Speaker 1: It's a win for privacy advocates, though perhaps temporary. A
Speaker 1: split on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has kept
Speaker 1: Microsoft in a winning column and its ongoing case with
Speaker 1: the US government about access to email store in Ireland.
Speaker 1: In July, a three judge panel of the court unanimously
Speaker 1: ruled that prosecutors could not force Microsoft to turn over
Speaker 1: customer emails and other data stored on servers outside the US.
Speaker 1: The government requested that the case be heard by the
Speaker 1: entire Appeals Court, but the court split foward to four,
Speaker 1: leaving the initial decision in place and increasing the likelihood
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court will take on the case. Our
Speaker 1: guests are Matt Larson, Bloomberg intelligence analyst, and Jonathan Mannus,
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Buffalo. Jonathan, let's start with
Speaker 1: a brief review of what the three judge panel based
Speaker 1: its decision on. Sure, So, so, what happened, as you
Speaker 1: said out, what happened in this case is that the
Speaker 1: FBI issued a warrant for emails that were located in Ireland,
Speaker 1: and the Microsoft was storing in Ireland, and um it
Speaker 1: was basing this on a Night six law called the
Speaker 1: Store Communications Act. And what the What the second Circuit
Speaker 1: basically said was that you know, that law didn't contemplate
Speaker 1: the use of domestic warrants to obtain information that was
Speaker 1: stored abroad. UM, and it said that it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to interpret the law to have you know, extra territorial
Speaker 1: effect to have effect outside of the borders unless Congress
Speaker 1: went back and made clear that it that it meant
Speaker 1: to do so. So it's really kicking the issue back
Speaker 1: to Congress to try to update the law UM for
Speaker 1: the modern age of the Internet and cloud computing. Matt,
Speaker 1: A lot of other companies you know, are very interested
Speaker 1: in this case. Some of them writyn Amicus briefs. Why
Speaker 1: is this case so important to the tech industry. Yeah, this,
Speaker 1: this case is a UM is closely watched by a
Speaker 1: lot of companies who are investing heavily in cloud services
Speaker 1: and the necessary infrastructure UM kind of the platform is
Speaker 1: a service market is growing exponentially there it's anticipated to
Speaker 1: be a twenty two billion dollar UM investment in by investment,
Speaker 1: you know, people are going to be uh putting that
Speaker 1: much into growing these services and so uh this is
Speaker 1: led by companies like Microsoft, Amazon, UM and so to
Speaker 1: ensure customers privacy to ensure UM confidence in this build out,
Speaker 1: they really need the law to UM to kind of
Speaker 1: line up and meet with expectations in the tech community. So, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: is it more likely that this is going to go
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court that Congress is going to do
Speaker 1: something about this? Well, it's hard. It's hard to tell.
Speaker 1: It seems likely that the government will try to will
Speaker 1: ask the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Supreme
Speaker 1: Court doesn't have to, but in a case like this,
Speaker 1: where the question is how to interpret a federal statute,
Speaker 1: and where the government is likely to say that the
Speaker 1: current interpretation that the Court of Appeals adopted UM can
Speaker 1: impede its investigations, it seems that there's a pretty good
Speaker 1: shots of the Supreme Court will it's take it UM.
Speaker 1: If they do, that might take the pressure off Congress
Speaker 1: to amend the law UM while they wait to see
Speaker 1: what the Spame Court dies. Well, Matt, what would the
Speaker 1: industry like Congress to do to this law? You know,
Speaker 1: at at at kind of a baseline level, I think
Speaker 1: they want clarity. You know, as as was mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: this law well before UM, the the boom in in
Speaker 1: cloud will before the boom and everybody using email, and
Speaker 1: so there are differing views on how much access the
Speaker 1: government and third parties have to to data that's stored
Speaker 1: in the cloud. It's it's There are some schools of
Speaker 1: thought that think it should be treated similar to a
Speaker 1: file cabinet. If it's stored in a different location, UM,
Speaker 1: it should remain there unless you have the permission of
Speaker 1: that that country or have um, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: local jurisdiction to access files. And there's the other school
Speaker 1: of thought that says, well, everything is accessible everywhere and
Speaker 1: it's very easy to get everything. And so I don't
Speaker 1: know that when you get into the nitty gritty of
Speaker 1: of what side, um you know, what side rules or
Speaker 1: what sides uh perception should be the rule of law,
Speaker 1: that that there's going to be a whole lot of consensus.
Speaker 1: But I think generally speaking, UM tech tech companies want
Speaker 1: higher privacy protections to ensure consumer confidence in their products
Speaker 1: and also to put um other nations where they're doing business.
Speaker 1: Kind of let's them breathe a sigh of relief knowing
Speaker 1: that their own citizens data is protected. Jonathan Microsoft is
Speaker 1: also suing the government to stop the FBI so called
Speaker 1: sneak and peak searches of emails that allow the federal
Speaker 1: government to obtain cloud store data without the customer's knowledge.
Speaker 1: Where does that stand? So that that case, UM is
Speaker 1: in the district court in in Seattle Settle District Court,
Speaker 1: and there was just you know, our lords with justin
Speaker 1: court arguing in that case, and that that's a crucially
Speaker 1: important case because what's what's at stake there is whether
Speaker 1: users know, UM, when the government has obtained their information
Speaker 1: UM that's stored on the cloud by Microsoft after other companies. UM.
Speaker 1: And given that you know, we all are now you know,
Speaker 1: storing our emails, documents, photos, all kinds of other personal
Speaker 1: information you know on services like Microsoft Cloud and um,
Speaker 1: Amazon and others. Uh. This this question about whether we
Speaker 1: even get to know when the government has searched for
Speaker 1: and obtained our information is crucially important. And so Microsoft
Speaker 1: is in court saying that if users have a Fourth
Speaker 1: Amendment constitutional right to know when the information has been searched,
Speaker 1: and also that they have a First Amendment right to
Speaker 1: be able to let their users know UM that that
Speaker 1: they've been forced to comply with an order. Well, lots
Speaker 1: to talk about in this case, and we will do
Speaker 1: that at another time the standing issues involved. I want
Speaker 1: to thank both of you. That's Jonathan Mannis, he's a
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Buffalo. And Matt Larson, of
Speaker 1: course Bloomberg Intelligence B. I go on the Bloomberg terminal
Speaker 1: to see Matt's reports