The world’s largest internet companies, accused of collaborating with the US National Security Agency over the "PRISM" data-gathering operation, issued the following statements to the media:
MICROSOFT: We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. 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.
AOL: We do not have any knowledge of the Prism program. We do not disclose user information to government agencies without a court order, subpoena or formal legal process, nor do we provide any government agency with access to our servers.
Dropbox: We've seen reports that Dropbox might be asked to participate in a government program called PRISM. We are not part of any such program and remain committed to protecting our users' privacy.
PalTalk We have not heard of PRISM. Paltalk exercises extreme care to protect and secure users' data, only responding to court orders as required to by law. Paltalk does not provide any government agency with direct access to its servers.
Twitter: Not named in the NSA presentation as being a part of PRISM
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On June 6, 2013, the Washington Post reported:
U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.
I’ve collected the tech companies' responses here to try to understand them better. Please add your questions or observations.