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Comment by wyldfire | Hacker News Reader

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I think you underestimate how close big tech and telecom companies are to three letter agencies. See the "Protect America Act" of 2007 which covered everyone's asses for warrantless spying.

Ahh memories: Long before Snowden there was good ole 641a

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Even better when said companies are (secretly) owned by said three leter agencies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

Wasn't it the FISA Amendments Act of 2008? Or did the Protect America Act of 2007 also have immunity provisions?

edit: oh I see, the immunity provisions were first introduced with the Protect America Act of 2007 but they had a sunset date under that law so they were later made permanent by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

Congress already granted retroactive immunity for telecoms acting in cooperation with the US government with the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. I don't see why they couldn't do the same for Microsoft (assuming the law doesn't already apply to them).

> Release from liability - No cause of action shall lie in any court against any electronic communication service provider for providing any information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with a directive issued pursuant to paragraph (1).

- Section 702, subsection h, paragraph 3;

- Section 703, subsection e.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6304/text

"any information" suggests wrong information wont evoke cause of action in any court.

I would be shocked if a judge interpreted that to include essentially willful perjury (or at least false statements) to a national security agency.

id be shocked as well, but the small paragraph doesnt seem to preclude it.

people make mistakes, equipment can have unexpected behaviour, and people lie. im curious, about if this would be considered compelled speech if someone said no you cant MITM my service unless there is an extant activity of concern.

its gotta be addressed in other section or paragraph.

I lost all illusion this was the case after hushmail https://www.wired.com/2007/11/encrypted-e-mai/

Oh, you mean like the time Microsoft was the first company in the Prism program uncovered by Snowden, later followed by Yahoo, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple? The program allowing the NSA to decrypt any traffic* or data of these vendors? The publication of which had, like, no consequences for Microsoft or the others?

Yeah. I don't think they're really afraid of repeating that.

Those exact Snowden documents detailed how Microsoft refused to backdoor Bitlocker despite major pressure from the NSA.

Would like to hear more about this, seems so out of character. Have any links?

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