Supreme Court to Hear Arguments in Microsoft Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear an hour of arguments in Microsoft Corp. v. United States, regarding emails that are stored on servers overseas, Axios reported.

The case revolves around the Stored Communications Act of 1986, in which Congress mandated that law enforcement must get a warrant to search electronically stored communication. The Justice Department’s argument is that the act intended for companies such as Microsoft to disclose those communications no matter where they were stored.

Justices are faced with limitations of tying court rulings from decades earlier to modern technology, and the judges will have to look to the future, ruling in a way that does not constrain issues that future justices will face as technology evolves, the Axios report said.

The Justice Department said that if search warrants do not cover emails that are stored overseas, then people who engage in terrorism, drug trafficking, and child pornography have an easier path to getting away with those crimes, Axios reported.

Microsoft’s argument is that ruling in favor of the U.S. government would allow retaliation. "If the U.S. government obtains the power to search and seize foreign citizens’ private communications physically stored in other countries, it will invite other countries to do the same thing… if we ignore other countries’ laws, how can we demand that they respect our laws?" said Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith in a blog post, Axios reported.

"This issue is not going away… the Court’s approach here will reverberate beyond the specifics of this case," the Electronic Discovery Institute — a group of lawyers, academics, and technologists — said in a friend of the court brief, The Washington Post reported.

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