Company seeking to correct the impression 'that it provides the United States government with direct access to its servers'

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Microsoft has joined Google in asking to reveal how many times it has been ordered to disclose data under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the mechanism used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other US government agencies to gather data about foreign internet users.

The request was made on 19 June in a secret court filing to the FISA court – which issues warrants for data requests – but was unsealed this week.

Google filed a similar motion earlier this month as the row about claimed access by the NSA to data from nine Silicon Valley companies – Google, Microsoft, Apple, PalTalk, Skype, AOL, Yahoo, Facebook and YouTube – grew.

Microsoft and Google have argued that they should be allowed to state the details under the US's First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.

Since details claimed by the NSA about access to data via its Prism system were published by the Guardian and Washington Post earlier in June, the companies named have published a number of documents and repeatedly denied claims in the NSA's presentation to have "direct access" to their systems.

Yahoo recently joined the other technology companies in publishing how many aggregate surveillance requests it has received from US law enforcement – though that does not break out the number of FISA requests.

FISA requests are granted by a special court that sits in secret and can grant the NSA permission to collect data stored by any company about a named person. In 2012, the court granted 1,856 requests and turned none down.

Revelations about the programme by former NSA contractor Ed Snowden have prompted a broader debate about government monitoring and the privacy of Americans' communications.

In its motion, Microsoft said it has sought to correct the impression "that it provides the United States government with direct access to its servers and network infrastructure and, thereby, indiscriminately discloses Microsoft users' information to the government."

The company said it had received permission from the FBI and the Justice Department to publish aggregate data that includes FISA orders, along with law enforcement requests from all other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. But Microsoft says it wants to be able to report the FISA orders separately, which it has not received permission to do.

Microsoft said national security laws do not prohibit it from disclosing the data, and if the laws did, that would violate the First Amendment.