All forms of encryption are classified as potential weapons by the US government, alongside WMD's, and therefore any effort to commercially export any technology containing any form of encryption is subject to approval by the NSA. Microsoft and any other company that has endeavored to provide encryption for digital documents, so that businesses or individuals can legitmately protect their information property, have to submit their encryption software for NSA approval and allow access by a suitiable backdoor or decryption algorithm.

Without approval software is not given an export permit, a situation that has seen the collapse of businesses that were not too keen to allow the NSA to exercise unchecked power over the rights to privacy of individuals and businesses around the world. Microsoft however was willing to compromise and allow the NSA to have a hand in the development of it's office software and other projects.

As i've said many times before, a role reversal is happening, america the once land of the free and Russia the land of the oppressed will be in reverse, america and all it's western allies will become much much worse than what Russia was, and Russia will become better than what america was ever,

Enjoy your so called freedom yankees.

Spying on citizens of any country should be illegal, period, regardless of the method used. People around the world are losing more and more of their freedoms and, apparently, politicians want it that way. They preach democracy but practice dictatorial methods. The world is in a mess, but the politicians continue to live a life of luxury while tax payers are taxed more and more. How long can this fraud continue?