Microsoft wins court appeal on emails
U.S. Internet providers can’t be forced to give up data stored overseas
In a ruling that has important data security implications, a court ruled Thursday that Microsoft can’t be forced to give the government emails stored in Ireland that are part of a U.S. drug investigation.
“This is an an incredibly important ruling, one of the most important in a long time,” said Craig Newman, who heads the data privacy practice at the New York law firm Patterson Belknap.
It’s expected the U.S. government will appeal the ruling, which could send the case to the Supreme Court.
“We are disappointed with the court’s decision and are considering our options,” U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement.
The case dates to 2013, when U.S. prosecutors demanded Microsoft turn over emails linked to a drug-trafficking case. The emails were stored only on Microsoft servers in Dublin.
Microsoft gave up all the information it had stored in the U.S. but then sued to block the warrant, saying U.S. law enforcement couldn’t seize evidence held in another country.
Microsoft lost the first round in 2014 when U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said the company had to hand over the emails.
The company argued that if it complied, foreign governments could force U.S. companies to turn over evidence stored within the U.S.
“As a global company we’ve long recognized that if people around the world are to trust the technology they use, they need to have confidence that their personal information will be protected by the laws of their own country,” Microsoft’s President and chief legal officer Brad Smith said.
Thursday a federal appeals court in New York agreed, saying the original court had overstepped its bounds.
The courts have noted that the U.S. government did have another option to get the emails and could have availed itself of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process to get access to the information it wanted in the investigation. It is, however, widely acknowledged to be quite a clunky system.
The U.S. government has argued it needs to be able to access U.S. companies’ information outside the U.S. for safety and security reasons.