PRISM; the top secret NSA 20 million dollar per year surveillance program, stresses to the public that they do not go beyond what they are forced to do under law in handing over user data.
What isn't expressed to the public is the PRISM program has access that is granted to various records such as emails, chat conversations, voice calls, documents and more.
PRISM has direct access to providers such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple.
The problem is that NSA collects this data without the companies knowledge in most cases. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, all claim that they do not provide the government with direct access to their servers, unless it is directed by court orders.
When executives from these companies found out about the claims in NSA documents they claimed to be very confused. Basically, PRISM can get around any security system.
On the other hand companies like Skype are working with PRISM. They enable PRISM to easily collect Video and Audio conversations. At the same time Skype claims to there users that they are unable to perform wiretaps.
Companies such as Microsoft claim to protect their systems from the government. In reality they are helping the NSA to get through encryption so they can intercept web chats on the new outlook.com portal. Before Microsoft's help the NSA was already able to access emails on Outlook.com.
Companies such as Yahoo and Facebook are pushing for the right to be allowed to publish the number of requests they receive from the NSA. These companies are forbidden by law to disclose how much data the NSA provides. When founder of facebook and CEO of Yahoo tried to fight off NSA surveillance they were threatened to face jail time. Yahoo has previously even unsuccessfully sued the FISA court that provides the framework for the NSA surveillance
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