Second Circuit Rules That The U.S. Government Cannot Use A Search Warrant To Access Overseas Data

In a landmark decision issued last Thursday, July 14, 2016, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and held that the Stored Communications Act (SCA) does not authorize courts to issue and enforce against U.S.-based service providers warrants for the seizure of customer email content that is stored exclusively on foreign servers. The decision, captioned In the Matter of a Warrant to Search a Certain Email Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corp., overturned a July 2014 lower court decision upholding such a warrant against Microsoft Corporation and finding the company in civil contempt for refusing to comply with the warrant. Circuit Judge Susan L. Carney authored the Second Circuit's decision. Circuit Judge Gerard E. Lynch wrote a separate concurring opinion.