Yahoo Wins Victory Against PRISM: FISA Court Orders NSA To Declassify Documents

Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is actively trying to prove that it wasn’t complicit with secret NSA surveillance programs like PRISM. Yahoo won an important victory Monday when a FISA court ruled that the Department of Justice must reveal classified documents that Yahoo says will prove that the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company resisted FISA court order for user information.

When Edward Snowden initially leaked documents that connected several major Internet companies with PRISM, which gives the NSA easy access to user data, every company involved denied participation. A new leak Thursday by Snowden showed that at least one of these companies, Microsoft, not only participated in PRISM, but took significant steps above and beyond court orders to help the NSA collect user data.

The win is significant for Yahoo, and supports the company’s previous statements against data collection. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which also won a recent legal victory towards declassifying more information about PRISM, praised Yahoo for its efforts.

“Once those documents are made public, we believe they will contribute constructively to the ongoing public discussion around online privacy,” Yahoo said in a statement.

Daily Dot points out the irony in the fact that a FISA court granted permission to reveal documents showing how Yahoo resisted orders that a FISA court initially granted. It shows how complicated this whole PRISM situation is.

The DOJ has two weeks to state how long it will take to declassify the documents, and they will likely be heavily redacted.