WaPo Misread Powerpoint- Story on Feds tapping directly into internet companies was wrong & rushed

[GoneFishin]

50. I'll admit to speculating based on the fact that the companies were all getting heat

from several directions but would have been under a gag order. This would have caused some scrambling to avoid punishing the companies stockholders' for the companies cooporation with the government. This change in the story takes some heat off the companies for being involved in the spying.

The story hasn't really changed much. The companies already have acknowledged it.

Tech Companies Concede to Surveillance Program

“The U.S. government does not have direct access or a ‘back door’ to the information stored in our data centers,” Google’s chief executive, Larry Page, and its chief legal officer, David Drummond, said in a statement on Friday. “We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law.”

Statements from Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, AOL and Paltalk made the same distinction.

But instead of adding a back door to their servers, the companies were essentially asked to erect a locked mailbox and give the government the key, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information, they said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html?pagewanted=1&hp&pagewanted=all&_r=1&