Microsoft on Thursday sued the USA government for the right to tell its customers when federal authorities are looking at their emails, arguing that gag orders preventing them from doing so violate the Constitution.
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Microsoft’s Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said: “We filed a new lawsuit in federal court against the United States government to stand up for what we believe are our customers’ constitutional and fundamental rights – rights that help protect privacy and promote free expression”.
Microsoft is challenging the Section 2705(b) of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which allows the government to search for and obtain orders without allowing the company to inform the concerned customer.
Microsoft alleges the government issues warrants for electronic communication information “far more frequently” than it did for physical documents and communication.
Microsoft said the government routinely asks for secrecy orders rather than sparing them for when there is a real risk to an individual and that the government is exploiting the transition of private information from paper and home computers to the cloud.
The company argues that while secrecy may be needed in some cases, it has become a “routine for the USA government to issue orders that require email providers to keep these types of legal demands secret”.
The tech company says it’s hit with secrecy orders half the time the government obtains warrants to access private data.
While the company recognizes there are certain circumstances where secrecy would be required, it would appear the USA government is using the legal demands to keep secrecy as a default setting.
The lawsuit represents the latest salvo in the fight between technology companies and law enforcement agencies over the privacy of customer data, a fight most recently waged by Apple Inc. over the FBI’s effort to unlock a terrorist’s iPhone.
Smith added in his post that cloud computing should not be used as a shortcut by police and spooks to gain access to information belonging to Microsoft’s customers: “Customers generally shouldn’t be entitled to less notice just because they have moved their e-mails to the cloud”.
What’s more, Microsoft complained, 68 percent of the secrecy orders contained no end date.
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The Department of Justice stated that it is reviewing the case. Such court-ordered gag orders can be based on the government’s “reason to believe” that informing the public would alter the course of an investigation, which Microsoft says is not reason enough.
