Ook techniekbedrijven stonden gegevens af aan NSA

For several of the biggest U.S. technology and Web companies, sharing has been a buzzword for years. It turns out to be standard practice in dealing with requests from federal agents for access to massive amounts of user data, according to reports in the Washington Post and the Guardian published on Thursday evening, including e-mails, social-media updates, photos, video, and other personal information.

The latest revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance comes just on the heels of the Guardian report late Wednesday that Verizon (VZ) has been routinely sharing call records with the nation’s largest intelligence agency. Now, according to presentation slides obtained by the two newspapers, it appears that Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB), PalTalk (a smaller online-chat company) AOL (AOL), Skype, YouTube, and Apple (AAPL) have allowed the NSA to tap directly into their servers in order to harvest user data and monitor individuals over time. This data, gathered as part of a program called PRISM, accounts for nearly one in seven intelligence reports, according to the Post.