Dissecting Big Tech's Denial of Involvement in NSA's PRISM Spying Program

June 7, 2013 — -- The National Security Agency and the FBI have been tapping into the servers of nine technology companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google and Yahoo, to collect audio, video, photographs, e-mails and other documents under a program code-named PRISM, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The tech companies have responded to questions about the story with statements that may leave out as much as they say.

All the major technology companies named in the Post's report have adamantly denied that they gave the government full access to their servers in similar prepared statements.

President Obama said today that members of Congress have repeatedly been informed of the programs.

"The relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs," he said. "These are programs that have been authorized by broad, bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006. And so, I think, at the outset, it's important to understand that your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we're doing."

Obama added that data being collected on emails and Internet activity targeted foreign nationals and not U.S. citizens.

The tech companies released the following prepared statements to the media denying involvement in the program.

The Statements

Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."

Google: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data."

Google's CEO Larry Page released a blog post on Friday again denying knowledge of the program.

"We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law," said Page.

Facebook: "Protecting the privacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook. We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released an additional statement on Friday, saying Facebook "hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday."

Yahoo: "Yahoo takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."

Paltalk: "We have not heard of PRISM. Paltalk exercises extreme care to protect and secure users' data, only responding to court orders as required to by law. Paltalk does not provide any government agency with direct access to its servers."

AOL: "We do not have any knowledge of the Prism program. We do not disclose user information to government agencies without a court order, subpoena or formal legal process, nor do we provide any government agency with access to our servers."

Dissecting The Wording and What They Can't Say

The similarity in all the statements was clear. All mentioned that they would only comply with orders for requests to access information if forced to do so under the law and that they did not provide "back door" or "direct" access to their servers and to user account information.

Experts believe that commonality in statements could mean a few things. The first is that the companies simply can't talk about it.

"If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all," Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.

Rumold is involved with lawsuits with the NSA and the Department of Justice about other wiretapping cases.