Judge Rules Microsoft Must Let U.S. See a User's Emails Stored Overseas

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Microsoft must turn over to the U.S. government a customer's emails stored in servers overseas, in an unprecedented case that could have wide-ranging effects on the digital privacy rights of Americans and foreigners using U.S. email services.

Judge Loretta Preska of U.S. District Court in Manhattan upheld the decision of a magistrate judge after hearing oral arguments from Microsoft and the federal government. In December, the government obtained a search warrant requesting the data of a single Outlook.com account. But the company refused to hand it over, arguing that it was not compelled to do so because the emails were actually stored in a server in Ireland and thus outside the purview of the U.S. government. Read more...

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