The implication being that all those companies were cooperating and not being inadvertently tapped. This is not a given and from what I've seen the later seemed more likely, without discounting the existence of companies that do cooperate on an ongoing basis.

The documents identified several technology companies as participants in the PRISM program

> participants

To avoid giving the wrong impression to folks, it is worth noting that ‘participating’ means they produced requested communications on an ongoing basis pursuant to orders from a judge.

Thank you for clarifying. To clarify further, this is the FISA (secret) court that Will is referring to that also ended up rubber stamping surveillance of a political campaign.

Apples and oranges. PRISM was not these companies giving Carte Blanche access to data, it was narrow to specific government warrants for specific individuals per later media reports, and nothing like the Motel 6 or AT&T issues. It sounds to me like PRISM = “I have a warrant for individual XYZ, please zip up all their account data and deliver it electronically somewhere for the FBI”

A separate program, MUSCULAR targeted dark fiber inter-data center links against companies which suggests that the tech companies were not handing out backdoors as they were accused of by Greenwald/Guardian reporting.

I don't really see how it's different aside from semantics.

The root of this thread was that then tech companies routinely rebuff requests and the example of AT&T was given and Motel 6 was referenced.

There’s a big difference between “show me your warrant” and “oh, the government asked nicely? I’ll give you the data as a favor”

It’s not just semantics. There’s a huge difference between being compelled and being a willing participant who doesn’t push back.

What evidence do you have that the tech companies don’t rebuff or push back on requests that don’t have the full force of the courts behind them?

No way to know since warrants are approved by secret courts. I'm going to guess zero pushback.