Argued September 9 2015 Majority Carney, Bolden End date 2016 | Decided July 14 2016 Concurrence Lynch | |
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Full case name In the Matter of a Warrant to Search a Certain E‐Mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation Judge(s) sitting Susan L. Carney, Gerard E. Lynch, Victor A. Bolden (District Judge) Court United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit People also search for Microsoft v. United States | ||
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 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that a warrant issued under Section 2703 of the Stored Communications Act cannot compel American companies to produce data stored in servers outside the United States. The Second Circuit heard oral arguments for this case on September 9, 2015. On July 14, 2016 a three judge panel of the Second Circuit ruled unanimously in favor of Microsoft. On October 13, 2016 the U.S. government filed a petition for rehearing with the Second Circuit.
Contents
Background
The case began in December 2013 when a New York district court judge issued a warrant asking Microsoft to produce all emails and private information associated with a certain account hosted by Microsoft. The account's emails were stored on a server located in Dublin, Ireland, one of many datacenters held by Microsoft around the world to improve the speed of service it provides its non-U.S. customers. Microsoft provided account information kept on its U.S. servers but refused to turn the emails over, 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 18 December 2013. In May 2014, a federal magistrate judge disagreed with Microsoft and ordered it to turn over the emails. Microsoft appealed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The district court found in favour of the government and Microsoft appealed to the Second Circuit.
On 23 December 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.
Second Circuit opinion
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 Stored Communications Act (SCA), enacted in 1986 before the World Wide Web or cloud computing existed, nor in its legislative history. The court said the SCA's use of the term "warrant" suggested a specific place. 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.