As far as I can tell, PRISM was about getting access to data the company was already keeping. So the NSA would get your Google Location data, but only if you were giving to Google. As far as I know, the NSA hasn't made someone collect it anyway.
Legally, the heart of the NSA legal basis is the 3rd party doctrine that states that data held by a third party isn't private. It would be a very illegal search to have Microsoft invade your privacy under NSA order.
Of course, there is also some risk that the NSA or some other party goes rouge as does it anyway. But you have that problem with essentially all software and hardware.
You'd have to compile your own OS from source code you inspected thoroughly. And even then, the NSA is almost without a doubt sitting on linux 0-days.
And literally (and I don't mean figuratively) nobody knows whats on all the firmware in all the components in all your devices.
The risk of being an NSA target is super low. The harm in being a false positive target is pretty low too. Even if the NSA hacked your windows install, they won't find any plans to blow up the Sears tower and then go about their business.
Compared to risk that a car accident will destroy your existance, who cares about this tiny risk.
I probably wouldn't windows if I were a KGB agent, but other than that, why worry.
> Even if the NSA hacked your windows install, they won't find any plans to blow up the Sears tower and then go about their business.
This is just a restating of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". That's already been discussed recently [1] already so I won't re-tread.
> Compared to risk that a car accident will destroy your existance, who cares about this tiny risk.
Because it's not about the risk, it's about the intellectual climate the situation creates. Notice that because of car accidents there is a lot of focus on car safety, stopping drunk drivers, texting while driving, etc?
Surveillance is like that. As in a panopticon [2], when there's a chance you're being surveilled, certain conversations and ideas feel dangerous. Sometimes because they're antiestablishment but other times just because you're worried they'll be misconstrued. The net effect is censorship through fear.
Legally, the heart of the NSA legal basis is the 3rd party doctrine that states that data held by a third party isn't private. It would be a very illegal search to have Microsoft invade your privacy under NSA order.
Of course, there is also some risk that the NSA or some other party goes rouge as does it anyway. But you have that problem with essentially all software and hardware.
You'd have to compile your own OS from source code you inspected thoroughly. And even then, the NSA is almost without a doubt sitting on linux 0-days.
And literally (and I don't mean figuratively) nobody knows whats on all the firmware in all the components in all your devices.
The risk of being an NSA target is super low. The harm in being a false positive target is pretty low too. Even if the NSA hacked your windows install, they won't find any plans to blow up the Sears tower and then go about their business.
Compared to risk that a car accident will destroy your existance, who cares about this tiny risk.
I probably wouldn't windows if I were a KGB agent, but other than that, why worry.