Microsoft Defies Federal US Court Order To Disclose Customer’s Overseas Email

[steve2470]

http://hothardware.com/News/Microsoft-Defies-Federal-US-Court-Order-To-Disclose-Customers-Overseas-Email/#!bOfc9D

Microsoft is flat out ignoring a federal court order to provide U.S. prosecutors access to a customer's emails being held on a server in Ireland. For Microsoft, this boils down to a matter of trust with its users, and so long as the case continues to maneuver through the appeals process, the Redmond outfit has no intention of complying with the order.

Judge Loretta Preska, chief of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, ruled back on July 31 that Microsoft was required to hand over the email messages to U.S. prosecutors investigating a criminal case. However, she temporarily suspended the order so that Microsoft could appeal.

Prosecutors have since argued that her order was not a "final, appealable order," and since Microsoft hadn't been held in contempt, no reason exists to enforce the stay. Preska agreed with that assessment, saying her order "merely confirmed the government's temporary forbearing of its right to stay enforcement of the order it secured," and that "the fact that the court has not closed the case cuts against Microsoft's argument" that her order was final and could be appealed.

In other words, the prosecutors got their wish in terms of having the judge side with them and order Microsoft to hand over emails, but as far as Microsoft is concerned, federal authorities don't have jurisdiction over data stored outside the U.S., giving it legal ground to ignore the order.

Read more: http://hothardware.com/News/Microsoft-Defies-Federal-US-Court-Order-To-Disclose-Customers-Overseas-Email/#!bOfc9D#ixzz3C7l1v2sl

[ManiacJoe]

1. Seems like the US lawyers are going about this the hard way.

EU data is required to be stored on EU servers according to EU laws. As a side effect the EU data is subject to EU jurisdiction only, unless I misunderstand how all that works.

If the US attorneys want the EU data, they need to file the request/order with an EU judge, not a US judge.