Microsoft has written to the US attorney general, Eric Holder, calling on him to "personally take action" to permit the software giant and others to share more information about the way they handle national security requests for customer data.
The move comes after the Guardian published details of the extent of the co-operation between Microsoft and the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed in documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"We believe the US constitution guarantees our freedom to share more information with the public, yet the government is stopping us," Microsoft said in a blogpost. "For example, government lawyers have yet to respond to the petition we filed in court on June 19, seeking permission to publish the volume of national security requests we have received. We hope the attorney general can step in to change this situation."
Microsoft claimed there were "significant inaccuracies in the interpretations of leaked government documents reported in the media last week." It said: "We have asked the government again for permission to discuss the issues raised by these new documents, and our request was denied by government lawyers."
According to NSA documents seen by the Guardian, the US intelligence services claimed to have worked closely with Microsoft to allow users' communications to be intercepted and to circumvent the company's own encryption.
In Microsoft's latest statement, the company is at pains to point out that it did not give the NSA or any other US agency "direct" access to its customers data – a claim that was not made by the Guardian last week but was made in subsequent media reports. The NSA also claimed "direct access" in other documents published earlier by the Guardian and the Washington Post.
Source: The Guardian
