The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has slammed a Department of Justice effort to bypass normal procedures when attempting to secure information stored on cloud-based storage services.  The decision is a major victory for the Fourth Amendment.

The facts of the case were clear-cut. An Irish citizen under investigation by DOJ stored information on an Irish company’s servers. By treaty obligation, DOJ was required to request the cooperation of the Dublin government to obtain a warrant on their behalf.  Instead, DOJ lawyers demanded that Microsoft, the storage service’s parent company, turn over the information with just a simple domestic warrant.  Microsoft refused, demanding that the government follow established procedures.

The DOJ’s power-grab was staggering.  With companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google holding large swaths of materials worldwide, the DOJ’s efforts were clearly a blatant attempt to establish a precedent that warrants would no longer be needed when material was transported electronically through the use of an American company.

The issue ended up in court where, as almost always is the case, the government won.  A district court sided with DOJ and demanded that Microsoft hand over the material.  Today, however, an appeals court rightfully reversed the decision. The court warned that enforcing its warrant could spark a “global free-for-all” that destroyed personal privacy, and would open the door for foreign government to seize emails belonging to Americans and stored in the United States. The court found:

…that Congress did not intend the SCA’s warrant provisions to apply extraterritorially. The focus of those provisions is protection of a user’s privacy interests. Accordingly, the SCA does not authorize a US court to issue and enforce an SCA warrant against a United States‐based service provider for the contents of a customer’s electronic communications stored on servers located outside the United States. The SCA warrant in this case may not lawfully be used to compel Microsoft to produce to the government the contents of a customer’s e‐mail account stored exclusively in Ireland.

Judge Gerard Lynch said in added remarks that it was a “rational policy outcome” and should be “celebrated as a milestone in protecting privacy.”

“The warrant in this case may not lawfully be used to compel Microsoft to produce to the government the contents of a customer’s email account stored exclusively in Ireland. Because Microsoft has otherwise complied with the warrant, it has no remaining lawful obligation to produce materials to the government,” the ruling said.

All too often, companies are willing to cut deals with the government in order to secure contracts and other favors from the state.  Microsoft and the US Court of Appeals deserve credit for standing on principle to protect the privacy of internet users.