Internet company Yahoo! has released documents detailing how it was pressured by the US Government to hand over user information from its online services or be fined a minimum of US$250,000 each day it failed to comply.

Yahoo! General Counsel Ron Bell said in a company post, Yahoo! is set to release more than 1,500 pages of “once-secret papers” from its 2007-2008 challenge to the expansion of US surveillance laws.

In 2007 the US Government amended a key law to demand user information from online services which Yahoo! refused to adhere to.

Bell said Yahoo! refused to comply with what it viewed as “unconstitutional and overbroad surveillance.”

Yahoo! challenged the law and decided to appeal the case, which it did not succeed.

Bell said the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) upheld the predecessor to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act – Procedures for Targeting Certain Persons Outside the United States Other Than United States Persons.

The FISC and the FISC-R are so-called secret courts used by the US Government to oversee its requests for surveillance orders and other legal processes in national security investigations.

The Court’s hearings and records are typically classified and closed to the public.

Bell revealed that Yahoo!’s role in its 2007-2008 lawsuit had remained classified until last year, which it fought to declassify and share its findings from the case.

FISC-R have agreed to unseal the proceedings at Yahoo!’s request, so it is working to make the 1,500 pages of documents available.

“We consider this an important win for transparency, and hope that these records help promote informed discussion about the relationship between privacy, due process, and intelligence gathering,” Bell said.

Bell highlighted several ‘key takeaways’ from the now not so secret documents:

- An expanded version of the FISC-R opinion in the case, originally released in 2008 in a more redacted form.

- The release of the never-before-seen 2008 FISC opinion that we challenged on appeal.

- The parties’ briefs, including some of the lower court briefings in the appendices.

- An Ex-Parte Appendix of classified filings.

- A partially redacted certification filed with the FISC, as well as a mostly unredacted directive that Yahoo received.

Bell said that despite the declassification and release, some portions of the documents remained sealed and classified even to Yahoo!.

“Our fight continues. We are still pushing for the FISC to release materials from the 2007-2008 case in the lower court,” Bell said.

“The FISC indicated previously that it was waiting on the FISC-R ruling in relation to the 2008 appeal before moving forward. Now that the FISC-R matter is resolved, we will work hard to make the materials from the FISC case public, as well.”

Yahoo! is among many other tech companies including Facebook, Microsoft and Google pushing for transparency among Government requests for data by releasing ‘transparency’ reports detailing the number of requests they receive for user data.

In June Vodafone published its  first global law enforcement disclosure report which gave a detailed insight into legal frameworks, governance principles and operating procedures across 29 countries – including its joint ventures in Australia, Fiji and Kenya.