Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft: Feds Are 'Rewriting' the Law To Obtain Emails Overseas
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was written in 1986. It's incredibly outdated, yet it still governs many internet-related rights for U.S. citizens. Microsoft has now challenged Congress to update the legislation for how online communications work in 2015. The company is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the government over a court order to release emails stored in a foreign country to U.S. authorities. In a new legal brief (PDF), Microsoft says, "For an argument that purports to rest on the 'explicit text of the statute,' the Government rewrites an awful lot of it. Congress never intended to reach, nor even anticipated, private communications stored in a foreign country when it enacted [the ECPA]." In an accompanying blog post, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote, "Until U.S. law is rewritten, we believe that the court in our case should honor well-established precedents that limit the government's reach from extending beyond U.S. borders. ... To the contrary, it is clear Congress's intent was to ensure that your digital information is afforded the same legal protections as your physical documents and correspondence, a principle we at Microsoft believe should be preserved."
The right answer would be to move all corporate operations outside of the US, as they no longer have to comply with both US and EU laws.
Really, a company this large threatening to actually up & move would make the US fold so fast it would be comical.
Wow, can't believe I'm actually rooting for MS here. How times have changed.
Would the US tolerate a foreign company operating in the US doing what complies with its home country laws but that violates US laws? I doubt it.