In June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have 'direct access' through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo.īlanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time. In a statement, Microsoft said: 'When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands.' The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data 'only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers'. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the process is driven by legal compulsion. All the major tech firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers' privacy concerns. The latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and the Obama administration. Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a 'team sport'. In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism

Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to 'understand' potential issues with a feature in that allows users to create email aliases

The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on, including Hotmail

Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new portal

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