It turns out, that even if a US company’s customer’s emails are residing in servers outside of United States, the US Department of Justice would still be able to access them. This is what a US federal judge has ruled for the US company in question, Microsoft.
Apparently, investigators had concluded that emails stored on one of Microsoft’s servers in Dublin, would have bearing upon an ongoing criminal investigation.
Two big red warning signals went off, when I tried to digest this.
One: Does a US judge have authority to hand out warrants for search and seizure of data outside of the US?
Two: Does a US judge have authority to hand out warrants of search and seizure of data belonging to non-US citizens?
This is what Microsoft argues, adding that the stored communications provisions in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, do not apply outside of the US.
Besides Internet privacy groups, other US tech companies like Apple and Cisco are backing Microsoft’s request to quash the warrant. Even AT&T and Verizon have joined the protest.
While the US’s Fourth Amendment protects from unreasonable searchShu and seizure, the courts appear to downplay the digital nature of the “property” they ordered Microsoft to hand over – emails are not physical, so pleading the Fourth does not apply.
IT BYTES BACK! Says: Maintaining trust versus Fighting crime? Both sides of the case are compelling. But, if Microsoft goes through with this, what will this do for US cloud providers’ competitiveness?
