Yes, "asked" versus "ordered" is meaningfully misleading, especially in this context.

There is reasonable suspicion, some might argue evidence, that Microsoft voluntarily cooperated with U.S. Intelligence Community without being compelled by a court order, the most famous instances being leaked in the Snowden disclosures.

To be fair to Microsoft, here's their updated statement (emphasis mine):

"Microsoft confirmed to Forbes that it does provide BitLocker recovery keys if it receives a valid legal order. “While key recovery offers convenience, it also carries a risk of unwanted access, so Microsoft believes customers are in the best position to decide... how to manage their keys,” said Microsoft spokesperson Charles Chamberlayne."

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Retric 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You’ve overly simplified the degree to which a company must accept a court order without pushback.

First they are capable of fulfilling the request in the first place which means their approach or encryption is inherently flawed. Second companies can very much push back on such requests with many examples of such working, but they need to make the attempt.

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Zak an hour ago | parent [-]

I don't think it's reasonable to expect businesses to spend money fighting court orders for customer data, especially if the orders are more or less reasonable.

They do seem to be reasonable in the case that brought about this reporting, with substantial evidence that the suspects committed fraud and that evidence is on the devices in question.

	▲	Retric 18 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Never means the specifics are irrelevant, you’re making the sad argument on the worst possible case and the best one. So why should customers entrust their data to the company? It’s a transactional relationship and the less you do the less reason someone has to pay you. Further, our legal system is adversarial it assumes someone is going to defend you. Without that there’s effectively zero protection for individuals.