US House reps have reportedly sent a letter to Yahoo’s CEO, from four years ago. The members of the Congress have apparently sent angrily-worded letters to the heads of 13 tech firms, demanding that they do not comply with a request for records regarding the January 6th Capitol storming, and have threatened legal action if the demands are not abided by.
However, that’s not the reason they are making headlines, as even more interesting is the fact that the letter to Yahoo is addressed to Marissa Mayer, who stepped down from the CEO post in 2017.
Behind The Times
Moreover, while letters have been sent to Amazon, AOL, Facebook, Apple, Google, Snap, Microsoft, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, US Cellular, and even Twitter, none have been sent to the recent crop of popular social forums like TikTok, Telegram, and Reddit. As such, people suspect that the Congress is a little behind the times when it comes to the industry leaders of the tech world.
While this instance scores points on being rather funny, it also throws light on how lacking the Congress’s awareness about technology-related matters is. This move comes even after the House gave the go-ahead to the plan for setting up a partisan select committee, specifically to bring to light what underwent during the January Capitol attack, which had led to the death of five US citizens.
Surveillance State By Democrats
Under the plan, the committee had directed as many as 35 social media and telecom companies to preserver the phone records and associated data of some individuals, among which are included a few members of former POTUS Donald Trump’s family, as well as those who charged with being connected with the riot.
However, now, a group of Republicans, who are said to be behind the letters, have claimed that the plan would risk the security of all Americans, by putting them on the radar of the “surveillance state run by Democrat politicians.” The letters have been signed by many Representatives, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. It is possible that many of them could be among the list of people whose records have been demanded by the committee.
Still, this doesn’t cut the fact that the Republicans did mess up quite a bit when it came to addressing those letters. Mayer, who is described as the “President and Chief Executive Officer” at Yahoo in the letter, had stepped down from her post way back, and now runs Lumi Labs, a startup.
