IIRC, they're legally required to deny it.

Plus, careful wording allows all sorts of out. Google says they don't provide a "back door", but this sort of thing could be defined as coming in the front door.

Gag orders don't require them to deny it, the require them not to confirm it.

At least as far as we know. We're in new territory here--this is a secret court with secret rulings so it's unknown what kind of orders have been issued. There may very well be one that requires denial. Or the NSA could be skipping a step and be making use of its backhaul fiber firehoses and a cache of certificates to decrypt SSL traffic. Hopefully we'll find out...

Which can be considered to require them to deny it. "We can't talk about that" confirms it.

Confirming or denying, or stating the (in)ability to talk about it is a breach of the requirement to keep the information classified. The proper response is 'we do not know what you're talking about'. Which is what they said. It can't be conflated with something stupid like 'cannot confirm or deny' which tells you right away.

Not exactly. From the article: >Google specifically denied that it has a "back door for the >government to access private user data."

>Apple told CNBC, "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not >provide any government agency with direct access to our >servers, and any government agency requesting customer data >must get a court order."

They are not providing a back door, but it isn't the _means_ of providing information to the NSA that citizens are upset about, it is the 'providing information to the NSA' part.

Actually it's the backdoor bit that's more problematic. If they hand data by court order that is acceptable but if the government has direct lines to servers that is much more problematic.

It's not worth anything because they have an obligation to both their shareholders and the government to deny, deny, deny.