Microsoft’s quest to put a stop the United States government’s habit of demanding access to customers’ digital records in court-ordered secrecy has won dozens of allies in the tech world.
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“Mozilla today is joining a coalition of technology companies, including Apple, Lithium, and Twilio, in filing an amicus brief in support of Microsoft’s case against the indiscriminate use of gag orders that prevent companies notifying users about government requests for their data”, said Mozilla’s chief legal and business officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer.
Microsoft also received support Friday from four former US attorneys and a former special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, all based in Seattle.
Five former law enforcement officials who worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Justice Department in Washington state have also submitted a brief supporting Microsoft, according to Reuters.
More than a dozen tech companies, including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc., have unified behind Microsoft Corp.’s legal bid to alert customers when federal agents have requested their digital data.
Ever since the Snowden revelations, tech companies have been tripping over themselves to prove to consumers that they can be trusted when it comes to user privacy. He noted the diversity of backgrounds of the signatories, saying, “it’s not every day that Fox News and the ACLU are on the same side of an issue”. “We believe the constitutional rights at stake in this case are of fundamental importance, and people should know when the government accesses their e-mails unless secrecy is truly needed”. It declined to comment on Friday’s amicus filing. Microsoft argues that the government is violating the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees the right for people and businesses to know if the government is searching or seizing their property, and the company’s First Amendment right to free speech, which it would use to inform customers.
Technology companies are concerned that secrecy orders are especially troubling in the era of cloud computing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which also filed a brief on 2 September said the government “is violating the U.S. constitution” when users are not notified that their private communications and more stored by internet providers, have been accessed.
“The government’s ability to engage in surreptitious searches of homes and tangible things is practically and legally limited”, the companies said in the filing.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation eventually broke into the phone with the help of an outside party, not Apple. If that wasn’t enough, it turns out that the lawsuit (which aims to take down the government’s right to issue gag orders to companies) just got another big ally: Mozilla.
“Because of the nature of the cloud, the government has gotten lazy and is no longer making specific showings of need as to why secrecy orders should be granted”, McKay said. “But most secrecy orders delay notification for a fixed period of time, typically 30 to 90 days, and detailed evidence is required for any extensions”.
In the suit, which focuses on the storage of data on remote servers that are often referred to as “cloud” computers, Microsoft said it had been subjected to 2,600 federal court orders within the past 18 months prohibiting the company from informing customers their data was given to authorities pursuing criminal investigations.
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Friday was the deadline for filing of friend-of-the-court briefs by nonparticipants in the case.
