Yahoo: Most Data Requests Tied to Fraud, Murder

Yahoo has never been a big fan of the NSA's surveillance activities, and it tried to distance itself from them even further yesterday by revealing just how many requests for data it got from the government. The number, CEO Marissa Mayer wrote in a Tumblr post, was "between 12,000 and 13,000" over the last 6 months, and most requests "concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations."

Mayer said she was legally barred from saying more about the classified FISA requests, but "we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its stance on this issue." She also promised to issue "our first global law enforcement transparency report" later this summer. Meanwhile, the NSA wants to make some disclosures, too—it intends to declassify information on terrorist attacks its surveillance has helped thwart, the AFP reports. (More Yahoo stories.)