14 DAY TRIAL //
The United States Department of Justice continues the fight against Microsoft in a case regarding the right of requesting access to user data stored on foreign servers, and on Thursday asked a federal court of appeals to reconsider a decision made in July favoring the Redmond software giant.
Specifically, the US government is seeking access to information stored on servers overseas, claiming that as long as this data is operated by American companies, it should be allowed to request it.
On the other hand, Microsoft agrees that data requests must only concern data stored locally, and claims that in this case, which refers to information hosted on servers in Ireland, the request must be performed by going through each country’s regulations.
In July, a judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government can request Microsoft to provide information on users as long as this data is stored on servers in the United States. This means that any data that is located on servers overseas is not covered by a warrant, and the government is now asking the judge to reconsider this decision.
US government already preparing for US Supreme Court
The United States government explains that by blocking such a request, Microsoft doesn’t consider its investigations to be national interests, pointing out that companies shouldn’t be allowed to protect clients and represent them in court.
“It cannot be true that the ‘focus’ of the statutory provision is privacy, but the protection of that privacy interest rests entirely on the profit-driven decisions of a private business, with no choice by or consultation with the owner of the account and the beneficiary of the privacy interest,” the government said in court documents.
“The Opinion has created a regime where electronic communication service providers - private, for-profit businesses answerable only to their shareholders - can thwart legitimate and important criminal and national security investigations, while providing no offsetting, principled privacy protections.”
It goes without saying that Microsoft doesn’t agree with the government in this case, and the company will continue to hold its position in the case, so it’ll definitely take longer than expected before the dispute comes to an end. The government, however, isn’t willing to back down and will most likely move the case to the US Supreme Court should the judge decide not to reconsider the original ruling.