On October 16, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the U.S. government’s request to review a previous appeals court ruling in favor of Microsoft, preserving service providers from surrendering information stored abroad.
The U.S.’s highest court had to decide if companies have a right to refuse to comply with data disclosure demands made by the US government. Specifically, the Supreme Court had to decide “whether a United States provider of email services must comply with a probable-cause-based warrant issued under 18 U.S.C. § 2703 by making disclosure in the United States of electronic communications within that provider’s control, even if the provider has decided to store that material abroad.”
All started in December 2013, when a New York district court issued a warrant ordering Microsoft to produce all emails and private information associated with a certain account hosted by Microsoft. The company disclosed all information kept within the U.S., but not those stored in Dublin, Ireland. The Second Circuit sympathized with Microsoft and held that the U.S. government cannot force service providers to surrender those information stored abroad. See here for more info.
The case sparked interest also because it had to be the U.S. Supreme Court to make the decision, rather than the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which lately provided landmark pro-privacy judgments when data travels internationally. See here.
Written arguments were submitted and the case was argued on February 27, 2018 and decided on April 17, 2018/
Because a new law was passed while the case was pending –Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, which amended the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701, et seq. – which requires email providers to disclose emails in its “possession, custody, or control,” even if the emails are stored outside the United States, the government served Microsoft with a new warrant pursuant to the amended law. The parties agreed that the new warrant had replaced the original warrant that was at issue here. The case became moot. SCOTUS vacated the ruling and remanded the case to the Second Circuit with instructions to vacate the district court’s contempt finding to direct the district court to dismiss the case as moot.
Originally published on Technethics on November 2017