71–80 of 246 posts
$250K/day -- someone had to come up with that number. Was it some high level official? An intern? I can imagine this dialogue taking place: ---- (Two bureaucrat monkeys. They just got back from lunch from cafeteria at Ft. Meade. Their tummies are bit heavy with greasy hamburgers. Settling in to finish their day before 2pm. One last thing needs to be done -- deciding on this PRISM non-compliance issue) M0: What if the…
A smarter company would have treated the $250K as a marketing expense. It's peanuts compared to what Yahoo earns, and imagine the reaction when people figured out that Yahoo had gone to the mat for its users.
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I was thinking about that because it seemed like a cost they could just afford to ignore ($91m/yr), this was probably not the limit of the penalties they could have faced.
At some point people would have started being thrown in jail and that's when resistance usually ends.
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Europe's management has it's own set of problems. I might add, Europe has also been at war for most of the time it has been inhabited. Just because parts of Europe have taken a break for the last 60 years doesn't negate this.
I think the u.s. Has been at war for all but 21 years of its existence. I could be wrong - it was a stat from a website with an agenda.
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.
Not reporting the exact details of a $90m acquisition is not a huge deal (for Yahoo). Not reporting on-going government fines that have amounted to $90m in a year, would be a huge deal. One is in theory the acquisition of value and enhances the business, the other is just a black hole of cash destruction.
Further, beyond the money, intentionally doing something against the US Government such that you're getting fined per day, is a big issue for shareholders to know about. Especially given the power the government wields these days.
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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.
It's unlikely this would stop at just $90M/year. There's no reason to believe the daily fine wouldn't continuously increase, or that executives wouldn't eventually be put in jail for contempt. And keep in mind you can be held in jail indefinitely for contempt of court, as long as you remain in noncompliance.
And if we wander into nefarious approaches, well, Yahoo was going to comply no matter what if the Feds felt like they needed it to happen for PRISM to be effective.
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I think the u.s. Has been at war for all but 21 years of its existence. I could be wrong - it was a stat from a website with an agenda.
That's nonsense. The US was not involved in armed conflict from 1920 (end of involvement in the Russian Civil War) to 1941 (start of WWII). That's 21 years right there. Maybe they're saying that 21 years was the longest period between military conflicts.
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Imagine what kind of secret programs are being pushed today that we will hear about in 2020, or longer. I have some guesses but they are so absurd I would be laughed off hn.
Yet we keep electing the same politicians that went along with all this. We deserve the tyranny.
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That's nonsense. The US was not involved in armed conflict from 1920 (end of involvement in the Russian Civil War) to 1941 (start of WWII). That's 21 years right there. Maybe they're saying that 21 years was the longest period between military conflicts.
1941 was not the start of WWII. It started in 1939.
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At some point people would have started being thrown in jail and that's when resistance usually ends.
Right, but what would that look like? Would the FISA court jail a citizen without a trial, and can you imagine a FISA judge wanting to make that call, knowing that their decision will soon become public? Because once someone is prosecuted the U.S. govt would really have difficulty enforcing silence. It's one thing to force a company to be silent about surveillance, it's quite another to force individuals to be silent…