Second Circuit Quashes Warrant for Microsoft to Produce Email Content Stored Overseas 

A federal appeals court recently ruled that the U.S. government could not force a company to turn over third-party communications content stored outside the country. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Microsoft that a request to produce customer content held in Ireland was beyond the scope of the Stored Communications Act. “It’s an extremely significant decision [that the Act] does not authorize a U.S. district court to issue a search warrant to seize data being held by ISPs or remote computing services (cloud services) outside the territorial U.S.,” Edward McAndrew, a partner at Ballard Spahr, told the Cybersecurity Law Report. “It is the first ruling of its kind on that issue from a U.S. Court of Appeals.” We analyze the case and its implications. See also “Prosecuting Borderless Cyber Crime Through Proactive Law Enforcement and Private Sector Cooperation” (Mar. 2, 2016).

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