It's really The Guardian's fault for completely botching the PRISM reporting. They thought DITU (a department of the FBI) was a server and from that misunderstanding came to the ridiculous conclusion that the tech companies gave the NSA a backdoor into their systems.
This has been a problem, but it is comparatively minor. Even without this misunderstanding trust in US companies is broken because they aren't allowed to talk about what they do and do not do for national security agencies.
The fact that the US can and has used its warrant powers to force US companies to comply with spying directives is a bigger problem.
The fact that the US is stopping US companies talking about how often secret warrants are served is a bigger problem.
The fact that the US has subverted security processes put in place by US companies is a bigger problem.
Every country in the world has used its warrant powers to force companies to comply with spying directives because every country in the world has its equivalent of an FBI to execute wiretaps on people with a warrant. Every country in the world's spying agencies subvert security systems. The GCHQ seems to do that more than anybody else according to the leaks so far.
The only thing these companies weren't allowed to report was the number of NSLs and FISA requests they received, but now they can in broad ranges of 1000.
A relatively minor error in an extremely large body of quality reporting on an immensely important topic. On the balance The Guardian deserves many accolades for their reporting in this area.
Relatively minor? They claimed that the companies were allowing the US government to read anybody's email and view anybody's Skype videos without a court order. That seems like a pretty major mistake to me. Worse, Spencer Ackerman made that same error reporting for The Guardian just last week. Their reporting has been astonishingly bad.
