Supreme Court to consider major digital privacy case on Microsoft email storage
Source: Washington Post
Supreme Court to consider major digital privacy case on Microsoft email storage
By Robert Barnes October 16 at 10:18 AM
The Supreme Court on Monday accepted a second important case on digital privacy, agreeing to hear a dispute between the federal government and Microsoft about emails stored overseas.
The case began in 2013, when U.S. prosecutors got a warrant to access emails in a drug trafficking investigation. The data was stored on Microsoft servers in Ireland. ... Microsoft turned over information it had stored domestically but contended U.S. law enforcement couldnt seize evidence held in another country. It said if forced to do so, it would lead to claims from other countries about data stored here.
A judge upheld the warrant, but a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturned the ruling. The full circuit then split evenly on whether that decision was correct.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts. It said the decision conflicts with past decisions in lower courts that a domestic recipient of a subpoena is required to produce specified materials within the recipients control, even if the recipient stores the materials abroad. .... The case granted Monday is U.S. v. Microsoft.
Robert Barnes has been a Washington Post reporter and editor since 1987. He has covered the Supreme Court since November 2006. Follow @scotusreporter
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-to-consider-major-digital-privacy-case-on-microsoft-email-storage/2017/10/16/b1e74936-b278-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html
[div class"excerpt"]Amy Howe Independent Contractor and Reporter
Posted Mon, October 16th, 2017 11:55 am
Court adds four new cases to merits docket
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/10/court-adds-four-new-cases-merits-docket/
This morning the Supreme Court issued orders from its October 13 conference. The justices added four new cases to their merits docket for the term, and several justices commented on some of the cases in which the court denied review.
The highest-profile grant of the day came in United States v. Microsoft Corp., in which the justices agreed to decide whether an email provider who has been served with a warrant must provide the federal government with emails, even when the email records are stored outside the United States. The case arose when the federal government asked for a warrant that would require the software behemoth to disclose information about a specific email account, which the government believed was being used for drug trafficking. The government relied on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, also known as the Stored Communications Act, which authorizes the government to use a warrant to obtain email records when it has probable cause to believe a crime is being committed. A federal judge issued the warrant, which was served on Microsoft at its headquarters in Washington state.
Microsoft refused to hand over the contents of the emails in the accounts. It argued that, because the emails were stored overseas, the SCA did not apply to them. The company was unsuccessful at the trial level, but it found a more sympathetic audience in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which declined to enforce the warrant. An evenly divided full court of appeals denied rehearing en banc.
The federal government took its case to the Supreme Court. The United States complained that, as a result of the 2nd Circuits ruling, the government cannot require a U.S. service provider to disclose to the government, in the United States, emails and related information that the provider, for its own business reasons, has stored abroad. Describing that holding as unprecedented, the government told the justices that the decision is causing immediate, grave, and ongoing harm to public safety, national security, and the enforcement of our laws. Under this opinion, the government continued, hundreds if not thousands of investigations of crimesranging from terrorism, to child pornography, to fraudare being or will be hampered by the governments inability to obtain electronic evidence.
Today the justices granted the governments petition. As this blogs John Elwood reported last week, there is apparently no division among the lower courts on the question that the justices have agreed to review suggesting that the justices regard the issue as particularly important.
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Court adds four new cases to merits docket, SCOTUSblog (Oct. 16, 2017, 11:55 AM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/10/court-adds-four-new-cases-merits-docket/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Seems like many are European, some are Asian. Anybody worried about having their data accessed is already taking it outside the US. And I don't mean criminals, but private citizens who what to keep stuff private.
Just sayin'
