Most of the big tech companies implicated in the ongoing controversy over secret government Web surveillance insist they turned over data about users to the National Security Agency only after being compelled by court orders. But a new report claims that Microsoft willingly collaborated with the NSA and even allowed federal agents to circumvent the company's own encryption system to spy on users' messages.

The latest bombshell from the UK's Guardian newspaper, which along with the Washington Post broke the NSA snooping story last month, says that Microsoft helped the NSA circumvent its encryption to intercept Web chats on its new Outlook.com portal. The Guardian, citing "top-secret" documents, said the NSA already had access to pre-encrypted e-mail on Microsoft's Outlook, including Hotmail.

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