Yahoo Executive Confronts NSA Director Over 'Backdoors'

In one of the most public confrontations of a top US intelligence official by Silicon Valley in recent years, a senior Yahoo official peppered the National Security Agency director, Admiral Mike Rogers. The exchange came during a question and answer session at a daylong summit on cybersecurity hosted by the think tank New America.

The tense exchange began when Alex Stambos, Yahoo's chief information-security officer, asked Director Rogers if Yahoo should acquiesce to requests from Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, France and other countries to build a "backdoor" in some of their systems that would allow the countries to spy on certain users. Stamos was trying to argue that if Yahoo gave the NSA access to this information, other countries could try and compel the company to provide the same access to data. NSA Director Rogers said he believed that it “is achievable” to create a legal framework that allows the NSA to access encrypted information without upending corporate security programs. He declined to provide more details.