your kids to school and saving for old age are good recommendations.
fashion is BS
defining normal is pretty improbably to capture for a diverse population.
Walking on the sidewalk beats the street if you don't like being rundown by cars or trampling your neighbor's flowers.
Watching TV? as opposed to what, listening to Talk Radio or reading the Washington Times?

Obey the law? Which ones, ACA or the ones about murder, drunk driving, paying taxes, or which ones did he/she mean?
Repeat after you that you are free?
Screw that, I'll keep myself free and if the issue is significant enough, I'll make the decision to instead accept consequences

[DeSwiss]

19. That's one view.....

- There are others. Take care.

Resource-based Economy

[Trillo]

11. Another DU thread titled, "Joe Stiglitz:People Who Break the Rules Have Raked in Huge Profits and

and It's Sickening Our Politics" juxtaposed with this thread.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023651920

[jsr]

14. How about fixing her new improved Yahoo Mail?

Say, go back to the old one ten years ago that worked perfectly.

[forestpath]

15. ROFL. Like the Obama administration would ever put a rich powerful CEO in jail.

For anything.

[jsr]

16. Precisely.

[closeupready]

17. So what, Ms. Mayer? Do you want a parade? A gold medal?

For your bravery?

Obviously, if the law prohibits doing it, then don't. But don't come whining to your users, telling us how you really have a heart of gold, even if it doesn't seem like it.