Coalition Letter On Yahoo Surveillance Revelations (October 2016)

The undersigned civil society groups write to express our concerns about recent reports of an order issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that compelled Yahoo! to scan the emails of all of its users, in real time, for a “signature” associated with a foreign power. We believe such a massive scan of the emails of millions of people, particularly if it involves the scanning of email content, could violate FISA, the Fourth Amendment, and international human rights law, and has grave implications for privacy.