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Microsoft Allowed To Sue US Government Over Email Surveillance (bloomberg.com)
A judge has ruled that Microsoft is allowed to sue the U.S. government over a policy that prevents the tech company from telling its users when their emails are being intercepted. From a report on Bloomberg: The judge said Microsoft has at least made a plausible argument that federal law muzzles its right to speak about government investigations, while not ruling on the merits of the case. "The public debate has intensified as people increasingly store their information in the cloud and on devices with significant storage capacity," U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle said in Thursday's ruling. "Government surveillance aided by service providers creates unique considerations because of the vast amount of data service providers have about their customers."
In the portion of Thursday's ruling that sided with the government, the judge said he could not reconcile the company's attempt to assert the Fourth Amendment protection against invasive searches on behalf of its customers with earlier court decisions. Other courts have found that such rights can only be asserted by individuals, and not vicariously by third parties, he [Robart] said.
I'm not sure why Robart is concerned with precedent in this case, since his reason for blocking Trump's travel ban basically came down to "Because I said so." I guess all data hosts should now have to give disclaimers that there's no guarantee of an expectation of privacy. So much for due process...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.