Yahoo helped US spies scan all its emails in real time for a single phrase

Yahoo built an unprecedented surveillance system in response to a government request last year, according to a bombshell report published today by Reuters’ Joseph Menn, which cites three persons familiar with the matter. The request asked for all arriving emails to be scanned for a specific string of characters, either in the body of an email or an attachment. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer chose to comply with the request. Crucially, the system was not restrained to a specific account or set of