Litigation Alert: The Second Circuit Limits The Government's Ability To Access Data Stored Overseas

In a case with important privacy implication for U.S. companies providing services ranging from e-mail, social networking, chat communications and remote storage, the Second Circuit Court of Appeal this week held in Microsoft Corp. v. United States that the government cannot compel a U.S. service provider to comply with a search warrant to produce users' electronic data stored on its overseas servers.  In reaching that holding the court determined that the warrant provisions of the Stored Communications Act to not extend outside the United States' borders.

Background

Stored Communications Act

The Stored Communications Act ("SCA"), which was enacted in 1986, imposes non-disclosure obligations on electronic communications services (ECS) and remote computing services (RCS), with certain exceptions. One of those exceptions was 18 U.S.C. § 2703, which establishes the condition under which the government may access stored communications. The government may obtain