“Microsoft sued the Justice Department on Thursday, asking a federal court to strike down a law that gives the government the authority to prevent technology companies from telling their customers when their data is handed over to authorities,” Mario Trujillo reports for The Hill.
“The tech giant is challenging the so-called gag orders that can be placed on technology companies when they receive subpoenas, warrants or other court orders demanding a customer’s emails or records stored in the cloud,” Trujillo reports. “The technology company argues the law violates the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment.”
“The gag orders are not a rare occurrence. Microsoft said it has received 2,576 of them in the past 18 months, and about 70 percent did not have a fixed date when they would be lifted,” Trujillo reports. “The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) allows the government to block technology companies from disclosing the existence of court orders when there is ‘reason to believe’ that the disclosure could endanger a life, jeopardize an investigation or cause a target to flee, tamper with evidence or intimate a witness. The company argues that ‘reason to believe’ standard is too broad and that there should be limits on the length. ”
Read more in the full article here.
Microsoft’s President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith blogs:
We believe that with rare exceptions consumers and businesses have a right to know when the government accesses their emails or records. Yet it’s becoming routine for the U.S. government to issue orders that require email providers to keep these types of legal demands secret. We believe that this goes too far and we are asking the courts to address the situation.
To be clear, we appreciate that there are times when secrecy around a government warrant is needed. This is the case, for example, when disclosure of the government’s warrant would create a real risk of harm to another individual or when disclosure would allow people to destroy evidence and thwart an investigation. But based on the many secrecy orders we have received, we question whether these orders are grounded in specific facts that truly demand secrecy. To the contrary, it appears that the issuance of secrecy orders has become too routine.
…
Today’s lawsuit is the fourth public case we’ve filed against the U.S. government related to our customers’ right to privacy and transparency. The first lawsuit resulted in a good and appropriate settlement allowing us to disclose the number of legal requests we receive. The second resulted in the government withdrawing a National Security Letter after we challenged a non-disclosure order attached to the letter. The third, a challenge to a U.S. search warrant for customer email in Ireland belonging to a non-US citizen, is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Today’s suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, can be found here.
Ultimately, we view this case as similar to the other three that we have filed. It involves the fundamental right of people and businesses to know when the government is accessing their content and our right to share this information with them.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You opened this can of worms, DOJ dunces. Now eat up!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “silverhawk1” for the heads up.]