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Microsoft says not part of broad government online monitoring

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People visit the Microsoft booth at the 2013 Computex exhibition at the TWTC Nangang exhibition hall in Taipei June 4, 2013. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang

People visit the Microsoft booth at the 2013 Computex exhibition at the TWTC Nangang exhibition hall in Taipei June 4, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

SEATTLE | Thu Jun 6, 2013 8:43pm EDT

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it provides customer data to the U.S. government only when it receives a legally binding order and only on specific accounts, after the Washington Post reported U.S. security agencies had access to its central servers.

The Post reported on Thursday the U.S. National Security Agency and the FBI were "tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies" - including Microsoft - through a highly classified program known as PRISM, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs.

Microsoft made no mention of the PRISM program in a statement released after the Post report, and denied it was part of any voluntary data collection mechanism.

"We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis," Microsoft said in the emailed statement.

"In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."

(Reporting by Bill Rigby)
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Comments (3)
wonka wrote:
Instead of turning their back on consumers, large internet/software companies should do something other than stick their head in the sand and pretend as if nothing is going on. Obviously, the USA government is easily collecting all information “streaming” through business servers. Therefore, there should be a call for wealthy internet/ software companies to take the protection of the USA Bill of Rights for consumers into their own hands, by developing and providing ubiquitous encryption code built into all software to help keep the traitor bureaucratic agencies from snooping into “every” USA citizen’s life while theoretically/actually violating numerous Constitutional Rights. That way when these traitor agencies look at open servers, it will then require hard work, rather than just looking at everything, to accomplish warrant-less searches. Specific warrants of specific crimes should be required, rather than betraying the whole USA by violating every citizen’s rights- which is what is currently going on by the government’s own admissions.

Jun 07, 2013 6:54am EDT  --  Report as abuse
wonka wrote:
It out to be more difficult for any government to violate a USA citizen’s Constitutional Rights.

Jun 07, 2013 6:55am EDT  --  Report as abuse
wonka wrote:
Companies we use and support, imagine and claim, that they are trying to safeguard consumer’s privacy. But they do nothing to safeguard the Bill of Rights and protect USA citizens against a government that does not hold up the tradition and values of the USA Constitution. Arguably the modern USA government is a constitutional enemy to the USA. Consumers should be protected from the government.
For security purposes internet companies should not build a backdoor in their software, but build a front door. The front door should be encryption and when the government knocks on the business servers, only they will they be knocking on the front door.

Jun 07, 2013 7:22am EDT  --  Report as abuse
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