Microsoft continues to take on US government over data disclosures from foreign server

Microsoft has chosen to continue taking on the US government in a legal battle over whether US authorities could use a warrant to extract data from servers located abroad.

The case pertains to a demand for emails stored on Microsoft servers in Ireland.

Microsoft's legal team had been arguing that it was not right for a US warrant to exert that kind of influence on data stored in another nation.

A federal court earlier ruled that Microsoft give up its data, no matter where it was located, but temporarily suspended its ruling (See: US judge lifts order on Microsoft to reveal emails stored overseas).

According to the government, the stored emails could not be regarded as personal correspondence, but business records of a cloud service provider.

Microsoft does not see it that way, and had in appeal, believing the court's judgment should be reversed, and noting that the ''fundamental privacy rights'' of US citizens were at risk.

Microsoft's executive vice president & general counsel, Brad Smith, in a compelling post hypothesised a reverse scenario in which a foreign nation was trying the same trick on the US and wondered aloud what would happen.

Smith asked: ''How would the Unites States react if a foreign government attempted to sidestep international law by demanding that a foreign company with offices in the United States produce the personal communications of an American journalist?''

According to The Inquirer, the battle over the data is a long-running battle, which Microsoft was very determined to win.

"In one important sense, the issues at stake are even bigger than this. The government puts at risk the fundamental privacy rights Americans have valued since the founding of the postal service," wrote Smith.

"This is because it argues that, unlike your letters in the mail, the emails you store in the cloud cease to belong exclusively to you.

"Instead, according to the government, your emails become the business records of a cloud provider.

"Because business records have a lower level of legal protection, the government claims it can use a different and broader legal authority to reach emails stored anywhere in the world."

According to Microsoft, allowing the US to reach into the company's servers in Ireland would be like a German bank demanding the opening of a safe deposit box in a New York bank.