Lawyers for Microsoft and the American government are due to face each other in a court in New York on July 31st. The two sides have been arguing for months about a warrant, served on Microsoft in December, which requires the company to hand over e-mails stored at data centres in Ireland. Microsoft has already challenged the warrant once, but the judge who issued it upheld it.Microsoft has two main objections to the warrant, which law-enforcement officers sought during an investigation into drug-trafficking. First, it says, an American warrant cannot be used to seize evidence held abroad. Second, it claims that the warrant breaks the constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures”, by not specifying where the evidence is to be taken from. The warrant refers only to “information…stored at premises owned, maintained, controlled or operated by Microsoft”. The company says the government should get the information by approaching the Irish authorities, using a bilateral treaty.
www.economist.com/news/business/21608644-why-microsoft-resisting-official-demand-hand-over-data-unwarranted