Microsoft challenges the US government: research in the cloud are unconstitutional

New power struggle between Microsoft and the US Government on the delicate ground of the protection of privacy and personal information. The Redmond returns to give substance to the oft-repeated stance to protect users suing the US Department of Justice at the Washington District Court. The judicial action goal is to declare the unconstitutionality of the obligation imposed on the company to not inform customers that their data stored in the cloud are the subject research and inspected by the government authorities.

Microsoft explains in these terms the reasons justifying the new judicial action:

Microsoft raises the case because his client has a right to know when the government obtains a warrant to read their email messages, and because Microsoft has the right to tell them.

of purpose are therefore two rights of closely related information between them: the consumer's right to be informed on the research conducted by government authorities over their data stored in the cloud, and the right to inform the consumer about the existence of such activities, claimed by Microsoft.

The offending provision is Section 2705 (b) of the Electronic Communicastions Privacy Act which, according to the Redmond, grants to US government authorities too broad powers and imposes too stringent obligations on companies for not disclosing the existence of investigation and control over personal data stored in the cloud. Obligations still rising, with increasing use of cloud services. In this regard, Microsoft emphasizes:

In the past 18 months, the federal courts have issued about 2,600 secrecy orders preventing Microsoft to talk about mandates and other legal processes by which we seek information on Microsoft customers.

There is another aspect that aggravates the current available investigative tool the US authorities: nearly two-thirds of 2,600 secrecy orders Microsoft cargo does not contain the reference to the term of the obligation: in fact it is a permanent bond .

Microsoft does not dispute that in exceptional circumstances, justified by the interest to pursue the investigation of criminal activities, they can be issued a temporary confidentiality order; the powers currently assigned to the US government, however, go further and allow you to impose obligations of non-permanent disclosure. The Redmond points out the inadequacy of Section 2705 (b) of the Electronic Communicastions Privacy Act, introduced in a time when the spread of cloud services was not yet as extensive:

This inadequate law (passed decades before that cloud computing existed) allows courts to impose constraints on the activity of information on the conduct of the Government - the focus of expression that the First Amendment is intended to protect - even if other approaches could achieve government targets without oppressing the right to speak freely.

Beyond the noble and acceptable claim of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment, Microsoft makes no secret that the current state of that provision is unconstitutional important to regain the confidence lost by consumers against cloud services, which represent, without hypocrisy, one the core business of the house of Redmond. The increase in requests for investigation on the one hand and the parallel increase of secrecy orders preventing the other, Microsoft ends, to meet their obligations of transparency to customers.