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Comment by dylangs1030 | Hacker News Reader

Yep...we have no proof of Google or Microsoft being complicit in NSA surveillance.

Despite that, news like this is going to be analyzed in whatever light suits the reader's bias. People are going to argue and say that this is just a fake attempt at saving face, and that it's a conspiracy sanctioned by the government to allow these companies to regain their reputation. Then there are going to be counter arguments citing what the CEOs announced publicly. And so on and so forth.

People will believe what they want, one way or another. Occam's razor be damned.

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> Yep...we have no proof of Google or Microsoft being complicit in NSA surveillance.

The top secret internal NSA documents saying they were partners in PRISM with colorful logos and all weren't enough?

No, they aren't, not after the Guardian backtracked on "direct access." It was independently reported elsewhere as well.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588337-38/no-evidence-of...

Wait that happened? Do you have a link? I tried to google around but did not find anything.

"Direct access" was taken directly from the slides but misunderstood as editorializing by Greenwald.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42134_Greenwald-_We_...

> misunderstood as editorializing by Greenwald.

Did you accidentally use the wrong word?

The quote Greenwald was using:

> "PRISM: Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: [...]"

Greenwald's interpretation:

> "The Prism program allows the NSA, the world’s largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders."

It is a fact that they don't need individual court orders to obtain communications.

As to "obtaining targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers", here's a quote by Gellman:

> In another classified report obtained by The Post, the arrangement is described as allowing “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations,” rather than directly to company servers.

Regardless of whether it is actually accurate, that is what the NSA documents stated.

I think the whole "direct access" argument over semantics is a red herring and completely irrelevant by now.

> It is a fact that they don't need individual court orders to obtain communications.

Statements like these have no information value unless you back them up. For all I know, you learned this from the "The Guardian" article I just cited.

> [...] allowing “collection managers [to send] content tasking instructions directly to equipment installed at company-controlled locations [...]

I don't think a statement about having write access to your own hardware pertains to this discussion, even if that hardware is located in Steve Ballmer's office.

Replying to your first point, here's the relevant law (FAA 702): http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1881a

That's a quite long quote, and it partly contradicts your assertions with statements like

> The procedures adopted in accordance with paragraph (1) shall be subject to judicial review pursuant to subsection (i).

... and the actual contents of subsection (i). You have to be more specific.

The Guardian didn't backtrack but the Post did add some hedging language. Still, PRISM is something. From the reporting so far it seems to be some kind of program that requires technology to be installed at each service provider.

They didn't really backtrack. Maybe on some kind of semantic definition of "direct access", but not on the whole thing.

They even wrote later from new leaks, how Microsoft was having a "team play" with the NSA to give them a lot of data from Skype, Outlook.com and Skydrive, in an almost "direct access" kind of way:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...

If by team play you mean they obeyed court orders for interception, well, yes. That article is incredibly deceitful in its wording. "Circumvent encryption" aka "hand over unencrytped data on disk". Using "pre-encryption" sounds intriguing, but it's nothing special and most companies are going to obey a court order versus shutting down. If you had to implement a wiretap, I doubt LE is going to accept you sending them the emails after you encrypt them. Pretty sure if you tried such a stunt, a judge would smack you back since it's obvious you're obstructing their order.

It may be that Microsoft really, really, loves to give the NSA everything, but so far, there's no evidence of anything beyond complying with the law. Just speculation and spin.

But this is what we're talking about here. Those "orders" give them almost unrestricted access to everything they want - for mass spying. All thanks to the so called general "warrants" from FISA.

Does that make you feel any better? I know it's not making me feel any better, because I know there's virtually no oversight, and the fact that you can even get a warrant for thousands or millions of people at once, is not right, and quite disgusting move from the government (regardless of how constitutional it is - there's such thing as human rights, too).

Microsoft has said there are no general orders to tap everything. There is a huge difference in a rubber-stamp, poorly-audited system, and a wholesale surveillance where Microsoft is giving the NSA raw data on everyone.

Trying to conflate the two for media impact will backfire by making people jaded after they discover the spin being put on things. The info Snowden has released is bad enough as-is (the lack of oversight, the scope, etc.) - there's no need to invent stuff.

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