Microsoft Wins Again Regarding Warrant for International Data

An important issue to watch this year is the ongoing battle over access to data collected by companies and stored overseas.  This issue heated up last year when Microsoft won its Second Circuit challenge of a 2013 warrant for emails housed in an Irish data center.  In the Second Circuit decision from July 2016, the court determined that U.S. law did not allow the enforcement of warrants for customer email content housed overseas, even though Microsoft is a U.S. service provider. 

Last week, the Second Circuit denied rehearing the Ireland case by a divided 4-4 vote.  The decision contains a number of interesting arguments from the judges and is worth a read for those involved in cases with international data issues.  

The Second Circuit decision now sets the case up for a possible Supreme Court challenge by the government.  According to Orin Kerr, writing in the Washington Post, however, Senator Sessions indicated during his confirmation hearings that he might seek a legislative remedy to address the Microsoft issue.  Either way, this topic is one to keep an eye on in 2017.

(LED)