The secret reports cite the NSA saying “this new capability will result in a much more timely collection response” and that its “success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established.”
Microsoft was reportedly allowing agents to circumvent its own encryption system to spy on email and chats.
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The company is also accused of having worked with the FBI to allow the NSA access the cloud storage system SkyDrive, which has more than 250 million users.
In a statement to the newspaper, Microsoft tried to defend itself:
“When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands.”
The company said it provides customer data “only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers.”
This means Microsoft co-operated extensively with agencies to enable them to gather material if and when a warrant was produced.
“We only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks,” the statement said.
Despite the denials, Mr Snowden has continued to accuse the tech giants. “Companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft they all get together with the NSA and provide the NSA with direct access to the backends to all of the systems you use to communicate, to store your data,” he said in a video interview released by The Guardian earlier this week, “ And they give the NSA direct access that they don’t need to oversee, so they can’t be held liable for it.