Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users‘ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company‘s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

The documents show that:

• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;

• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;

Support for Brotherhood undimmed in Damanhur, near where the movement‘s leader, Hassan al-Banna, was born in 1906

„The arrests we have seen over the past several days targeting specific groups are not in line with the national reconciliation that the interim government and the military say they are pursuing,“ spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a daily briefing.

Keynote address at Black Hat comes days before Def Con, whose organiser has urged federal employees to stay away

Venezuela has still not received a formal response to its offer of asylum to former U.S. spy contractor Edward Snowden, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua told Reuters on Thursday.

The ‚National Alliance in Support of Electoral Legitimacy‘ (NASEL), dedicated to resistance to the military coup in Egypt, appealed to the great masses of Egyptian people to march to Cairo on Friday, July 12 to participate in a million-man march and rally to restore dignity and the Revolution, and so the free Egyptian people announce their slogan ‚Together against the bloody military coup‘.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern on Thursday about continued detentions in Egypt and arrest warrants issued for Muslim Brotherhood leaders and others after the military removed the country‘s first freely elected leader last week.

„it is important that all political actors are included in this process… that is the only way for a true democratic process to take place in Egypt in our view.“

The $12 billion in aid Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait offered Egypt this week showed their delight at the army‘s ousting of President Mohamed Mursi in a reversal for Islamists empowered by the Arab ferment of 2011.

„Dazu gehört auch die parlamentarische Kontrolle.“

Äh… ja. Ruf mal jemand die Pfleger, hier ist ein Verwirrter ohne Begleitung auf der Straße unterwegs!

Portugal‘s president threw the bailed-out euro zone country into disarray on Thursday after rejecting a plan to heal a government rift, igniting what critics called a „time bomb“ by calling for early elections next year.

First migrants and recent immigrants were rounded up from Greece‘s streets and forced into internment camps.Then they threw the drug users in. Next came the sex workers, forcibly HIV tested, publicly humiliated, and imprisoned.

Now they‘re coming for transgender men and women — and the list of „undesirables“ just keeps longer.

THE Obama administration has often stated its commitment to open government. So why is it keeping such tight wraps on the contents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most significant international commercial agreement since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995?

• Arrest warrant issued for Mohammed Badie
• Fears of more violence as rival demonstrations planned
• US to deliver F-16 jets to Egypt
• UN chemical weapons inspectors to visit Damascus

Hans-Peter Friedrich muss als einsamer Bittsteller in die USA reisen, um Auskunft über verwerfliche Praktiken der US-Geheimdienste einzufordern. Mitleid verdient der Innenminister dafür nicht. Der CSU-Mann, die Regierung und die Opposition sind dafür verantwortlich, dass die politische Debatte über Datenspitzelei als versuchte Volksverdummung gewertet werden muss.