14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is one of the latest company brought in the spotlight as part of the PRISM scandal, this time due to a report which claimed that the Redmond-based software giant provided direct access to user accounts.
Brad Smith, general counsel & executive vice president, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft, explains in a lengthy post that his company, together with other companies out there, has asked the Attorney General of the United States to personally take action to obtain permission “to share publicly more complete information about how we handle national security requests for customer information.”
Smith mentions that Microsoft is willing to release more details on requests to provide user account data, but the government doesn’t allow the company to do it.
“We believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees our freedom to share more information with the public, yet the Government is stopping us. For example, Government lawyers have yet to respond to the petition we filed in court on June 19, seeking permission to publish the volume of national security requests we have received. We hope the Attorney General can step in to change this situation,” he says.
At the same time, Smith notes that the Redmond-based company isn’t allowed by the government to issue a public point of view regarding the recent “interpretations” of leaked documents.
“We have asked the Government again for permission to discuss the issues raised by these new documents, and our request was denied by government lawyers,” Smith further goes.
The Microsoft executive then goes on to explain that his company doesn’t provide direct access to intelligence agencies to user account data, pointing out that it offers the requested information based on legal demand.
“If a government wants customer data – including for national security purposes – it needs to follow applicable legal process, meaning it must serve us with a court order for content or subpoena for account information,” Smith continued.
What’s more, Microsoft says that it does not help the NSA or any other intelligence agency to get around encryption methods and access private user details.
In the end, the company calls for more transparency and points to the US Constitution in order to be allowed to share more details on its collaboration with the government.
“The United States has been a role model by guaranteeing a Constitutional right to free speech. We want to exercise that right,” it said.