The ruling provides further clarity into the scope of the Stored Communication Act, 1986 based on which search and seizure warrants are issued in the U.S.
In a ruling that could set a major precedent, a federal appeals court has said that the U.S. government cannot force Microsoft Corp and other companies to turn over e-mails of its customers on servers that are located outside of the United States.
The 3-0 ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan is a victory for privacy advocates and for technology companies offering cloud computing services to consumers around the world.
According to Susan Carney, a Judge at the Circuit Court, servers of U.S. Service Providers outside of the United States are beyond the reach of domestic search warrants issued under the 1986 Stored Communications Act.
“Congress did not intend the SCA’s warrant provisions to apply extraterritorially. The focus of those provisions is protection of a user’s privacy interests,” she wrote.
The case relates to Microsoft challenging a warrant by law enforcement agencies which sought e-mails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland, in a case related to narcotics.
This is the first time a U.S. company has challenged a domestic search and seizure warrant for data held outside the country.
This ruling has reversed an earlier July 2014 court verdict by the then Chief Judge Loretta Preska of U.S. district court in Manhattan which instructed Microsoft to turn over the e-mails. This judgement has also voided any contempt findings against the company.
“We obviously welcome today’s decision,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer in a statement.
He went on to add that the judgement gives consumers more confidence to rely on their own domestic laws to protect their privacy rather than get bogged down by the interference from foreign laws. This judgement ensures that “legal protections of the physical world apply in the digital domain.”
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the agency was disappointed by the decision and was reviewing its legal options.
In its efforts to fight the case, Microsoft has been backed dozens of organisations, companies and individuals, including, Amazon.com, Apple Inc, Verizon Communications Inc., U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CNN, Fox News Network, Cisco Systems Inc and Gannett Co.
Had the court’s ruling gone the other way, “it would have been like the Wild West, with no clear, stable legal rules applying,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., a non-profit Centre.
The case is In re: Warrant to Search a Certain E-Mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corp, 2ndU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 14-2985.
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