Microsoft says email stored in Ireland is sovereign
Microsoft lawyers argued in court Wednesday that a U.S. search warrant can’t be used to force tech companies to turn over emails stored on servers outside of the United States.
The case was heard in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.
Microsoft is appealing a ruling against it in 2014, when U.S. Dis- trict Judge Loretta Preska said the company had to hand over email stored on its servers in Dublin to comply with a U.S. warrant in a narcotics case.
Microsoft and other tech companies say email stored on computer servers overseas can’t be obtained through warrants because warrants don’t reach outside of the U.S.
The case is part of an ongoing battle in the tech world over who has jurisdiction over users’ data, at a time when it can be stored anywhere in the world.
Preska said in 2014 that because the servers are run by Microsoft, a U.S. company, where they are located doesn’t matter.
Microsoft’s argument is about jurisdiction and sovereignty, said Faiza Patel, a law professor and expert on surveillance at the New York University’s Law School in New York City.
Courts are struggling to decide whether data located in another country is like a physical object within that country’s domain, where its laws, and not those of the U.S., apply, she said.
A secondary question is over business records. The U.S. Department of Justice has clear legal right to request a U.S.-based company’s business records using a subpoena, Patel said.
Microsoft says “business records” include what’s known as metadata, the To: and From: lines in emails, along with a time stamp. It already has given Justice the metadata for at least some of the emails in the case, Patel said. Justice is arguing that “business records” include not just the metadata, but the content of the emails. Microsoft says the contents of the emails stored in Ireland don’t belong to it and Justice can’t ask it to hand them over, Patel said.
The case is part of a broad push by the tech industry to get lawmakers to update laws that govern data stored in the cloud.