Microsoft Corp. v. United States, (formally titled In the Matter of a Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation, also known as the "Microsoft Ireland" case), is a pending case to be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 2017-2018 term. The case involves the extraterritoriality of law enforcement seeking electronic data under the 1986 Stored Communications Act.
In 2013, Microsoft challenged a warrant by law enforcement to turn over email of a target account that was stored in Ireland, arguing that a that a warrant issued under Section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act could not compel American companies to produce data stored in servers outside the United States. Microsoft initially lost in the New York District Court, with the judge stating that the nature of the Stored Communication Act warrant, as passed in 1986, was not subject to territorial limitations. Microsoft appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who found in favor of Microsoft by 2016 and invalidated the warrant. The United States Department of Justice counter-appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in October 2017.
The case is centered around the anachronistic nature of the Stored Communication Act, which was written before the creation of several modern Internet technologies facilitating global communications.
Video Microsoft Corp. v. United States
Background
As part of the investigation into a drug-trafficking case in December 2013, a New York district county judge issued a warrant, under the 1986 Stored Communications Act (SCA), asking Microsoft to produce all emails and information associated with an account they hosted. While the information was held on Microsoft's United States servers, the emails were stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland, one of numerous servers Microsoft located around the world to improve services to its global users.
Microsoft complied with providing the account information but refused to turn over the emails, arguing that a U.S. judge has no authority to issue a warrant for information stored abroad. Microsoft moved to vacate the warrant for the content held abroad on December 18, 2013. In May 2014, a federal magistrate judge, reviewing the history of the SCA which had not been amended since its passage, disagreed with Microsoft and ordered it to turn over the emails, reasoning that unlike a typical warrant, SCA warrants function as both a warrant and a subpoena, and thus are not restricted by territorial constraints. The magistrate judge considered that Microsoft had control of the material outside the United States, and thus would be able to comply with the subpoena-like nature of the SCA warrant.
Microsoft appealed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. The district court upheld the magistrate judge's ruling, in favor of the government.
Maps Microsoft Corp. v. United States
Second Circuit opinion
Microsoft appealed to the Second Circuit. On December 23, 2014 the Irish government filed an amicus brief in support of Microsoft, as have numerous other organisations and individuals. The Irish government maintains the emails should be disclosed only on request to the Irish government pursuant to the long-standing mutual legal assistance treaty between the U.S. and Ireland.
In the appeal to the Second Circuit, the three-judge panel unanimously overturned the lower court's ruling in July 2016, and invalided the government's warrant. The panel primarily focused on the extraterritoriality of the SCA, using a two-pronged test. Circuit Judge Susan L. Carney wrote the opinion of Court with District Court Judge Victor A. Bolden. Circuit Judge Gerard E. Lynch wrote a concurring opinion. The court relied heavily on the United States Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Morrison v. National Australia Bank that the "longstanding principle of American law that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States" applies in all cases. The Second Circuit found no mention of extraterritorial application in the SCA nor in its legislative history. The court said the SCA's use of the term "warrant", as a term-of-art, suggested a specific territory. It also concluded that the primary focus of the SCA was protecting the privacy of users of electronic services.
In his concurrence, Judge Lynch noted that there was nothing in the record to indicate whether the owner of the e-mails being sought was a U.S. citizen or resident. He agreed with the government that the term "warrant" only implied the need for issuance under Fourth Amendment standards, rather than suggesting it was a search warrant with a specific place. He also noted that Microsoft chose to store the e-mails in Ireland based on the account holder's unverified statement of residence and on Microsoft's business interest in minimizing network latency. No one disputed that if Microsoft had chosen to store the emails in the U.S., the warrant would have been valid. While he agreed with the majority that the presumption against extraterritoriality, as clarified in Morrison, was decisive in this case, he did not believe it to be an optimal policy outcome and called on Congress to clarify and modernize the SCA.
The U.S. government filed a petition for an en banc rehearing by the Second Circuit in October 2016. In January 2017, the full court split 4-4 on a vote to rehear the case, leaving in place the judgement in favor of Microsoft. Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes, who wrote in dissent, wrote that the held decision "has substantially burdened the government's legitimate law enforcement efforts; created a roadmap for the facilitation of criminal activity; and impeded programs to protect the national security of the United States and its allies", and called on a higher court or the U.S. Congress to rectify the outdated language of the SCA.
Separately from its appeal, the U.S. Government has had at least one other ruling in its favor, and specially against the decision of the Second Circuit Court, for similar extraterritorial requests under the SCA. In February 2017, federal magistrate judge, presiding over a District Court within the Third Circuit, ruled that Google must comply with a government warrant to turn over data from foreign servers. The magistrate judge stated in his opinion that the scope of the invasion of privacy for the case was entirely within the United States, and not where the electronic transfer of the data occurs, making the SCA warrant enforceable.
Supreme Court
The U.S. Department of Justice filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in June 2017. Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall argued that the Second Court's order has led Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! to deny law enforcement officials with requested information stored on servers outside the United States, hampering numerous criminal investigations. The Department was joined by 33 states in support. Microsoft argued that the Court should not take the case, and instead that Congress should deal with updating the language of the outdated 1986 law. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in October 2017, and would hear the case during the 2017-2018 term.
See also
- Extraterritorial jurisdiction
- European Union Data Protection Directive
- Carpenter v. United States - Another Supreme Court case in the 2017-2018 term on the Stored Communication Act, dealing with privacy of mobile phone communications.
References and sources
- References
- Sources
External links
- SCOTUSblog page - contains links to briefs filed
- Microsoft's Brief to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Source of article : Wikipedia
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