Yesterday, nearly 300 groups and individuals from 37 countries signed on to 23 amicus legal briefs that were filed with the U.S. Supreme Court to support Microsoft’s position in its challenge to the U.S. government’s search warrant seeking access to customer emails stored at a data center in Ireland.
Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith posted a blog today, “Something extraordinary happened in Washington, D.C., yesterday,” highlighting the need for Congress to “craft a nuanced solution that balances all the competing concerns” of privacy, law enforcement, and national sovereignty.
Smith writes, “Everyone on both sides of this case agrees that these are real problems that need real solutions. But they need to be crafted with a scalpel, not a meat cleaver. And as so many groups across the political spectrum and countries now agree, let’s hope the Supreme Court leaves it to Congress to do just that.”
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case in late February. The U.S. government appealed the case to the Supreme Court after the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 in Microsoft’s favor. The Appellate Court ruling helps ensure information stored in the cloud receives the same privacy protections as physical information. That ruling also urged Congress to address the issue by modernizing our nation’s digital privacy laws to better reflect today’s technology.
Read Brad Smith’s Blog
Microsoft on the Issues, ““Something extraordinary happened in Washington, D.C., yesterday”
