The San Jose Mercury News reports that Yahoo is asking the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to let the public see its arguments in a 2008 case that the government used to persuade tech companies to cooperate with its massive data-gathering efforts.
Yahoo joins a growing list of parties demanding greater transparency over the government's secret data-collection programs, including that known as Prism, revealed last month by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Google and Microsoft have both challenged gag orders that prevent them from disclosing what data they are forced to give the government under Prism.
And in a related development earlier this week, the Electronic Privacy Information Committee (EPIC) filed a complaint with the Supreme Court questioning whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had the authority to order Verizon to turn over data from domestic phone records.
In its filing, Yahoo says its 2008 arguments would demonstrate that the company "objected strenuously" to government demands for customers' information and that they would also help the public understand how surveillance programs are approved under federal law.