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Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

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Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#31

Post by otakucode »

nitrogen wrote: post #23
baddox wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably, if they didn't pay the huge bill for their fines, what would happen? It's easy to think of shady secret things the government could do to coerce Yahoo! in to either complying or paying. But at the end of the day, there's always people with guns.

But at the end of the day, there's always people with guns. I think the point of the OP is that "people with guns" get to be pretty hard to hide at larger scales.

Luckily companies keep the number of people with actual decision-making power to a very, very small group. Only threatening 1 or 2 people would probably be necessary.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#32

Post by otakucode »

monsterix wrote: post #12
joshavant wrote: post #3

Weren't these requests, which Yahoo objected to, intended to stay secret, by the wishes of the government? Consider if Yahoo refused to honor the requests, and began accruing the fines. Presumably, if they didn't pay the huge bill for their fines, what would happen? Surely, $250k/day would rack up fast... As I see it, eventually Yahoo would rack up such a bill that they couldn't afford it, and any collection of the f…

I have a question: Can the NSA/the coercing party be reverse fined at $500k/day by Yahoo (i.e by an organization) for some reasons in similar vein?

Probably... but in order to bring any lawsuit against the US government (presuming they don't pay... which they wouldn't), the US government has to grant you permission to sue them. So chances are that debt would go nowhere.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#34

Post by tootie »

otakucode wrote: post #26

It would have been very interesting if Yahoo had simply said "do it." A few months later the government would want to demand Yahoo pay them millions of dollars........ but be entirely incapable of explaining WHY they were owed this money at all. That would have been a very interesting event.

Yahoo would have to take $90M/year charge and either give a reason to the SEC or just declare it classified which would be as good as saying the NSA is taking it.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#35

Post by legutierr »

Hmm...if they hadn't complied, in three months more than $20 million would have accrued.

Would that have been material enough to require disclosure in Yahoo's public filings? If so, how would it have been described? It seems as if by complying with SEC regulations, Yahoo would have been forced to violate secrecy rules with regards to the origin of the fine.

That would have been an interesting conundrum.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#36

Post by true_religion »

otakucode wrote: post #29
Navarr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it because it was made to the shareholders? If it had instead been announced publically would it have been considered insider trading?

No, sharing information publicly is never insider trading. What makes it insider trading is for one group to have access to information about a company that another group does not have. I believe, from the training I've had, that the standard is usually 48 hours after public disclosure of information before you are allowed to act on it. Of course, insider trading laws are broken on a minute-to-minute basis by hundred…

On the face of it sounds like a hard to comply with rule. If you worked high-up within a publicly traded company, you'd have to tell no one anything about your job.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#37

Post by idlewords »

comrade1 wrote: post #27

I wish there was a way to post anon here. I create a new id every now and then and post but no one sees the posting because it's new... I wish more people would be outraged by where the u.s. Is going and just leave. If you're educated, have desirable skills, you can just come to Europe. If you think you can change what's happening in the u.s. I do not agree with you. You will lose to the political class. They have 10…

Some of us are outraged by where the U.S. is going but stay to try to fix it. Otherwise you get adverse selection effects, like when all the non-crazies left New Hampshire.

Plus have you ever had a European burrito? It's not pretty.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#39

Post by tjohns »

melvinmt wrote: post #4
joshavant wrote: post #3

Weren't these requests, which Yahoo objected to, intended to stay secret, by the wishes of the government? Consider if Yahoo refused to honor the requests, and began accruing the fines. Presumably, if they didn't pay the huge bill for their fines, what would happen? Surely, $250k/day would rack up fast... As I see it, eventually Yahoo would rack up such a bill that they couldn't afford it, and any collection of the f…

"As I see it, eventually Yahoo would rack up such a bill that they couldn't afford it, and any collection of the fee by the government would force Yahoo to close its doors." Yahoo is about to get $20bn+ in cash in about 2 weeks, so they can hold out these fines for about 80,000 days.

If Yahoo continued to resist, I'm sure the government would just gradually increase the amount until they had no choice but to comply.

These kinds of fines are usually issued for contempt of court. Judges don't take kindly to parties that try to ignore a court order, which would include writing off a court imposed fine as a cost of business.

There's few things more terrifying than an angry judge with full power of contempt. There's no principle of proportionality, which gives judges almost unlimited authority. See Chadwick v Janecka (3rd Cir. 2002) as an example.

Re: Feds Threatened to Fine Yahoo $250K Daily for Not Complying with NSA's PRISM

#40

Post by superuser2 »

true_religion wrote: post #36
otakucode wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, sharing information publicly is never insider trading. What makes it insider trading is for one group to have access to information about a company that another group does not have. I believe, from the training I've had, that the standard is usually 48 hours after public disclosure of information before you are allowed to act on it. Of course, insider trading laws are broken on a minute-to-minute basis by hundred…

On the face of it sounds like a hard to comply with rule. If you worked high-up within a publicly traded company, you'd have to tell no one anything about your job.

You simply couldn't talk about things that are relevant to your share price.

"My boss was an asshole today." Fine.

"We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine.

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