PRISM Pulled Microsoft Deep Into NSA Rabbit Hole

Although it initially denied involvement in the National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance program, Microsoft has in fact worked closely with U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor users' communications, even helping the NSA circumvent its own encryption to do so, new documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden suggest. Microsoft gave the NSA pre-encryption access to chats and emails on Outlook.com, including those of Hotmail users, as well as data on its SkyDrive cloud storage service and phone calls made through Skype, according to a Thursday report in The Guardian, which originally broke the news about PRISM. One NSA document, in fact, referred to the PRISM program as a "team sport" for the data-sharing it involved with the FBI and the CIA, The Guardian reported. Microsoft responded to the report later on Thursday with a statement of its own to defend its practices, noting that it provides customer data only in response to legal processes and when the requests focus on specific instances. "It's hard to compare Microsoft's collaboration with U.S. intelligence agencies to other companies which are part of PRISM because there's so much information that hasn't been made public yet," Electronic Frontier Foundation Staff Technologist Micah Lee told the E-Commerce Times. As a result of this latest report, we simply know more about Microsoft's role than we do about those of any of the other players, Lee added. Apple, Facebook, Google and Yahoo are among the other major tech companies involved. Since admitting their participation many of them -- including Microsoft -- have made calls for greater transparency...more