Former Microsoft privacy head had warned of cloud spying

Former Microsoft privacy head had warned of cloud spying: Two years before Snowden in 2011, Microsoft’s then Chief Privacy Officer Caspar Bowden tried to warn his company that any cloud computing solutions sold to foreign governments would mean unlimited mass surveillance on their clients by the NSA. Two months later Bowden was fired from Redmond.

Speaking at the 31st Chaos Computer Congress in Hamburg Bowden said that he warned 40 Microsoft National Technical Officers, effectively ambassadors of Microsoft, about the implication of US laws on privacy. The law underpinning PRISM, the NSA-GCHQ clandestine mass surveillance programme, was the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendment Act (FISAAA). This law is about obtaining foreign intelligence, targeting non-US persons outside of the US, which is 95% of the world’s population.

Providers must provide government facilities to accomplish this action in secret.