The full extent of Microsoft's Prism involvement exposed

In a sensational release yesterday, Guardian has revealed scary details of how Microsoft has been collaborating with NSA to give access to its customer data for PRISM purposes. The extent of privacy breach is shocking:

• Access to data before encryption for Outlook.com and Hotmail emails and webchat
• Access to its cloud storage Skydrive
• Access to not only Skype voice calls but also video calls

Apparently all this data is routinely shared between FBI and NSA.

The information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded sharing with the other two agencies.

The NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism, using software that “enables our partners to see which selectors [search terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism”.

The document continues: “The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector…” As a result, the author notes: “these two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!”

Hmm, so I guess nowadays the point of encryption while using mail, Skype, chat etc is only about hoping that bad guys (???) will not snoop on our data. Big brother already has all the access it needs.