Either the government is coercing them, and they have to issue lies as denials, or they are participating voluntarily and are voluntarily lying, or they are not participating. The second option seems unlikely to me.
But at the same time they can't all be right. NSA says it's getting data in some form from Google, Page says no direct access.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle then... but where?
I just think it's important to not be entirely cynical here, and to keep in mind what such a statement might look like if it were being truthful. I don't know how much different it might be, which generally makes the statement only as good as Larry Page's word, and only then if he doesn't have a gun to his head.
If that is true, why would we expect that Google officials would be able to make any public confirmation of the Top Secret program? And, given that, why, in that case, would we expect the truth to be "in the middle"?
Conversely, if the leaked document is not genuine, then I still don't see any basis for expecting the truth to be in the "middle" between the false document and the Google denial.
You assume Google is giving the NSA information and act accordingly.
Doubts are like bothersome flies...
until they are crushed...
you will never be comfortable at your current position.
Page says no direct access and not even legal access at that scale (verizon). He doesn't say they don't have any access -- in fact he says they comply within the bounds of law, but it's not at the Verizon scale.
On one hand, I would think a very-visible CEO of a major corp would keep their name off of a press release, if the press release was a lie that they were compelled to tell by the government.
On the other hand, I feel like each company's response and their use of the exact same terminology ("direct access", etc) feels like a wink and a nod.
If I was going to go completely conspiracy-nutter, I'd say that Page has been kept out of the loop intentionally for plausible deniability, and the actual incursion happens at a much lower level, where the people involved are coerced into keeping their mouths shut. That way, the bigwigs get to tell what they think is the truth, the NSA gets their data, and nobody is the wiser.
Granted, I think that belongs more in the plot of a thriller novel than in this actual world we're living in, but given the revelations of the past couple of days, fiction doesn't seem that implausible.
"A US government-mandated backdoor allowed China to hack into Gmail"
"In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access."
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hackin...
Maybe those hackers just used the regular tech support "back door", as in "SELECT * FROM gmail where email = 'target@gmail.com'
Their business is based on user's data. If you do not feel comfortable giving them your data, it might hurt their business. Hence, IMHO, they do have some incentive to deny PRISM, regardless of the facts.